Backyard Apiary

The combination of a busy schedule and a heat wave (over 100 F) has kept me away from the garden hives for much longer than I wanted. I made it out there this past weekend expecting the worst, but the hives were all quite strong. Immediately upon parking the truck in front of the hives I could see lots of activity at all of the entrances.

Both langstroth hives had a limited amount of capped honey and the extended heat wave prevented them from being able to fully draw out all of the frames in their topmost box. They’ll most likely need to be fed at least a little bit to prevent them from reducing their stored honey even more during this hot weather. I quickly found signs of laying queen in both hives. I stopped the inspection on the middle hive after finding a frame full of eggs on both sides. This frame was found after looking at a frame full of capped brood. That hive has a really good queen.

The long hive is doing well, despite a poor hive design. I managed to snap a picture of the queen despite only inspecting a total of five frames from the hive. I noticed some tiny wax moths living on the tray beneath the mesh. There was also a dozen small hive beetles being corralled behind the follower board. I caused a jail break when I moved the follower board. I made amends by crushing all of them. Seriously, why do bees not kill the beetles or at least bite off their legs.

Long hive beetles really like to hide in the grooved bottom portion of frames. As soon as I find a frame manufacturer that sells solid bottomed frames, I’ll buy from them. Frames are not cost effective for a hobbyist to make. It might be feasible to buy frames and make the bottom piece myself since those can be batched out quickly with a table saw and router.

There are a few significant flaws that have led me to the conclusion that the next time I visit the garden, I will most likely move the frames in to a vertical hive. Here’s a short list of some of the more significant flaws.

Pests can hide between the mesh bottom and the bottom tray, but the bees cannot easily get down there

I could increase the space between the mesh and the tray to allow bees to easily climb down there. This would require completely rebuilding the rails and I’m not sure it would help. Small hive beetles and wax moth can easily move through the mesh to escape the pursing bees, but the bees have to exit the hive and hike from one of the ends. Increasing the space would allow more and larger pests to get down there.

The bees propolised the tray in place

Bees put propolis over almost any crack they can. The only way to prevent this would be to use a non wood tray to see if they don’t propolise it. Or to slide the tray frequently to prevent them from sticking it in place.

The single piece top is too heavy and bulky

I could make multiple top pieces, but that means more tie down straps to keep the wind from blowing them off and that provides a crack for rain to get in to the hive.

It’s almost impossible to replace the front inner cover without crushing bees

The bees enter the hive from the top and crawl to the inner cover opening. The outer cover is propped up in the front to allow the bees to enter anywhere on the front third of the hive. Whenever I remove the front inner cover, the bees pour out and a traffic jam starts to happen at the front edge of the hive. Any attempts to move the bees is a futile effort because scurry up from the frames and scouts continue to return home. I could possibly drill entrance holes in the front of the hive in the hope that they use those instead. That would at least reduce some of the returning bee traffic, but still doesn’t solve the problem of trying to place down a piece of wood that has four very large crush zones. The normal trick of turning the inner cover in to place can only work if I also remove the middle inner cover.

Moving frames is a pain

One of the management strategies for a long hive will require me to move the honey frames towards one end of the hive and the brood nest to the other. This needs to be done before winter because the bees will only migrate through the hive in a single direction. If there happens to be a few honey frames in the front of the hive, I need to move about 20 frames to get them positioned in to the back. The way I have been inspecting the hive has been to start in the back and deal with the jailed beetles and check their stores. I then skip to the middle to find the edge of the brood nest to make sure the queen is laying. I could switch to starting at the front and working my way back. This would mean I would pull aside the honey frames and adjust everything to the front and then add the honey frames to the back. This doesn’t work if I need to then move a frame forward.

I inspected all of the backyard hives on April 3rd and the long hive has a queen! The hive has been sustained and this new queen is an offspring from the purchased queen, which has been dubbed “super queen” because of her size and how much she lays. Antheia, Hegemone and super queen are expanding nicely. Hegemone had a few swarm cells on a few frames. As far as I could tell, the cells were empty. I added another box and swapped in several empty frames to help keep them from swarming.

The morning of April 8th, the long hive and Antheia were moved to the community garden. Both bee yards have a mix of genetics and at least two strong hives to help ensure any issues can be addressed easily. Both hives originally at the garden are weak and possibly caused by me leaving the top feeders filled for too long. Their queens didn’t have much room to lay because every cell was being filled with syrup. They’ll get more space and a brood boost soon. There were not many forages out when the hives were moved because it was early in the morning and a little chilly. I put a nuc about 15′ from where the long have sat. There were not the typical dozens of confused bees flying around trying to locate the hive. I found two bees in the nuc this evening and dropped them off at the entrance of Hegemone. Any forages from Antheia would have drifted to the super queen because her hive is now on the end.

On Friday, I inspected the long hive to see if they raised their own queen. Drones are just starting to fly, so a virgin queen shouldn’t have to wait much longer to find a few mature mates. It’s been about three weeks since I added the two frames of brood to the long hive. There were signs of a few queen cells, where one emerged and the others were ripped open. No eggs or larvae in the hive, but the queen has only been going out on mating flights for about a week. All of my hives have capped drone cells now to help spread the genes.

I inspected all of the hives on Saturday and need to start my swarm prevention steps. To keep the long hive’s numbers up, two frames were moved from Antheia containing the full range of brood. Hegemone’s queen was laying in the top (3rd) box and all of the frames were fully drawn and being filled. A fourth box was checker boarded on top. Antheia will get her fourth box as soon as I finish rotating the cleat from the wedged frames to make it a foundationless guide.

I poured the last bit of the 2010 harvest in to a half gallon jar and a quart jar. It’s slightly crystallized, but still delicious.

On Jan 30th, I discovered that one of the small, late season swarms at the garden didn’t make it. The hive had plenty of food stores, but they either couldn’t get to the food or they were too weak to stay warm. I didn’t find the queen’s body, so I have no idea what happened to her. The hive should have been merged with another before the winter, but I left it separate as an experiment. The other two hives at the garden were doing well at that time.

The long hive is also in a dire situation. There are a lot of bees, but no sign of a queen. No capped brood, eggs or larvae. I pulled a frame of eggs from the purchased queen hive and a frame of capped brood from Hegemone. The plan is to help the hive limp its way along until mature drones are flying and they can raise their own queen. This will slow down the other hives and will hopefully help prevent as much swarming as last year.

I found the queens in langstroth hives and they are doing well. The purchased queen is an amazing layer and she filled almost every free cell with eggs. I gave the hive another box with a few drawn frames to give her more space to lay.

I moved the bees in to their new home yesterday after work.  The hive looks like it is in good shape for the winter. Several frames of capped honey, capped brood and now a sturdier home.  There were many small hive beetles at the bottom of the hive, on top of the top bars.  I didn’t see any on the frames as I transferred them over.  Resting a hive body on top bars yields many little corners for the beetles to hide.  The re-homing gave the bees the added benefit of me squishing every small hive beetle.  They didn’t stand a chance as they kept trying to get back in to the top bar hive body.  I took a video of the bees flying around after I transferred all of the frames.

I wanted to give the long hive a couple empty frames to fix the spacing issues.  Frames from the same box will slide together nicely because the wax was built with the neighboring frame as a guide.  The frames from the different boxes didn’t line up so well.  As always, I didn’t have any frames assembled and quickly put together a few foundation-less frames.  The only unused frames I had were pulled from the hive that was killed by wax moth, and I don’t plan on using those frames again until I get the chance to scrape the wood and cycle them through a deep freeze to make sure I don’t pass wax moths eggs in to a healthy hive.  I added two frames to the bee side of the follower board and put a few behind it to help keep it in place.  When I removed the inner cover, the bees were covering all of the frames. It was a good sight to see.

I previously built a Kenyan Top Bar Hive (KTBH), but so far have had no luck with getting bees to move in to it.  I really want to experience managing bees in non standard hives and the prospect of not having to lift boxes during an inspection is very motivating.  The long hive I built is the equivalent to three 10-frame medium (6 5/8″) hives.  Instead of them being stacked vertically, all of the frames are next to each other in the single long box.  With normal langstroth hives, you control the size of the hive by adding or subtracting boxes and moving frames between them.  The size of the long hive is controlled by using a follower board; a frame that is solid with no space for bees to crawl past it.

With the exception of the KTBH, all of my hives use medium frames (6 5/8″). This consistent frame size will let me easily move bees in to the long hive, unlike my failed attempts with the KTBH. In a few days when the primer and caulking off gas a bit more, I will transfer the frames from the nuc on a top bar hive in to the long hive.  They never expanded in to the KTBH and I would be happier if the hive was more than ten frames going in to winter.

Screened Bottom

The size of the broodnest in a long hive will use as many frames as the queen will lay.  A screened bottom is good to have under the broodnest because any varroa mites that fall off will fall out of the hive.  Two trays allows me to adjust the ventilation without having a long board extending out from the back of the hive. One of the trays is the size of a 10-frame.  The trays rest on a pair of 3/4″ x 2.5″ wood rails with 3/4″ x 3/8″ rabbets.  The rails keep the the sides of the hive from warping, act as footings and provides an inside edge to attach the 8 mesh hardware cloth.

Inner Covers

An inner cover has many uses for a hive.  It provides a thermal break from the main part of the hive and allows moisture to escape the hive.  I didn’t want to use a single inner cover for the hive.  It would be a bit unwieldy and result in many crushed bees.  A single piece inner cover would also expose every frame and that could mean a lot of angry bees.  I chose to make two 10-frame inner covers and a third shorter odd sized one for the middle.  The only plywood I had laying around was 19/32″ sheathing.  These are very thick and noticeably heavier.  Inner covers are normally made from 1/4″ plywood.  The extra wood should provide more insulation for the hive.

Outer Cover

This is the first outer cover that I’ve made with a metal top.  I used a roll of 20″ wide flashing and cut three 26″ long pieces.  I have an old paper cutter, which works surprisingly well for cutting flashing; nice straight, clean cuts.  I used a quick square to align the center piece first and clamped it down on the corners.  I bent the edges with my hands first and then finished off with a hammer.  I attached it to the wood sides using 1/2″ staples.  The next two pieces of flashing overlapped the first piece by ~5″.  I used exterior caulking to keep any water from getting between the pieces of flashing.