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Ghostnuke posted:I might be remembering wrong, but I thought it was an emergency swarm cell if it was in the middle of the frame? Like they turned brood that wasn't originally intended to be a queen into a queen. Supercedure cells are the peanut ones at the edges of the frame I thought. Remember that I don't know all the correct english terms in regard to beekeeping. What I learned - and witnessed (and what you just described) - in the past years is: If a hive plans to swarm, they create the cells on outside of the frame. Mostly on the sides and bottom, rarely on the top. Reason beeing: the queen hates cells where new queens are hatched, thus they create them as far away as possible from where the queen does her daily business. (so both the the sides of the frame, plus to the side of the brood nest). Downside to this is: keeping them warm is hard, because they are outside of the brood nest. These cells are normally made from very fresh brood, and are most of the time perfect vertical (so no pollen can drop into them, because no pollen = larva genes mutate and start creating hundreds of oviducts). Once they are close the hatching, the current queen leaves the hive with a swarm. Depending on the strength of the hive, either the newly hatched queen kills all other unhatched queens, or multiple, smaller swarms fly out (with unmated queens), until one remains. If a queens goes missing, is ill, or too old, the hive wants to replace her. If it is a "planned" replacement (old queen/bad queen), they create a perfectly drawn out cell in the middle of the frame (it's easier to keep it warm there, and they no longer care about the current queen that much, or it's dead, so no problem creating it right before her nose). I'd translete them as "reproduction cells" (Nachschaffungszellen), and am curious what they are actually called in english. Third would be if the queen actually got killed/lost, and the hive didn't notice it outright (the reason why you should kill a queen/smear the remains so that the hive can smell it, and doesn't have to wait for missing pheromone...as harsh as it sounds). Then they draw out cells from whatever brood they have left that is young enough for become a queen. These mostly are not 100% vertical, but start as normal cells, which then are drawn out to become queen cells. Because these cells might have been exposed to pollen, they queens might not have mutated enough in regard to their oviducts to become effective queens. That's at least what was teached to me. Thus I always stop right in my tracks when I see a queen cell in the middle of the frame, and start to inspect what's actually going on. In the last years, in 100% of all cases, there was something foul (missing queen, or bad/injured queen), in contrast to swarm cells which I basically remove on sight if I saw eggs or the queen earlier on.
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Jul 8, 2019 19:51
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We extracted the summer honey yesterday from ten hives. I only got stung once (I always wear shorts, and robbing them is perfectly okay for stinging, imo), right into the knee, where other people pay for to get some injections. Feels actually awesome (I have zero problems beeing stung into the legs or arms, and I also don't remove stingers from breeding, because I maintain the opinion that bees should defend themselves, as far as they are not hostile to people simply passing by, but only to people ripping the roof off their homes). My helper though tried to help a bit too much. He took the boxes with the already extracted frames and placed them right in front of our extraction room. I think I never opened and then closed a door that quick in my life. He also wasn't to be seen again for the rest of the day (I made it out without a sting, actually, but boy did I walk/run/jump/dodge through a black cloud of hungry bees at the end of the day).
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Jul 8, 2019 20:12
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tuo posted:We extracted the summer honey yesterday from ten hives. I only got stung once (I always wear shorts, and robbing them is perfectly okay for stinging, imo), right into the knee, where other people pay for to get some injections. Feels actually awesome (I have zero problems beeing stung into the legs or arms, and I also don't remove stingers from breeding, because I maintain the opinion that bees should defend themselves, as far as they are not hostile to people simply passing by, but only to people ripping the roof off their homes). Hah, if only I had arthritis in the head.  It didn't feel awesome, but it felt kind of like the pain a day after a good workout, if that makes any sense. I think in any event I will get a simple veil. The bee coat/fencing hood is WAY too warm, and it is one of the thick mesh ones. If there is no breeze that mesh means little. Hands, arms and legs? I figure if I get zotted, I did something wrong. The behind the lens of my glasses was just a bit too freak inducing. Maybe I can convince one to kamikaze my lower lumbar. Not like it can get much worse, and if it helps, rock on. Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jul 8, 2019 |
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Jul 8, 2019 23:45
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Hoping they take the hint: Looks like at the very least a few are checking them out.
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Jul 9, 2019 03:02
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Good news: I've got 3 healthy, large hives from this springs NUCS. All are large enough I would feel comfortable making a few 4 frame NUCS (1 per hive) to over winter. It's mid summer here and I have not made a split before. Queens are readily available. Feedback?
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Jul 9, 2019 06:46
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Hasselblad posted:Hah, if only I had arthritis in the head. Yeah, I know it sounds a bit stupid to say "feels awesome", but I somehow developed a good relationship in regard to bee stings. Mind you, I only got stung five times this year, working on currently 17 hives, and always either in the legs (as I wear shorts) or in the hand/fingers (when I don't wear gloves). Especially the stings into the hands are pretty interesting. I'm a software developer, so I am typing a lot, and my hands and fingers actually feel pretty good the day after a sting. As I said, I don't care about hives that tend to sting as long as it's managable and they don't pose a threat to people walking by our little garden, I want them to defend themselves, but I also am working with regular boxes (similar to Dadant, a cross between Dadant and Zander, called ZaDant), so there ain't the benefit of a top bar hive box, which improves the mood of the bees. I plan to invest this year's honey money in either a top bar box, or one of these:  I had the chance to witness the hive inside of one of those a couple of times, and similar to the top bar, they are super calm, and they way of keeping the bees in there much closer to mother nature. I'm pretty happy with this year, allthough we didn't get that much honey (to create money for further bee-investments). We created seven splits, of which each and every one managed to create a mated queen, all of them looking good in regard to winter. We only lost one hive, because we had a pretty crazy swarm season. We caught the swarm (it's developing fine, actually sits on nine frames at the moment), but the hive itself needed another week before the queen hatched (=> they didn't read the books), and the queen that came back was either inbreed or not properly mated. As soon as I saw the bullet brood, we tried to replace her, with no luck. That was a bad day  We took about 2/3 of the honey production from our stronger hives, and today I gave each hive the first 15kgs of food for the winter before we start the first mite treatment in two or three weeks (depending on the weather). I am also working on a trip report about our first tests with two styrofoam boxes (not impressed in regard to actual hives, but they are good imo for splits, but I'll post my first experience with them once winter is over).
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Jul 9, 2019 11:03
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tuo posted:
That looks like it would be a nightmare to inspect, seeing all of the comb of varying thickness fitting into the adjacent frames like puzzle pieces.
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Jul 9, 2019 15:40
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the spyder posted:Good news: I've got 3 healthy, large hives from this springs NUCS. All are large enough I would feel comfortable making a few 4 frame NUCS (1 per hive) to over winter. It's mid summer here and I have not made a split before. Queens are readily available. Feedback? I thought more about this last night, if they are happy and healthy just before a dearth- I’m just going to leave them alone. IF I did anything, it might be a single 4 frame NUC using a frame from each hive to limit impact.
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Jul 9, 2019 21:27
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This is the last frame from the entrance (they look to be sniffing around the jerry-rigged pressed-on-comb underneath but no building yet) Does this appear to be honey storage (the uncapped stuff) after a bunch of youngsters emerged? To my untrained eye, from the outside band of the "rainbow" inward I am seeing capped honey, a thin band of capped brood (a couple actually in the process of breaking out of their cells), a ton of uncapped honey and pollen cells with sporadic un-emerged brood (will they remove these?) 
Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Jul 9, 2019 |
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Jul 9, 2019 23:08
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Hasselblad posted:That looks like it would be a nightmare to inspect, seeing all of the comb of varying thickness fitting into the adjacent frames like puzzle pieces. It works pretty well, actually. I took part on two inspections, and it isn't much harder than square frames. Varroa treatment and creating splits, though.....
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Jul 10, 2019 07:22
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Hasselblad posted:To my untrained eye, from the outside band of the "rainbow" inward I am seeing capped honey, a thin band of capped brood (a couple actually in the process of breaking out of their cells), a ton of uncapped honey and pollen cells with sporadic un-emerged brood (will they remove these?) That's what I'm seeing also. It doesn't look that strange to me, though. The center of the brood nest wanders around the hive all the time, and this seems like the "oldest" part of the nest, with a little unhatched brood (I guess it hatches soon, if not, yes, they remove it), with the actual brood nest now on the opposite side or somewhere in the middle. They'll remove the open honey when they need more space for breeding or keep it as a pure food frame (as it is the last frame, which normally is used as a food frame so they don't have to warm it that much). Then again, my strongest hive also puts brood right up to the side of the box, so it all depends. If the actuall, younger brood nest is a nice, tight pattern I wouldn't worry.
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Jul 10, 2019 07:27
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the spyder posted:I thought more about this last night, if they are happy and healthy just before a dearth- I’m just going to leave them alone. IF I did anything, it might be a single 4 frame NUC using a frame from each hive to limit impact. Yeah, if you make one in mid-summer, I'd go for fewer, but stronger ones (four frames sounds pretty strong!), if you have mated queens available. A 4 frame NUC which doesn't have to create a queen should grow strong enough until winter.
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Jul 10, 2019 07:29
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tuo posted:That's what I'm seeing also. It doesn't look that strange to me, though. The center of the brood nest wanders around the hive all the time, and this seems like the "oldest" part of the nest, with a little unhatched brood (I guess it hatches soon, if not, yes, they remove it), with the actual brood nest now on the opposite side or somewhere in the middle. They'll remove the open honey when they need more space for breeding or keep it as a pure food frame (as it is the last frame, which normally is used as a food frame so they don't have to warm it that much). Then again, my strongest hive also puts brood right up to the side of the box, so it all depends. If the actuall, younger brood nest is a nice, tight pattern I wouldn't worry. No worry, just observing. Will check the bottom section again this weekend to see if they got the hint/suggestion/nudging. Babby Bees? 
Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jul 10, 2019 |
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Jul 10, 2019 18:12
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Last year I lost basically all extracted honey frames to wax moths. I piled up the boxes with the frames inside, and put a large bowl of formic acid under it (as I learned it) to keep the moth away. I refilled the bowl once a month. Didn't work at all. 99% of the frames had moth nests in them, and I basically had to melt them all. This year, I'll try what is called b401 (Certan). I heard very good things about it, it is the recommended treatment from the german beekeeping association, and is okay in cost. I just sprayed like two hundred frames with it (with a super lovely cheap sprayer you use for watering plants....I think my index finger is now stronger then any of my legs) and will put them on a stack which is ventilated, has a grid on top and on bottom, and some lavender below. I swear, if the stupid wax moths find a way to infiltrate this fortess again, I'll....I'll.......search for another way to store honey frames 
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Jul 10, 2019 18:45
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Hasselblad posted:Babby Bees? They look so cute when they are still wet e: what race is it that you keep? I know you posted it, but I can't remember. The abdomen rings remind me a bit of buckfast bees. tuo fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Jul 10, 2019 |
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Jul 10, 2019 18:46
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tuo posted:They look so cute when they are still wet Carnolians. I considered Russians because in any given winter we can get to below -20F, but if I do my part the Carns are wonderful and calm, and the Layens should keep them snug as bees in a bonnet.
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Jul 10, 2019 21:07
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Hasselblad posted:Carnolians. I considered Russians because in any given winter we can get to below -20F, but if I do my part the Carns are wonderful and calm, and the Layens should keep them snug as bees in a bonnet. Those are Carnica/Carnolians? Wow, wouldn't have identified as such (nearly all of my hives are Carnica). You sure there isn't something bred in there, similar to the buckfast breeding line? I only have experience with two lines, carnica and buckfast, and the buckfast always have this colored ring on the upper adomen:  while all my "pure" (as pure as it gets when beeing mated right at the spot) carnica don't have that.  mind you, I just picked the pics from GIS that are as close to my carnicas and my buckfast as possible, gonna have to shoot some pics soon, but I would have never guessed at pure carnica with that abdomen. e: here's a vid of my ladies from a year ago, they don't have that coloration on the abdomen which I always thought meant that e.g. liguster was breed into the line (the thing I identify my buckfast with) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5g_O1MhZPU tuo fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Jul 10, 2019 |
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Jul 10, 2019 21:27
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To add to that: I don't doubt anything you said, so please don't get me wrong. I'm just super interested in beekeeping, and in europe, especially in the area where the "carnica vs. buckfast"-beekeeper-war exists, that colored abdomen is normally seen as a sign that it might be a breeding line with another race in there (mostly a buckfast bee). Thus I'm super interested if the Carnica hives "over the pond" actually feature this coloration.
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Jul 10, 2019 21:51
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tuo posted:To add to that: I don't doubt anything you said, so please don't get me wrong. I'm just super interested in beekeeping, and in europe, especially in the area where the "carnica vs. buckfast"-beekeeper-war exists, that colored abdomen is normally seen as a sign that it might be a breeding line with another race in there (mostly a buckfast bee). Thus I'm super interested if the Carnica hives "over the pond" actually feature this coloration. I can only attest to what I was sold being called Carnolians/Carniolans (I have zero idea which spelling is correct). Never occurred to me to second guess them. 2 packages were purchased at the same time, and reside in adjacent hives (the layens and warre)
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Jul 10, 2019 22:39
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If they actually have some italian bee in them, I would actually consider it a feature
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Jul 11, 2019 07:11
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If they end up wintering well, I will care little what their breed ultimately ends up being. Looked in the warre this AM (window) and they are building slow AF. Definitely going with the second Layens next spring. In fact I am considering building it now and transferring the warre bees into it before fall.
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Jul 11, 2019 17:28
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Any thoughts around here on managing hives as a single vs double brood chamber? Just stumbled on Devan Rawn's video here and it got me thinking: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjyNcyVvbEI. It looks like single brood chamber management is recommended by the Honey Bee Research Centre at the University of Guelph, too. Both are in my geographic area, so I'm tempted to try it for my first season. It looks like it's pretty much time to either add a second brood box or a honey super, which is why I'm pondering right now.
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Jul 12, 2019 03:27
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anitsirK posted:Any thoughts around here on managing hives as a single vs double brood chamber? I'm planning on moving to single 10 frame brood chambers next year. Mainly for all the reasons UoG explains, easier inspections and less lifting.
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Jul 12, 2019 04:51
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anitsirK posted:Any thoughts around here on managing hives as a single vs double brood chamber? I started with two brood chambers, simply due to the course I visited used that format and I learned everything from that. The box type I use is called Herold, it's mainly made for beekeepers who move their hives a lot (which I don't, but I got the boxes nearly for free). I use the Zander frame size, ten frames per chamber. The three reasons why I switched to ZaDant (a slightly longer Zander frame, more similar in size to Dadant): 1) Ripping apart the brood nest While the brood nest usually wanders around not only from left to right but also from top to bottom, it nearly always spans both chambers. So when you remove the top one, you are ripping the brood nest apart, and depending on the current mood, need quite a bit of smoke or other stuff to calm the bees down again 2) Inspection time Drawing ten frames is faster than drawing twenty frames, and it's easier to avoid mistakes by missing a queen cell. Cutting out drone brood is easier. Everything is easier. e: have to add another thing: you can always be sure the queen is not in the box you are just lifting up and maybe accidently bumping against something 3) In regard to the type of boxes I use The Herold boxes have a...uhm...fold? (what's english for "Falz"?) They don't simply sit on top of each other, but are interlocking, so when you move them a lot, they are secured.  (the thing on the bottom, which then interlocks with the next chamber) It is always a hassle to place a chamber on top of the other without a couple of stupid bees again running into the fold right when you place the box down, killing them. It's easier when you work with a partner on the bees, as he or she can brush them off right before you place the box down, but if you are alone, you often hear alot of crunching, which I hate. This is a specific problem to specific box types (which I'll also cover in regard to the styrofoam boxes, because it's way, way worse there) The downside is that you have to learn a different way of giving/taking room (explained on the video above), but after one or two seasons, you get a feeling for it. If I could start over again, I think I'd start with Dadant anyway, but I am happy with the current "frankenstein Dadant" system called ZaDant I use. Bees some to like it, too. Downside is: nearly no one else over here uses this format, and starting next year, I guess I'll have to sell splits because I don't wanna grow larger in regard to hive count, so having them on a format noone else uses will be a problem. Luckily, I still have some normal Zander stuff left, but it's a hassle to adapt them back from ZaDant to Zander etc. pp. tuo fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Jul 12, 2019 |
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Jul 12, 2019 09:10
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tuo posted:(the thing on the bottom, which then interlocks with the next chamber) Interesting feature, but they should have it opposite, with inner lip on top and outer on bottom, so that moisture is carried outward rather than inward.
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Jul 12, 2019 13:54
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Hasselblad posted:Interesting feature, but they should have it opposite, with inner lip on top and outer on bottom, so that moisture is carried outward rather than inward. The styrofoam boxes have that. It's WAY worse in regard to killing bees. With the wooden Herold boxes, I haven't seen moisture crawling in there, because the wood is pretty rough and soaks it up. I've not seen it becoming a problem yet. With the styrofoam boxes though, the lip is exactly reversed, protruding upwards, because the styrofoam is so clean that otherwise - as you mentioned - water could enter (I specifically asked about this after realizing how many bees die there, and that was the reasoning). With the upwards lip, it is much, MUCH harder to remove the bees from where you want to place the upper box. You can brush them off to the side (pretty rude), but there is basically no way of brushing them into the box without it taking a long lime, and when you are finished with one side, some of them crawl out on the other side you just finished. If you are alone, you crush a lot of bees. It's my biggest complaint currently about them. I couldn't confirm the complaints in regard to water ratio in honey, and have yet to find out how the wax moth population behaves (some say they expand like hell in styrofoam). I can confirm at the moment - at least in nucs - that it seems much easier for the bees to keep the climate. e: I'm pretty positive I'll stick to wooden boxes, though. Apart from the mentioned drawbacks, it simply feels completely unnatural to me everytime I open and handle them. Let's see how I think after the winter. ee: that's the styrofoam one's I currently test  it's really, really hard to get bees back into the box that went over that lip. You either brush them to the sides and hope they get back into the hive, or spend a lot of time getting them over the lip without them getting mad tuo fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Jul 12, 2019 |
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Jul 12, 2019 14:15
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tuo posted:The styrofoam boxes have that. It's WAY worse in regard to killing bees. With the wooden Herold boxes, I haven't seen moisture crawling in there, because the wood is pretty rough and soaks it up. I've not seen it becoming a problem yet. Either way the lip is, bees will be harder to shoo out of the way. Thankfully as I am increasingly leaning toward horizontal Layenses, I only have to worry about smooshing between top bars. But in any event, a bit of woodworking background has taught me that joints should always be : ^ ^ rather than: v v because of water drainage.
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Jul 12, 2019 20:10
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gkz34d_L5w Les Crowder (no relation to Boyd that I am aware of) lays down some knowledge and wisdom. Save your dried cow poop.
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Jul 15, 2019 21:17
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I've been too busy to do a alcohol wash, so I quickly coated some inserts with Crisco to make sticky boards based off the UoG. I put them in Sunday afternoon and pulled them tonight. So in 3.5 days my hives look like this: North Hive: 1 mite Middle Hive: 2 mites South Hive: 42 mites... My initial reaction is holy crap! I'll put together my shaker this weekend to confirm, but still that's one heck of a delta vs my other two. This is a decent hive, double brood chamber with ~50k bees. They did not fill any of honey supers, but hardly any of my hives did. I guess my question is where to go from here. I was planning on a lighter treatment of oxalic acid or hop guard, but I'm tempted to research and use something stronger. https://honeybeesuite.com/monitoring-mites-with-a-sticky-board/ the spyder fucked around with this message at 04:24 on Jul 18, 2019 |
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Jul 18, 2019 04:18
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One of my strongest - and actually my first hive I started with - dropped a LOT of mites in the first year I got them (maybe it wasn't treated properly by the guy I got it from...no clue). I stopped counting at 100 (board was in for three days). Everybody told me I shouldn't even care about treating them. "Waste of acid". I treated them with the normal amount though, twice (as I do with all), and since then, their mite load is absolutely normal. Of course this is no guarantee that the same will happen to yours, but it is possible to save such hives. I have another one which tends to have a higher count each year, and regardless of what I do, it stays at a higher count, and also develops not as good over the year as the others (which theoretically should reduce the growth of the mite population, but it doesn't), and they get treated and fed exactly the same as all others. Since then, I also switched to using two drone frames on my strongest hives, cutting them out each week to keep mite population as low as possible. I haven't checked this year, but will sometime next week, as I want to start the first treatment at the beginning of august. It's gonna be interesting, because last year everyone around here basically got nearly no mites. I had hives where not a single one dropped. The highest was five or so IIRC. I have a feeling though that this year will be quite different.
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Jul 18, 2019 08:09
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The girls are still crawling around on the lower comb I added to the Layens frames but do not appear to be doing much additional comb on them. They may still be completing the upper combs. HOWEVER it looked like they were amassed down near the entrance end, so maybe they are festooning a little. Maybe they are getting a start on that end. I just do not want to fully open the frames to look, I really do not want to bother them any more than is absolutely necessary. I can juuuuust make out comb at the far (entrance) end in the pic, but cannot recall if I placed that lower comb there last hive visit when I put the others in.  The closer upper frames look to be getting mainly honey, so that is a cool thing. I may actually cut a piece of comb honey off in the fall if so. I've no plans to take anything else until late spring. I want them to have as much honey as possible for our comically long cold winter.  For the record, I am getting these pics by opening the far end of the hive and shoving my phone down and into it. No frames removed or moved in the process. Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 17:04 on Jul 19, 2019 |
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Jul 19, 2019 16:56
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So I’ve wanted to try oxalic acid as a treatment method. I was initially very interested in Randy @scientificbeekeeping’s shop towel method. I have the ingredients and was planning on trying them this weekend. With the results from the more drop, I just don’t think it will be effective enough on my hive with the high drop count. Last night I started looking at those $70-140 oxalic vaporizers. After learning it’s just a diesel glow plug in an aluminum block with some generally crappy wires, I ordered one for $6. I’ve got a mill and a lathe, so we’ll see what I come up with. I just can’t justify the markup when I can make one. I’ll make sure it still fully vaporizes the acid by 2-2.5 min. Any other variables you can think of?
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Jul 19, 2019 17:18
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And I thought our hornets were bad: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/07/13/environment/hive-activity-tapping-buzz-backyard-beekeeping/#.XTRhiZMzaL6
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Jul 21, 2019 14:00
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tuo posted:And I thought our hornets were bad: Crisis averted, it is back up.
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Jul 21, 2019 18:29
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stuck my honey super on yesterday. maybe I'll get something? 
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Jul 22, 2019 13:14
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drat, one of my strongest hives failed at creating a new queen. Now I am sitting here, waiting for the postman to deliver a new queen (I really need to get into queen breeding more thouroughly!!!) before the lack of queen pheromones makes one of those little ladies mutate. Gave them some fresh eggs and brood to play with....I actually have no clue of this dampens/lengthens the time before a worker's ovarie's develop...does anyone here know something about that? My books all only say that the lack of queen pheromone starts that mutation. e: of course I trust them to create another one with the fresh eggs, but drone population is already deminishing here, so I'd rather go for a mated queen tuo fucked around with this message at 15:03 on Jul 22, 2019 |
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Jul 22, 2019 14:59
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The Warre's second box is now 3/4 of the way comb-ed (the windowed box). Can anyone think of any reason to not leave the bottom (empty of the 3) box in place over the winter? My thought is it would keep the comb further from the entrance, and therefore warmer.
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Jul 24, 2019 17:04
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Hasselblad posted:The Warre's second box is now 3/4 of the way comb-ed (the windowed box). Can anyone think of any reason to not leave the bottom (empty of the 3) box in place over the winter? My thought is it would keep the comb further from the entrance, and therefore warmer. Does the box have an open bottom? If so, it shouldn't matter one way or the other. Dr. Liebig nowadays actually adds empty boxes both below and on top of the hive box to get them over the winter, with better results than before. I can't remember if it was the university of Hohenheim, but there was a study that showed that about two inch outside of the bee cluster, there temperature is pretty close to ambient anyway, and it's benificial for the winter cluster to stay way from surfaces that can cool down (walls/bottom/top of hive) as much as they can. So some air cushion in regard to temperature should be good. Check out black friday this year if you can get one of those FLIR cams for phones/tablets for cheap. It's a pretty good way to see what's happening during winter, without having to knock on the box. The cheap ones (like I have one) won't be able to pickup the bee cluster from the outside, but you can shove them under the box (if it has an open bottom) and see if someone is still home, and how strong he is. tuo fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Jul 27, 2019 |
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Jul 27, 2019 13:05
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tuo posted:Does the box have an open bottom? If so, it shouldn't matter one way or the other. Dr. Liebig nowadays actually adds empty boxes both below and on top of the hive box to get them over the winter, with better results than before. It originally had a screened bottom board but I changed to solid for here on out. Will close down the entrance a bit but was planning to leave the bottom (empty) box in place. The top has a quilt box and peaked roof over that so that part is not a concern. Hasselblad fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Jul 28, 2019 |
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Jul 28, 2019 16:42
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| # ? May 29, 2024 10:54 |
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Completely useless post incoming: after a stupid and stressfull day in the job, it's so relaxing to sit here, watching the bees come home from their stressfull job, and simply enjoying the smell of the hives, the buzz of the bees, and the sundown....
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Aug 1, 2019 15:02
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