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Well this is the year I am going to get some bees. I wanted to years ago but living in a tight neighbourhood put a damper on things but now I live in the bush. Started building a pair of top bar hives the other day. Should be finished making all the bars tomorrow. I picked up a copy of Les Crowders top bar book. Any one else in South West Ontario? Edit: Made 66 bars today. Buddy of mine is into fancy woodworking so we started with rough sawn pine boards. They fit together so well and the top is perfectly flat when they are butted up against each other.    
helno fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Mar 5, 2017 |
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Mar 3, 2017 22:22
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Hives are just waiting on legs. Fancy metal roof made of scrap soffit. 
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Mar 6, 2017 01:36
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From the history of it the modern top bar hive was developed by a pair of Canadians at the university of Guelph. I have no real world experience to go on here but there seem to be many people using them in Ontario. The great lakes keep southern Ontario much warmer than you would expect.
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Mar 7, 2017 03:13
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One hive is on legs.  
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Mar 11, 2017 16:37
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None currently. The material I have read recommend keeping the bars tight together.
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Mar 11, 2017 17:40
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Fog Tripper posted:The plans that I have seen have holes through the exterior with screen on the inside, so the bees can seal or open as needed. For temperature and humidity control. Other than having provisions to insulate the hives for winter I am building them as described by Les Crowders book.
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Mar 11, 2017 20:05
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My hives are both going to end up being out in the country. One was going to go in my backyard but there are rules saying they must be 30 metres from the property line if it is zoned residential and that would put it right in the middle of my house. So plan B is to put it in my neighbours property. They run an organic heirloom hippy dippy kind of hobby farm so they were right on board when I asked. It is mainly cedar bush but there are crab apple trees all over the place and the location is going to be in a former orchard next to a stream. Lots of wildflowers all around. The second hive is going to a friend of mines beef farm. His farm is mostly just open pasture so it will be interesting to see how the two hives differ. Now my main concern is actually getting bees. I emailed the local large beekeeper and they seemed keen to sell nucs and responded quickly. I feel like I made a mistake in asking if it would be possible to get a swarm or package rather than a nuc because I am using a TBH and they have not replied back. Hopefully an in person meetup corrects what might have started me off on the wrong foot with them. The only place I have seen that offers Package bees does not ship them. They say to bring your TBH in the back of a truck and they will load you up. However they are 4 hours away but a very similar climate.
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Mar 14, 2017 01:27
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Made myself a little 5 frame top bar swarm trap. Should come in handy for moving things around. While I was building it I saw some honey bees flying about so hopefully there is enough of a population for me to get a swarm. After talking to the local beekeeper he put me on his list of people to call about swarms since he felt it is a better way to stock a top bar rather than trying to cut up frames from his hives. Aparently the sudden lack of communication was because he confused top bar hives with flow hives and wrote me off as someone who didn't really know what was involved with keeping bees.    The plastic door with different openings is a 3d print so if anyone is interested I can post it to thingiverse.
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Apr 2, 2017 20:47
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Got contact info to pick up two swarms. Sadly I was to late for one and they buggered off into the bush but I got to take a look at the wild hive that they took off from.  Apparently they have lived in this tree a long time and have stuck with it despite first the tree breaking in half and then the remaining truck falling down as well. The started in one side and them moved to the other after it broke, then stayed in the log after it was taken down. The homeowner is quite happy to have them around so I just took a picture and setup my swarm trap in case they come back. The second call was not actually a swarm. I get there and it is an old lady who has had a hive in her wall for the better part of a decade. You could hear them buzzing through the wall of a closet and could feel that it was warmer there. There must have been a gap into the house because they were coming out in her guest bedroom and hanging out on the window sill. Didn't seem like a good way to get to know bees so I let her know she will need a professional.
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May 27, 2017 01:35
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Well I collected my first swarm. They were clustered on a well head so it was quite difficult to brush them into a bucket but after a while I must have gotten the queen in there as they slowly started moving into the bucket. Didn't get any pictures since my wife was a litter terrified of the cloud of them. Got them into a 5 gal pail and quickly drove home and got them into the hive. That bucket was surprisingly heavy.  
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May 30, 2017 02:23
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My bars are the correct width that beespace is maintained with them tight against each other. I'm going to give them a few days to settle in before opening it for the first time. They were. Dry busy coming and going yesterday.
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May 31, 2017 17:05
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I 3D printed a feeder with a bunch of long thin grooves for the liquid to run in so they don't drown. I'm going to mount it on a board attached to the hive if they haven't found it yet it is around 20 feet away on a water tank right now. Edit: They found the feeder and drank a litre in less than a day. I'll have to keep that topped up for a while. helno fucked around with this message at 02:47 on Jun 1, 2017 |
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May 31, 2017 20:32
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Yeah I looked at it the same way. Treatment free works if you have a lot of colonies to lose and are relatively isolated. I'm less than 0.5 km from a massive bee yard and was told by them that there are mites around. So if I try going treatment free for Varroa then my single hive will likely get hosed but they larger group. I was also warned to look out for small hive beetles since there will be a very large influx of more southern bees into my area due to a big change in pollination services.
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Jun 2, 2017 14:50
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I think you will find that warping is just part of wooden hives. The changes in humidity around here make my top bars go from loose to tight and the boards that make up the sides bend a twist a bit. I don't think having a colony inside is going to make it any better. I also don't think the bees give a rats rear end.
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Jun 2, 2017 15:41
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Did my first inspection today. Just a quick check to see if they were building straight comb and to see if there is any sign of a queen. They have built four combs with each one about 10 square inches. Lots of stored nectar and pollen. Took a bit to clearly see them but many of the cells had a tiny little egg right in the middle so I have a laying queen. They were much more docile than when I collected the swarm and moving the bars around was really easy. I just wiggled the bars back into place and they moved out of the way. I took away about four bars worth of space to keep them building straight comb.
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Jun 3, 2017 03:08
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Remember these girls? They threw off a second swarm and it has moved into my swarm trap. I'm heading out of town tomorrow so I will let them build for a few days. As for the other hive they have built 8 nearly full combs in just over a week. Lots of neatly placed eggs but haven't seen the queen yet.  They are building very straight combs and not attaching to the walls at all so it is very easy so far. I shuffled the combs around to put the little ones between two large straight ones to keep them building straight.
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Jun 8, 2017 02:53
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Moved the swarm trapped bees into a hive tonight. They got quite a bit of comb built in 4 days. Very calm compared to the first swarm.  Edit: Posted that picture on facebook and got this comment. "I assume he knows: the "wax" sheet is supposed to be taunt in the center of wooden frame. The bees build up from both sides each little octagon. My dad had bees (and honey) when I was a kid." helno fucked around with this message at 03:41 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 11, 2017 02:15
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Look who I saw today for the first time.  And she promptly fell off into the grass and I had to find her and but her back in the hive. She was trying to fly the whole time moving here but it just wan't happening.
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Jun 25, 2017 00:14
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I bought an Epi-pen just to be on the safe side. It was kind of funny watching the pharmacist try to figure out what to sell it for over the counter. I guess he doesn't get a lot of requests for them off prescription. It was $110 CAD ($85 USD) for anyone curious.
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Jun 26, 2017 22:22
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Well checked in on the hives and things are going well. Lots of brood in various stages of development and lots of eggs. They seem to have lots of stores and the bigger hive is starting to fill combs with honey. Spotted the queen in the second hive (this is the swarm that came from a log) she is busy laying eggs. These bees seem to be deetermined to make as many swarms as possible. There were two capped queen cells and one empty one. I cut those off and they didn't seem to care. Going to have to keep a close eye on them. Not a very big swarm to begin with, I don't need half of them flying off only for all of them to die in the winter.
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Jul 2, 2017 19:04
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So one of my hives seems to have built a whole comb of drone comb.  A few of the old cells had these white deposits in them.  I remember when I first put the swarms in that there were lots of drones but I rarely see them during inspections these days.
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Jul 16, 2017 03:03
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Aramoro posted:Drone laying like that is usually a sign of a queen gone bad. What is odd is they made just this one comb with big cells. The rest of the hive is overflowing with brood. I am adding 2-3 new bars a week with this swarm. The colony is easily double the other one I have.
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Jul 18, 2017 22:53
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Spookydonut posted:Is drone laying basically "this hive is hosed lets make sure our genetic lineage survives" ? Well drones are the only way they can pass that on. Most of what I am reading says that drone comb is just part of a normal hive. The only things I am seeing that mention it as a sign of queen health is if she is only capable of producing drones then she is out of sperm. That is obviously not the case since there is a shitload of developing worker larva and tons of eggs.
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Jul 20, 2017 04:02
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OrangéJéllo posted:Thats a brood disease, hard to tell from one picture but most likely either sacbrood This was really good info. I had a small brood comb break on me today so I decided to uncap a bunch of brood to check for signs of this and found a few that look exactly like Sacbrood. It was only 1 or 2 in about a 6" x 6" area. However while I was doing this I also spotted a Varoa mite so I guess it is obvious where the sacbrood came from. I guess I will have to go looking for a new queen and get ready to treat for mites before winter.
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Jul 29, 2017 21:16
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Just checked one of my hives after being away for two weeks. It appears the sausage fest is over. There was a ton of dead drones below the entrance, most were just sitting there so I guess the ladies just got sick of feeding them and kicked them out. Still quite a bit of brood in various stages of development and even spotted the queen wandering around on one frame. Lots of honey being packed away. Going to do the sugar shake mite counts this weekend to see if they need treatment before it starts to get cold.
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Sep 7, 2017 03:17
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Picked up a hive today. A coworker is clearing a lot and found it when cutting a tree up for firewood. It was hard to a get a good look in the hive as it was pouring rain but the only cut off the bottom inch or so of comb. We cut a chunk off of the tree below where the hive ended and took both pieces back home. I covered the openings with cardboard to keep the bees inside. Not sure how big the colony is but hopefully they make it through to the spring so we can get them into a box. Going to give them a bunch of syrup and hopefully that makes up for any losses.  helno fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Nov 3, 2017 |
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Nov 3, 2017 03:01
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Both of my top bars have bees in there that buzz when I tap on the side. Haven't disturbed the log at all. Nothing I can do if they are done for anyways.
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Dec 26, 2017 02:15
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Lots of snowfall the last two days. They are still buzzing away after a really cold January. 
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Feb 4, 2018 20:47
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Hive 2 is also buzzing away. It is in a much windier area. 
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Feb 12, 2018 02:27
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Well after a third blast if winter last week it has finally gotten back above 10 C here. And both hives have made it through the winter. Did a quick inspection and cleaned out some dead bees from both hives but did did not disturb any frames that had live bees on them. One hive is stronger and appears to have come close to running out of honey. They ate most of the dry sugar that I put in as emergency food. The other seems to have less bees but has tons of honey left over so I took a tiny frame that was left untouched on one end and strained it out.   
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Apr 22, 2018 15:53
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I quite literally poured granulated sugar out of a bag into the hive.
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Apr 22, 2018 17:02
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Got to o a full inspection of one hive. It was very windy at the second hive so I left them alone for now. The Queen was active and had two small areas that she was laying in. Two small patches as seen in the second picture but on both sides of two combs.  
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May 2, 2018 00:15
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My two top bars are doing great. One went from having very little stored nectar to honey bound in a week. Gave them some empty comb from the queen excluded area so she still has some room. I missed a local swarm last week while heading to the dump. Spotted the swarm on a tree but was not ready to collect them. Once I got back they had left, but I was able to find the location of the feral hive they came from. Left a swarm trap nearby in case they throw another.  This queen has been very busy.   
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Jun 28, 2018 01:14
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Well lost my first colony this winter. This one is on a friend property so I don't get out to it during the winter. Tapped on the side and didn't get a response. Opened it up and found tons of bees but only a few little patches of honey on the outside frames.
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Mar 29, 2019 18:47
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Did some serious hive management a week ago and am a bit nervous that it will all work out as I am away for another week on a holiday. I have two top bar hives so if some stuff sounds funny that is why. Each hive has 30 frames in a long box with a divider board made of queen excluded mesh. My two hives that were restarted this year had built out very differently. They were both swarms from the same feral hive in an apartment building that came a week apart. One hive built out incredibly fast and was packing away honey like the end times were coming. So much honey that I moved some drone comb into the queen excluded area for them to fill. They had fully built out 20/30 frames and were working on the last few. The red they hive had made virtually no new comb and had actually scavenged some of the old comb. They had a few signs of chalk brood but other than that just didn’t seem to be growing like the other hive. They were using the 6 frames I left from the previous colony and didn’t seem to be worried about building anything new. I went to see how the first hive was doing and found that the queen had moved into to the queen excluded area and had been laying eggs out there. Found a ton of queen cells with larva ready to be capped so I think queen saw the writing on the wall and did a crash diet to get across the excluder. So I decided to take this opportunity to replace the lovely second queen with the productive first queen who was getting ready to gently caress off. Took 5 frames of honey and brood along with the first queen and left her hive to raise a new queen. I divided the second hive in half by covering the queen excluded frame with wet newspaper so they would not fight and could chew through the barrier in a few days after getting to know each other. I searched through the second hive and found the lovely queen. It felt completely wrong and I was really second guessing myself but I smashed that lazy bitch for the good of the colony. I guess next week I will find out what happened in both hopefully I am back to two happy healthy colonies. I am a bit concerned that the productive first hive will take this break in brood reading and fill the hive with honey and the new queen will have no where to lay.
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Aug 28, 2019 04:09
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Update on my queen swap. It worked. lovely hive built a ton of comb and the population has boomed. Awesome hive has a new queen and has enough stored honey that I took a few frames.
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Sep 22, 2019 00:53
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Both of my hives have pulled through. Did my first proper inspection and there is tons of brood in both.
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Apr 9, 2020 04:46
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I had three hives go into this winter and one made it out. It was a harsh and cold winter compared to the previous one. One hive was well established and it did just fine. The other was also strong but got blown over in a bad storm we put them back into the hive but spending a day getting rained on clearly didn’t set them up for success.    The third colony was a first year split and it appears that a pair of forest jumping mice got in and damaged quite a few combs.  The surviving hive had an encounter with a bear that took a few chunks out of the hive but only broke a few empty frames.   
helno fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Apr 29, 2021 |
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Apr 29, 2021 23:43
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CA meets Beekeeping. Turns out my basic gear will fit in the panniers of my old bike. Hive is getting ready to swarm. Eight queen cups with eggs in them and one with a larva developing. Have to go back with the nuc box and get the queen into an empty hive. 
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May 30, 2021 18:24
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the spyder posted:I love that bike, where can I find out more? This is a 1950 BSA Bantam. I have a few posts about it in CA.
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Jun 7, 2021 19:12
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