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It's raining. Is it OK to hive bees like, during a pause between rain showers? They say to do it in the evening, but I expect doing it between showers would have the same effect (bees stay home), yeah? Last night my wife put the package in the kitchen. I told her they'd be fine outside but she was  .There were four on the outside of the package last night. This morning we can only see two. So... two bees loose somewhere in the house, fantastic.
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Apr 11, 2010 19:53
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Leperflesh posted:It's raining. Is it OK to hive bees like, during a pause between rain showers? They say to do it in the evening, but I expect doing it between showers would have the same effect (bees stay home), yeah? If I remember correctly from the guy I got my bees from last year, the bees on the outside of the box will become scouts and look for a good place for the colony to setup their hive. They'll return eventually (if they aren't killed) and tell the group where they should all take off to. Not that that particular bit of information will help you at all but I thought it was an interesting bit of trivia. Finally got to get the insulation off my hive today and pull the entrance reducer. Didn't go inside as it was a bit on the chilly side and pretty windy unfortunately. Hopefully I'll get a good day this week to pop the top but they're active as all get out so I'm hoping for a good start to the year.
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Apr 11, 2010 21:41
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Leperflesh posted:It's raining. Is it OK to hive bees like, during a pause between rain showers? They say to do it in the evening, but I expect doing it between showers would have the same effect (bees stay home), yeah? The guy I bought my hive from said that he has installed them in the rain before, but he said you should button it up quickly after the bees are all in, to keep any large amounts of water out of the hive. In other news, I am having a really hard time just sitting on my hands and waiting a week to open up the hive and check on everyone. But at least with the mesh floor I can peek in at night from underneath and see a little bit of what's up. I can see that they haven't moved the pile of dead bees from the bottom of the hive yet (they got shaken in with the package) - is that normal? I was under the impression that they would move everything out to keep the hive clean. Ishamael fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Apr 11, 2010 |
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Apr 11, 2010 21:46
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The bottom of our hive has a screen, and then a board underneath (which you can slide out to inspect for mites, etc.). I wonder if since your hive only has mesh, do the bees just regard it as "the ground" instead of "the bottom of our hive"? I haven't really looked in to top bar hives at all, so I was surprised to see yours doesn't have a bottom, but I figured that must just be how they are done...
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Apr 11, 2010 22:37
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Installed Beees!!!! We got a window in the rain right around sunset, so we decided to go for it. That sure was a thing. I don't think we killed too many... we had to brush off quite a lot of bees off the queen's cage, and they mostly landed on the ground and stayed there. I'm hoping those bees are OK. They were just packaged yesterday, possibly quite late. So I hope they've accepted the queen... how long does that take normally? How long does it take for them to remove a marshmallow? Our friends came over and took pictures so I'll have photos later, once I recharge some batteries.
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Apr 12, 2010 04:23
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Leperflesh posted:Installed Beees!!!! Nice! Hope it goes well for you. On my end, I am pretty disheartened about my bees. I took the roof off to check on the feeder and they haven't touched it at all, because the space between the bars that I made for them to get through had been closed, either by my jostling when I put the roof on, or by them. So they haven't been getting any food, which probably explains the complete lack of any comb they've built so far. Also, there are a lot of dead bees on the floor in the empty end of the hive. It looks like they snuck in the gap under the follower and then got stuck in there and died. And I have no idea if the queen is among that group of dead bees (I didn't want to actually open the hive this soon after installation, I am just peeking up from underneath). I re-opened the gap so that they could get to the feeder bag, but who knows if it will work. To be honest, the pile of living bees looks pretty darn small compared to what it was. I might be over-worrying, but if I have to start over completely in a couple weeks I won't be surprised. 
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Apr 12, 2010 13:16
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Aw  What time of day did you go look? Could be there's a lot of foragers out... If they can start feeding immediately, there might still be a chance. And odds are they've been doing everything possible to keep the queen alive, too. I went out this morning to peek. It's still rainy and wet. A clump of bees we brushed off the queen box is still on the ground, dead... the grass was wet and I think they couldn't find their way back inside. One or two bees peeking out the door, though, and I can see them through the glass jar on the entrance feeder, so there's still some activity at least. I didn't want to get too close today though, they need to feel secure right now.
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Apr 12, 2010 19:19
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Well, some good news and some bad news. On the plus side, I can definitely see that they have created honeycomb on one of the top bars. Yay! On the down side, I think the number of living bees is now too small to sustain itself. When they are all in the hive at night, the living bees make a clump the size of my fist. When I started it was 3x that size at least. So I am going to start planning on starting over.
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Apr 13, 2010 12:41
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If they clump up, doesn't that mean they're cold?
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Apr 13, 2010 18:22
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Slung Blade posted:If they clump up, doesn't that mean they're cold? They shouldn't be, it's 80 degrees out. Well I talked to my beekeeper that I bought the bees from, he isn't as pessimistic as me. He says the fact they have built comb is a good thing, and if the bees are still coming and going actively from the hive then the queen is probably alive. But he did say that he will replace the bees if they continue to die off.
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Apr 13, 2010 18:55
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That's weird. I wondered what happened? Have you been able to find the queen?
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Apr 13, 2010 23:01
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Maximusi posted:That's weird. I wondered what happened? Have you been able to find the queen? I haven't opened the hive all the way yet, I don't want to disturb them too much. I take the roof piece off in the mornings to refill their feeder (now a plate since the bag didn't work), but that's it. I am peeking in from under the mesh bottom in the evenings once they are all back in the hive.
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Apr 14, 2010 00:01
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Well guys, it's been less than a week and almost all my bees are dead. I know I've said most of this before but everyone in real life is sick of hearing me talk about it so I turn to you, internet. I installed them on Friday, and as of this morning there is only a tennis-ball sized clump of them left in the hive, the rest are all dead along the bottom of the hive. I don't know if the feeder problems were an issue - the baggie feeder got stuck shut (and they never touched the entrance feeder until yesterday), or if it was taking the roof piece off to replace the food in the mornings - maybe they got too cold? Or they may have come with a pest when I first got them - I have no idea. It's just super disappointing to spend so much time working on their hive and getting it set up, only to gently caress up so completely and quickly.
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Apr 15, 2010 19:12
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Ishamael posted:Well guys, it's been less than a week and almost all my bees are dead. You're making me nervous! Our bees come next week and we're doing one top bar, one langstroth. The top bar we're building this weekend and painting with the langstroth. Do I have to worry about varmints? The farm has some pretty devious raccoons hereabouts so I worry they might break in/knock over the hive.
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Apr 15, 2010 19:56
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Raccoons are very definitely problems. They will raid a beehive if they can. They were mentioned in our beekeeping class, but I don't recall if there was a set solution really. Ishmael, I'm really sorry to hear of your hive's problems. I'd guess that since they don't have much/any comb yet, a lack of food would be a very big problem. Bigger if it's also cold, since they burn through a lot of sugar to keep warm. Then again, it could also be disease, or if the queen is gone. The fact they're not cleaning out the dead bees is another sign they're struggling. I don't know what to tell you though; your hive seems really nicely made, so I doubt that's really the issue.
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Apr 15, 2010 20:23
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Well here's a related question that someone might know. If my bees all die this week, I will be getting a new package (luckily free of charge!) from the beekeeper. Do I need to remove the comb that the old bees made, or will the new ones be ok using another hive's stuff?
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Apr 15, 2010 20:58
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I would think they'd be ok with the comb that's there. There hasn't been enough time for moths to move in or for any diseases to take root that wouldn't have pre-dated the installation and most likely come along with new colony as well. Really a bummer to hear that you girls died though. Glad to hear that you're going to give it another shot regardless. Better luck this time around!
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Apr 15, 2010 21:23
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Cracked the hive this evening; took out the little queen cage, which was empty, and inspected that frame a little. It has some comb, the bees were totally chill, and there were plenty of them. So things seem to be going well! We didn't spot the queen, but there were tons of bees on the center frame, and she might have been on a different frame anyway. I watched them for 15 minutes this afternoon, too. Lots of bees coming and going. It looked like about one in ten arriving bees were loaded up with pollen... dunno what the other 9 were doing, maybe just scouts or something? How long will sugar syrup last unrefrigerated, and, should I stick the stuff I haven't put in the feeder yet into the fridge to preserve it or will it still go bad just as fast?
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Apr 16, 2010 09:52
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Ishmael, you said you built the hive with a mesh underneath, right? That might make them too cold. I think the lack of access to a feeder might have done them in as well.
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Apr 16, 2010 18:47
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Maximusi posted:Ishmael, you said you built the hive with a mesh underneath, right? That might make them too cold. I think the lack of access to a feeder might have done them in as well. All the top bar hives have mesh bottoms, its pretty standard. I don't think that was the problem, but the feeder might have been.
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Apr 16, 2010 18:52
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Ishamael - how did you have the feeder placed in your TBH? Was it under the lid, or did you remove a few frames and put it directly inside?
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Apr 16, 2010 21:09
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My feeder setup was a fiasco. Here we go: I had a baggie feeder on top of the bars under the lid, and I left a gap between the follower board and the first bar so they could crawl up and get to the feeder. But they didn't, because it appears that when I put the lid back on, it closed that gap by accident. On day 2 I put an entrance feeder on a platform right near the entrance, but they never touched it for days. Eventually they did, though. The baggie feeder then got even worse because the places in the bag where the syrup would pool up would harden, and then they couldn't eat it. So I replaced the baggie with a plate of sugar syrup, with some debris in there for them to stand on. But that hardened up too. So I have just been refilling the entrance feeder and not messing with the top anymore. On the good news side, I had to go home in the middle of the afternoon for something, and the hive was busy-ish! Lots of bees coming and going, couldn't see pollen in their legs but it was hard to tell. Not as many bees coming and going as last weekend, but a pretty steady traffic. Also I saw plenty of bees at the boardman feeder, so maybe they can pull through after all. I will have my first full hive inspection tomorrow afternoon, I will know more then. If I had to do it again (and I might yet), I would incorporate the feeder into the hive plan, and make it externally accessible. Basically a feeder like this guy did: 
Ishamael fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Apr 16, 2010 |
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Apr 16, 2010 21:23
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OK, well the situation is....weird. The number of dead bees isn't as high as I had originally thought, but there isn't as many live bees as there seems like there should be either! In any case, it seems pretty clear to me that the queen is dead or missing. They built one piece of honeycomb and it was never used for anything. I buttoned the hive back up, and I am going to talk to the beekeeper tomorrow. So anyhow, here are some pics! Here you can see the living bees in the upper left, and the dead ones in the bottom.  Cracking it open:   Honeycomb! Sadly, it is empty. No pollen, no eggs, no nothing.  A bunch of ladies hanging out at a bar (I used a handful of soft grass as a bee brush):  Some more:    The carnage. Like I said, fewer dead than I imagined, but still a fair pile.  Finally, something more happy: handfeeding my girls. 
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Apr 17, 2010 18:57
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Yeah :S. That looks pretty bad. You should get a new package.
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Apr 17, 2010 20:23
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Maximusi posted:Yeah :S. That looks pretty bad. You should get a new package. Just had a meeting with the beekeeper, he is going to give me a new package (or possibly a nuc instead) this week, with a new queen. He looked at the pictures and said that the hive wouldn't survive as it was. So, new bees ahoy!
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Apr 18, 2010 23:49
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http://www.timescolonist.com/technology/Island+beekeepers+warn+crisis/2652593/story.html Looks like I'm going to have to wait until 2011 (I was going to anyhow.)
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Apr 19, 2010 00:36
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Bees come in 3-4 days, so this weekend was hive construction time.  The Langstroth only needed painting. Dog is jealous of Hive. The Top Bar required construction. There is a maddening dearth of exact plans for TBH on the internet. We finally just came up with our own design cobbled together from several we found and liked.    What concerned us most was that some TBH had screened bottoms, whereas others had removeable bottoms. We finally decided to just go with a removable bottom. Not knowing how it should be done, we opted for hinges.  And to keep the 'coons and other Varmints out, a lock instead of a simple latch  Wide open  And closed  I had to leave the farm to return to the office this AM. The boyfriend still needs to cut the top bars, fashion a cover and paint the whole deal, as well as drill the entrance holes. Does anyone have any suggestions for comb guides for the top bars? The Top Bar was kind of an afterthought when I happened to find another package of Carniolans available at the same time, so we're building it quick and dirty. As such we won't be able to put in any frame or comb (no idea where to even find that.) Any other suggestions on things we might be missing? Bee day in t-minus 3 or 4 days. Raskolnikov2089 fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Apr 19, 2010 |
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Apr 19, 2010 23:34
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Raskolnikov2089 posted:
Hive looks great! I used some natural twine and coated it with beeswax as a center-guide for the comb. The bees in my hive are not doing well, but before the queen croaked they made some nice comb right on the guide, so it seems to work. I put pics here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3091681&userid=49654&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post374157898
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Apr 20, 2010 00:03
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Raskolnikov2089 posted:Any other suggestions on things we might be missing? Just curious about the inside tier. Are the bars going to rest on that and be recessed? It might be kind of hard to get them out later, if it's as deep as it looks.
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Apr 20, 2010 17:01
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We put our first colony in on Sunday and now there are hardly any left, probably less than 50. There is some honeycomb but we're unable to find a queen. Any ideas about what happened, and if there is no queen why are these few sticking around?
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Apr 22, 2010 01:30
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It's possible that the queen either left with the majority of the colony for some reason or the workers killed her not long after the colony was installed. That sucks to hear you lost your colony. It'd probably be worth it to contact your bee supplier and tell them the colony died. Hopefully they'll replace the colony free of charge and you'll have better luck on your second try.
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Apr 22, 2010 01:40
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Ishamael posted:Finally, something more happy: handfeeding my girls. That's so cute. I didn't know you could do something like that.
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Apr 22, 2010 02:05
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Yeah, I figured they left, I just don't know why. There are hardly any dead bees in or around the hive so they have to have gone somewhere else.
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Apr 22, 2010 02:07
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Elston Gunn posted:Yeah, I figured they left, I just don't know why. There are hardly any dead bees in or around the hive so they have to have gone somewhere else. I feel your pain, man. I am right there with you. Contact your supplier and tell them that the bees all died or something, and see if you can get a new package. It's early enough in the season that you can still get a full season out of them. Good luck! Dick Trauma posted:That's so cute. I didn't know you could do something like that. It was pretty cool, they are friendly little critters (most of the time)!
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Apr 22, 2010 03:58
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Tanisen posted:Just curious about the inside tier. Are the bars going to rest on that and be recessed? It might be kind of hard to get them out later, if it's as deep as it looks. They'll rest on it, but we left room to get the hive tool in underneath. Hopefully enough, but if not we'll know when its time to build #2. The boyfriend is going to start building/selling them here in Texas. There's a real dearth of hive supplies in central texas.
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Apr 22, 2010 04:04
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Hope you don't mind if I butt in on this thread with some questions: I have a little over 3 acres with a large pond and a small patch of woods. I just planted several small orchards with plum trees, cherries, nectarines, pears, hazlenuts, almonds, chinese chestnuts, pecans and a bunch of other fruits. I also have blackberry and raspberry vines, grapes, and blueberries, as well as some other fruiting shrubs like honeyberries and elderberries. During the rest of this year I'll be putting in flowers, including a large butterfly/hummingbird garden, and setting up some raised beds for vegetables next year. My peach trees also will do better with a field of clover, so I may plant a couple hundred square feet of that. What do I need now? Bees! My dad kept about 8 hives, stacked 3 or 4 deep, for about 10-15 years while I was growing up, and I pretty much avoided them. I know very little about them (I learned more from this thread than from first-hand experience), but I have my dad's old veil and beekeeper suit and a smoker, which are still in good condition. The hives have all rotted through (the bees moved on probably 15 years ago, after he was unable to care for them anymore), and I can't find his honey separater, which was a drat nice piece of equipment. Anyway, I'd love to have a hive or two for pollination, but I'm not that interested in the honey. Maybe someday I'll get into it, but right now I don't want to mess with it. Is it bad to establish a hive and then just leave it? I don't know what happened to my dad's bees way back when, but I wonder if part of it was that he neglected them so they moved on or died out. Are bees self-sustainable once they get settled, or do they need me to clear the honey or do anything for them? I don't mind covering them up for winter or putting syrup out for them or whatever they need, but I don't want to worry about getting the honey, honeycomb, etc. Will the variety of fruits, nuts, flowers and vegetables I'm growing be enough to sustain them, or will I need to supplement their diet? Also, since I just did most of my planting, I'm expecting it to be 3 to 5 years before my trees are ready to fruit. I'll probably see some berries next year (including strawberries), and there'll be a lot of flowers and vegetables. When should I think about setting up a hive? Is next year too early?
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Apr 22, 2010 16:10
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I can answer a few of your questions, Troublemaker: -You can certainly leave the bees to their own devices for an extended period of time. They will use up the space you provide, and then, when they feel cramped, they'll swarm. The swarm may split the hive leaving plenty of bees behind to continue the original colony... or, most or all of the bees may leave with the swarm, leaving you with an unviable colony or an empty hive. -Your bees will free-range far and wide to feed themselves. Even heavily planted, your three acres won't be enough for a single hive to be totally self-sustained. But that's OK, because the bees will find food elsewhere. Syrup is useful for helping a new hive get started or survive through a winter without enough honey, but the bees also need pollen... again, though, it's OK. Unless you live in Antarctica, odds are very good the bees will find enough food themselves. -If you don't take care of the hives, in the long run, you'll wind up with empty hives. It might take a few years but eventually, all the hives will have either swarmed, or succumbed to some disease or another. Beekeeping can be fairly hands-off, but some amount of maintenance is required to keep hives going indefinitely. -It is not too early to set up a hive. Your flowering plants will attract the local bees regardless... and the bees will range to wherever things are flowering regardless. Beekeepers benefit the whole community, and gardeners benefit the whole ecosystem. You could set up a hive today, or next year, or whenever you like. Having a hive on-site will increase fruit/seed production, of course, so I'm not saying it's pointless, just that you can't really expect the bees to notice or care about your property line. -Honey. If you don't want your honey, I'd suggest contacting your local beekeepers group and see if any of them would like to harvest your honey. A common agreement is that someone willing to come harvest gets to keep half the honey they extract from your hive. If someone is interested in doing that, it might be a good arrangement for you. If you don't harvest honey, the bees will probably swarm more frequently/rapidly, but it won't hurt them in any way of course. My suggestion is that if you don't want the honey and don't want to spend much effort maintaining hives, contact your local beekeepers and see if any of them need a spot to put their hives! Lots of folks would like to keep bees but don't have an appropriate property to put them on... you can probably make a mutually beneficial arrangement. You'll of course need to grant access to your property; a beekeeper would want to come several times a month at first, and at least once or twice a month on an ongoing basis, to maintain their hives. This idea is probably viable if you live near a city or town where lots of people might not have space for bees, or where local laws restrict people with smaller properties from having them.
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Apr 22, 2010 19:37
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Thanks, Leperflesh! That is exactly what I needed to know.  I think I'll wait out this year and see what kind of bee visitation I get. I'm kind of out in the middle of nowhere, so I'm not sure if anyone around me might keep bees, or if there are any natural hives somewhere nearby. If it doesn't look good, then this fall I'll look into finding local beekeepers and see what they recommend.
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Apr 22, 2010 20:13
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Cracked open the hive today after a full week since removing the empty queen cage...    We've had a mite board in the base since we installed the hive. Pulled it out today: you can see there's a lot of moisture and debris. We're going to leave it off for a bit to let the hive get better circulation and dry out a bit, but we do want to be able to check periodically for mites.  We have 8 frames and 2 follower boards in this deep.  This is the second frame in from the end. It has about half the cells on the inside side built up, with a lot of the cells half-full of syrup.   Third frame in from the edge has more comb and a ton of bees on it. Still mostly just syrup, but there were also some cells of pollen.  One of the two center frames.  The other center frame. My wife found brood on this frame near the center.  And then she found the queen!  We put everything back together and we'll leave it for the next week. Looks like still plenty of room for syrup; we've been through most of the first batch we made (4lbs of sugar + 4 lbs of water) and will make another batch when they finish this off, probably some time next week.
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Apr 22, 2010 22:26
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Awesome pictures all, thanks for the updates guys. My bee-keeping dreams are being lived vicariously through you lot for now.
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Apr 22, 2010 22:29
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