The Treatment-Free Beekeepers' Forum

COAL REAPER

i started leaving entrance reducers i made on my full size hives this year, ~8" x 3/8. i have noticed much less fanning at entrance and less (zero) robbing during dearth. also, 3/8" is not inviting for mice to use. i have seen nucs abscond in the heat like lharder. i also have 4-frame medi...

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on my two-deep hives i will use a shallow as the first honey super. they usually dont like to lay that one up. look up george imirie if you want to confuse yourself more. he strongly advocated queen excluders. he emphasizes that you must use drawn comb in the honey supers and 'bait' them through the...

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good job on learning your flow. i found this to be very important to know when i want to have my splits made by.

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stay away from the NJ clubs....

COAL REAPER

echo-ing micheal, my bees will not draw foundationless unless it is in the bottom box OR between two frames of brood. i can add a full box of foundationless frames on the bottom without a problem. however, once the hive reaches a certain capacity all they will draw is drone comb. so i keep my comb b...

COAL REAPER

i dont have answer for your specific questions, but i will share that i got two nucs that came from swarms last year. its a gamble whether they are feral or from treated hives. in my case, both of these became overwhelmed with mites in the summer and crashed hard in the fall. all spring and summer t...

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WOW thats a lot of eggs in each cell! sometimes my newly mated queens will lay 2 or 3 in some cells for a couple days until the figure themselves out. nothing like that though. goodluck!

COAL REAPER

nice size swarm!
good thing you had screen on them. as chuck said they can overheat. you can see them all layered on the inside of the screen. they go bonkers trying to get out and create a lot of heat.

COAL REAPER

it really wasnt much now that i look back. i was always told believe none of what you hear, and half of what you see. i can try to attempt to put into words what i am thinking without misspeaking, assuming that i do understand everything kirk is trying to do... i am certain that everything is covere...

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appears everything opened at once last week. blooms averaging 2.5 weeks ahead of schedule. went into my largest hive yesterday. on 4/16 i reversed this one as well as pulled two frames of larvae to start QCs. well yesterday the whole second deep was full of nectar as well as a shallow above, even fr...

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well that was enlightening. as much youtube as you watch or online articles you read, kirks methods all really come together when you see it in person. also met troy hall and picked his brain a bit. hes a cool dude.

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anybody going?

COAL REAPER

nice job fixing the comb. starting foundationless is hard if you dont have some drawn frames for them to copy. looks like a lot of drone comb. or maybe just larger cells than what i am used to. compare the cell size to what you see in the nuc. did you happen to notice the queen in the package hive? ...

COAL REAPER

sometimes there is no answer, but try to figure out why they may have obsconded. too hot? too drafty? too large entrance? was hive recently painted and odor is lingering? something wrong with feed or feeder? not sure where you got packages from but they are finding lots of chemical issues from hives...

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there is about 5' between the barn and the hives. the area is fenced in to keep the bears and deer out. there is no dogs. there is a cows, but i am told they stay in another fenced in area full time. will need to confirm but there is no hoof prints or cow pies nearby. aside from racoons/possums/skun...

COAL REAPER

thought i would share this. went to check on a pair of nucs for the first time since last fall. here's the back-story: http://forum.tfbees.net/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=63 hives at home are packing away honey so i had no idea what to expect with these nucs. loaded the truck with 10-frame equipment ju...

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how did everybody manage through this warm winter? things are progressing very early this year... had pollen coming in on christmas jan 31, mild cleansing flight feb 20/21, first pollen (gray and pale yellow) feb 28, more pollen (pale yellow and yellow) mar 10, elm mar 13, soft maple mar 15, willow ...

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thats a tough thing to find in nj

COAL REAPER

remove dead bees that you can easily get. dont worry much about the ones head-first in cells. maximize ventilation to prevent mold. watch for SHB and moths if its not cold enough. your other hives will remove the resources from these deadouts and you can add these frames to your live hives when it g...

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these colonies are making lots of bees and still drawing wax!

COAL REAPER

Michael Bush wrote: In a dearth this does not work, of course, as the bees will start a robbing frenzy in just a few minutes...

i tried michaels method in a dearth last year. awful situation...

COAL REAPER

i flip the switch, lol. i actually would prefer it to be a bit stronger. i found a nozzle that i am going to give a try next time.

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i use the blower side of my shop vac

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and where is a good direction to look when purchasing plants?

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how does one get started the right way with these?

COAL REAPER

solomon,
are you top entrance only as well?

i tried the top entrance thing and didnt care for it when came time to doing inspections.

COAL REAPER

Why does conventional wisdom dictate to flip the inner covers for winter? Why cant they be left as is? The only thing i can think of is to give space for patties. Anybody got something better?

COAL REAPER

i would say so. i am trying to compromise between making honey vs. making bees. getting comb drawn is something i need to factor in better. i spun spring honey last night, just about 5 gallons. i only pulled from one hive. that hive has also produced one split with its overwintered queen and 5 nucs ...

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thought i would give an update a month later. no swarms to be had, at any of the four locations i have bait hives positioned. i put two nucs at the farm with queen cells on june 14. they got mated well and are laying like crazy. no capped brood yet but each had 2.5 frames railed with larvae. on the ...

COAL REAPER

had over 20 cells amongst 6 frames. made five nucs plus left a cell in the parent hive. they been putting away lots of honey.

the nucs I am moving have four or five cells in each. at least one should make it through transport. will do that tomorrow morning.

COAL REAPER

Very well. Thank you.

COAL REAPER

...when they start raising drone you know that they can really no longer be called a nuc. Excellent observation. I had not thought of it that way before. that was my exact thought when i started reading through this thread. nu·cle·us - the central and most important part of an object, movement, or ...

COAL REAPER

nice to hear from you mr. bush, thanks. i will likely have cells on the sides of the frames and my concern is that the frames can knock into eachother during transport and damage the cell. i suppose the same is true for an unhardened queen. i am only looking to move two nucs, so perhaps i could find...

COAL REAPER

no grafting, i made hive queenless on june 3rd. plan to move cells into nucs june 12th or 13th. might rain 12th, so probably the 13th. thoughts? i want to give virgins time to emerge and harden, but i want to move the nucs to a different area for her orientation and mating flights. my options to mov...

COAL REAPER

Also, by placing the queen cell you are not getting the genetics of the bees in the tree. If the bees are not bothering anything by living in that tree, why not just put up swarm traps around it? Or do the hogan trap till you get the queen and then remove it so the bee tree can continue on. That way...

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all undrawn frames going into hives are now foundationless. i am phasing out foundation and a few plastic frames from when i first got started.

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i dont have enough experience with trapouts to say much definitively. i have only done one, didnt use a queen cell or feed and i was able to get the queen in my hive. this was in a block wall for an office building. what are your goals for performing this trapout? thery dont need feed asthey are not...

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I would say the new box doesnt have the resources to support them.
Do you still see fighting?

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Hey moo.
Several if us are in same situation, surrounded by those who treat and insist it must be done. If they treat then what have they got to worry about with your mite getting into thier hives?

COAL REAPER

well i got a bait hive out. there is not much for trees at the place so i just placed it on a hay wagon that will get 50% shade from the sides of the wagon. got queen cells beeing made and i should be placing a nuc or two after they emerge, hopefully before they mate. i am thinking i shouldnt move t...

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