Hive inspection and box reversal

Maggiesdad

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It's just a few of us here and we're all good natured so don't sweat it! Not like those high powered bee forums, lol :D
 

Latestarter

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There are high powered bee forums? :barnie:thWho knew?!:frow
 

misfitmorgan

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i saw one once about 3yrs ago.....scared me away from bees honestly....they were like "beekeeping totalitarians we fought in a big war" really made me think well i would never have the time or money to do all of that stuff on any kind of scale so i will just stick to other animals. However reading here and watching some youtube videos and such i feel it can be way more enjoyable then i thought.
 

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It takes a "special" kind of person to WANT to work with stinging insects. However, that being said, these are not mindless insects like some, they are actually really cool to work with. Now don't get me wrong, some hives turn down right mean, and you have to be prepared for that eventuality, but if you work your hives regularly, it's almost as if they accept you as if you are supposed to bee there.

Being in Michigan you don't have to worry about AHBs (Africanized Honey Bees)... so that's a huge plus. There are actual recorded training course online that you can take for free. One that I recommend (and it should be good for you since it was recorded in Maine - cold winters) is:

http://www.klcbee.com/school.shtml Scroll down to the training sessions.

You do need to be prepared to fight the bane of all beekeepers; Varroa mites. I lost both my hives this past year. Since I'm moving this summer I'll wait to start back up once I'm re-established. You should check locally for a bee club and see if you can go work some hives with a beekeep and see if it's for you. Most beekeeps will NEVER turn down an offer for help and are eager to introduce new folks to the hobby.

Good luck and I hope we've found another active member here for the bee forums :D
 

misfitmorgan

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Thank you for all the info and the link to the courses @Latestarter! I did check for a bee club/guild/etc locally the closest one is over 2hrs away and dont seem to be to active.

As for the stinging part i have a huge phobia of bees...when they ca nsting me i think if i am in a suit i will be fine though because when they are on the other side of a window or screen door im fine with them and actually watch them. Honeybees in particular are not so bad mostly its the yellow jackets and the brown wasps i run from.
 

Happy Chooks

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Sorry the bees are hive bound but you NEED the rain when you can get it.
For sure, but my fruit trees were in bloom. I hope I still get some fruit this year.

Thank you for all the info and the link to the courses @Latestarter! I did check for a bee club/guild/etc locally the closest one is over 2hrs away and dont seem to be to active.

As for the stinging part i have a huge phobia of bees...when they ca nsting me i think if i am in a suit i will be fine though because when they are on the other side of a window or screen door im fine with them and actually watch them. Honeybees in particular are not so bad mostly its the yellow jackets and the brown wasps i run from.

I too was afraid of bees. The first time I hived my bees, my heart was racing at the sound of all of the bees. Then, later that year, I learned what a full hive of bees sounds like. But being careful over time, for the most part, I'm not afraid anymore. I'm not brave enough to go bare handed yet, so I use rubber dishgloves. I can feel well through them, and it makes me feel protected. (even though they could still probably sting me through the gloves)

Yellow jackets and wasps are much worse than honeybees. They are more aggressive and can sting multiple times. Honey bees don't want to sting you.
 

Happy Chooks

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Congrats Maggiesdad looks nice.

i have read thru this entire thread and i have a question. well a lot but one in particular. When your feeding sugar syrup you say the bees put the sugar syrup in cells. How do you keep those separate from the honey you want to harvest, or does it not matter...or you feed before the super goes on?

The bottom boxes are for the bees to survive winter, so you don't harvest their honey or syrup. When they have enough for themselves, then you add the super for you to collect. (and you don't feed any more syrup) Many of us feed syrup to get them going in the spring or make the hive stronger going into winter. It takes nectar (or syrup) and pollen for them to raise brood.
 

misfitmorgan

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I do understand why you feed the syrup i just wasnt sure of the when or for how long. How you know when to take out the syrup and put the super in.

Also if they are capping sugar syrup into cells does that turn into honey somehow?
Or do they use that all up before you harvest honey later in the year?.
Or do they only put syrup into the combs where the brood are?

So very much reading needs to be done i think lol.
 

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When you fist get your bees, they typically have no "home" (drawn comb) set up for storing food and laying eggs (brood). They first have to draw comb. A package of bees can draw out a frame of comb over 2-3 days. To draw out 3-4 frames will take a week or more and it all takes energy from nectar, so if there's no nectar available, that's where the sugar syrup comes into play. It helps the bees get off to a fast start after installation. A fully mature and active/healthy hive might have 60-80 thousand bees in it. A three pound package will have ~5000. Once the hive is firmly established you can stop the syrup. Many folks if in a bad year or no bloom for nectar will feed all year the first year to help the hive grow strong and take no honey. Most packages don't get delivered till after the first/strongest nectar flow.

Since you have old woodware that has frames in it already, chances are good that some of those frames will already have comb drawn on them. That gives your bees a head start as they can clean/repair the existing comb and start storing and laying within days of installation (package bees). The primary advantage to a nuc (Nucleus of bees - much more expensive) is that they are already established with drawn frames, stored food and established brood (eggs/larva and capped brood) so essentially an already working hive. But with a nuc, because they are an already established hive, you typically only get about 3000 bees. For you, the package would be far less expensive and far better as the bees can start immediately. You will still need to feed them syrup for a while, ~3-4 weeks, until the first eggs start hatching so the colony can grow.

They do not turn sugar syrup into honey, they move it into cells, dehydrate/dry it a bit then cap it. It is NOT honey, that's why you want to stop feeding them before you put your honey supers on top. What they store in the super will be honey, not sugar syrup.

A lot of your Q's will lead to additional Qs. The course I linked you will answer a lot of them as will your reading over time.

Typically they store food from the top down on a frame and do brood from the bottom up so think of a rainbow pattern on the frame with honey as the top circle and upper corners, followed by pollen stores below that, then capped drone (male) brood to the outside under that, and the entire center section down to the bottom as capped brood (female worker bees). Now on a bigger scale, they will try to fill the honey super first (highest point) then work down as they go. If you have let them establish the hive in the bottom 2 deeps (or bottom 3 mediums), then that will become the brood chamber where the queen will lay all her eggs. Once those deeps are near full, THEN you will put on the super(s) for honey storage. typically the queen will stay down in the lower boxes laying eggs in the empty cells and the workers wills store all the honey working from the top (supers) down.

When cold weather is coming, or when there's no food available from foraging, they have to eat their stored food. Typically early in the winter the bees will form a "ball" in the lowest box and slowly move up through the hive eating as they go over the course of the winter. If it's a really warm fall (there's no flowers outside to feed on) the hive could eat most of its stored food before the real winter even hits and you might need to feed pure cane sugar or patties over winter to keep them alive till the next spring when the first blooms appear (normally like dandelions). You will come to love dandelions!

Anyway, there's so much to learn! Have fun!
 

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