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Building Beehives – Time is Money

Beehives beg to be built from scarp lumber. With the outside dimensions of 16-1/4 x 19-7/8, even seemingly useless construction scarps can be used.

This year, I plan to make a Vlog series on how to start beekeeping for zero dollars.

I have built hives from old pallets. When people hear that, they immediately start posting comments about chemicals in pallet wood. Well I have built about 12 hives from pallets and they are all doing fine. I simply made sure that the pallets were clean and unpainted.

However, if you have ever tried to disassemble a pallet, you know that it is a time sucking, board breaking, pain in the ass! So if it is in the budget, it is much easier to just buy lumber.

In a previous blog, I showed how deep supers can be built from 1x4’s. However even with that, I estimate that the lumber for 63 hives (top, bottom, one super, and ten frames) will cost $851.61.

Why 63? When trying to figure out how to cut the wood with the least amount of waste, 63 was the magic number.

Similarly, I estimate 63 supers with ten wood frames each would cost $592.00. These are of course only estimates and the actual cost so far seems to be around 120% of that number.

My goal for 2019 is to make 100 hives with two deep supers each. I already have enough equipment for 25 hives (17 of those have bees already). That leaves 75 hives. Even conservatively speaking that comes out to $1718.58 worth of lumber. Ouch!

I produced enough honey in 2018 to cover that cost but I’m cheap and I’d rather keep some of that money for other projects.

So when I came across (18) 6’x2’x2’ crates made out of quality yellow pine 1x4’s and ¼” plywood… well the cheapskate in me couldn’t pass it up.

I spent seven hours yesterday, with the help of my nephew Zane, disassembling the crates. Pulling the boards apart was easy but removing the wood staples from the plywood was monotonous to say the least. Over the course of seven hours I removed 2160 staples. I still have six more crates left to do but I already have over 400 board feet of 1x4’s ($250 value) and 32 2’x4’ sheets of plywood ($175 value).

Once I have disassembled the remaining crates, I will have saved nearly $700. That makes my time (and Zane’s) worth $66.67 an hour.

“A penny saved is a penny earned” – Ben Franklin

One last note on my nephew, Zane. That 13-yo kid produced as much work as any adult could have. I started working 2 hours before he arrived and disassembled 2 crates but once he was there, we were able to do 2 crates an hour – cutting my work in half. He did all of this for free but in the end I gave him $20 as a humble way of saying thanks. I couldn’t be more proud of that kid.

Blueprint - 1x4 Deep Beehive Super

If anyone is interested, here is the Blueprint for my 1x4 deep beehive super.

"A Goal without a plan is just a wish." - Antoine de Saint-Exupery (That's is my new favorite quote!)

As I mentioned in an earlier blog this super is built with 1x4's and cost about $9.50 to build. Using nine 1x4's 8' long will give you four deep supers with almost no waste.




Here again is how you cut them for optimal efficiency:

Cut Board One: (3) 19 7/8" and (2) 14 3/4"

Cut Board Two: (5) 14 3/4" and (1) 19 7/8"

Cut Board Three: (4) 19 7/8" and (1) 14 3/4"

Then repeat two more times.

Keep the scraps for handles.

You will also need a scarp of wood to make the (3/8 x 5/8 x 16 1/4") end strips.

One thing I did different this weekend was that I bought some untreated cedar fence slats for the end strips. They were about 6' long 6" wide and 11/16" thick. I planed them down to 3/8" using my table saw (in what was obviously an unsafe manner). Then I cut them into 5/8" strips and cut them down to length.

It's a small bit of wood but maybe the cedar will keep the moths out.

Helpful tip: If you are fighting your saw, it might be time for a new blade. 

While cutting the cedar, I felt like I was date raping my saw. On inspection, I found that the 5-yo (overused) blade was missing the carbide tips on some of the teeth (or at least they were worn to nearly nothing). I replaced the blade and it cut like butter. I know I should have known better but it's not like you have to replace the blade that often.

If you like the plan or use it, leave a comment and let me know how it worked out for you.

Cheaper, Stronger, Easier Beehive

This deep super cost me $5.40 to $9.40 to build (depending on the grade of lumber)! Here's how I did it:

If you've read my blog at all, you probably know just how cheap I really am. When I started to rebuild my apiary, I started off repairing old rotted boxes. When I ran out the old boxes, I began building boxes from pallets.

Eventually it became a point of pride that I could build my business without taking money from my household budget.  

Now that my hives are making a little money, I am reinvesting it. I have finally upgraded to building hives with "store-bought" lumber but 1X12-8' are more than $16 each and only make a single super.

So capitalizing on the lessons learned building hives from pallets, I am sticking with 1X4-8'. If you buy nine 1X4's you can make four deep supers. This is the cutting pattern for minimal waste:

Cut Board One: (3) 19 7/8" and (2) 14 3/4"

Cut Board Two: (5) 14 3/4" and (1) 19 7/8"

Cut Board Three: (4) 19 7/8" and (1) 14 3/4"

You will have to stagger your joints. I found a really easy way to do this. Using some scrap wood, cut two strips per super that are 3/8" X 5/8" X 16 1/4".

Next, on two of your 19 7/8" pieces cut a notch in both ends that is 3/8" X 5/8".

Assemble these two pieces to the strips. From here on all you have to do is glue and nail the rest of the boards in place.

When the whole thing is assembled. Set your table saw to 9 5/8" and trim the bottom of the super. This will make a nice square bottom. Lastly, place a handle 1X2-4" on each end of the box so that it overlaps the top two end boards.

That's it. It took me about an hour to build each super. I need 200 supers for next year, so that means 200 hours of work just on the boxes. I think a little part of me just died.

"The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next best time is now." - Chinese Proverb

Moth Prevention & Winter Preparations

My last preparations before winter: #8 hardware cloth lined with dryer-sheets and covered with cedar chips. The whole feeder cost roughly $6 to build and fill. However, I believe it will prove brilliant on all fronts. The dryer sheets should catch the beetles - the cedar should deter moths - and both should insulate the hive, while wicking away moister.

I also placed a Fat Bee Man corrugated sign trap in each hive, as well as a swiffer sheet and beetle buster trap on the top bars. That's every trick in my bag.

After having the temperature dip into the 20's I thought I might have waited too late to winterize my hives. Luckily, I was blessed by God with a nice warm 67 degree day. Noah was working so I asked my 13-year-old nephew, Zane to help me out. He was a huge help and I wouldn't have gotten done without him.

We staged all of the feeders and traps on top of each hive to minimize the amount of time each hive would be left open.

We then cleaned up the apiary and removed all the unused equipment - a full truckload (which might be part of my pest problem).

Lastly, we began placing the feeders. The first hive I opened was dead and filled with wax moths. I felt sick. The second hive looked good but then the third hive was dead. I could have thrown up!

With no other choice, I carried on. In the end, I lost three hives.

"Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes." Zig Ziglar

Last month, when I extracted honey, I placed the empty supers back onto the hives in hopes that the bees would clean them and refill them. However, the flowers were all but gone and I think this gave the moths a window of opportunity. I think this was the cause of my losses.

I started the year with 7 hives. I made all successful splits and increased to 23 hives and 1 NUC - however, I lost a total of 6 hives in the past few months. Leaving me with 17 hives and 1 NUC. If God is willing and I don't loss any hives over the winter, I should be able to divide 17 into 68 or possibly as many as 136 (that would be 4 successful exponential splits).

My actual goal is 100 hives by the end of next season. So for the rest of the winter, I will be in the wood shop building hives. I'll post on that as I progress.

However, for now my bees are in God's hands - I have done all I can do.

Hive Count: 17 Hives and 1 NUC

Hive Top Feeders - How To Build

I've used a lot of feeders but my favorite one is Don "The Fat Bee Man" Kuchenmeister's Hive Top Feeder. They are really easy to build and make checking on your bees super convenient. However, I have made some slight modifications.

In the first picture you can see the finished product. It is simply a 1x4 box with a #8 hardware cloth bottom. Before it goes in the hive, it will be lined with dryer sheets and then filled with cedar chips - hopefully this will keep out pest.



Now before we get started, I cannot emphasis how helpful Jig's are in the workshop. Because I already had a Jig built for cutting Supers out, I was able to cut up (15) 1x4's in just 15 minutes.

Later, as I began assembling my outer frames, I was struggling and losing time - until I tacked a board to two sides of one of the assembled boxes and used it as an assembly jig. In the same amount of time it took me to build two boxes without the Jig, I was able to assemble the other (13).

Take the time to build your Jig's - the time you spend building the Jig will pay dividends for years to come.

 
The required items are:

(2) 1x4's cut 19 7/8" long
(3) 1x4's cut 14 3/4" long
(2) scrap 1x4's cut 5 1/2" long
#8 Hardware Cloth 16" x 23"

"If you would be wealthy, think of savings as well as getting" - Benjamin Franklin

Now I needed to build (15) feeders. I found that if I cut (3) 8'-1x4's I can get (8) 14 3/4" cuts and (8) 19 7/8" cuts with little to no waste. (See Picture)

From (1) 8' - 1x4, I can get (6) 14 3/4" cuts.

So (2) 19 7/8" cuts plus (2) 14 3/4" cuts make the outer box.

Then the (2) 5 1/2" scrap cuts are placed at one end with a gap in the middle.

Then take the third and last 14 3/4" cut and rip (2) 3/8" pieces off long way. (1) strips will be used as a cross bar support for the screen. The other (1) will be cut into (4) even pieces at 22.5 degrees to create the enclosed ladder.

Finally staple in place the #8 Hardware cloth across the bottom and trim off the excess. Then trim that remaining piece to 3" wide.

Now assemble the (4) ladder pieces two on each side and wrap with the hardware cloth leaving a 1/2" exposed on the bottom side for an entrance. Place the ladder in the gap - making sure that there are no gaps that might allow the bees to enter the feeder outside of the ladder.

Now turn the feeder over and cut the hardware cloth out of the 3" x 3/4" hallow space so the bees can access the feeder.

"Winter is Coming" and this coming Saturday will likely be my last chance to slip my feeders on before the temperatures drop into the 50's. Tic-toc, tic-toc.

I hope you find this blog helpful. Please leave a comment if you have any questions.

Beetle Glue Traps Were A Bust

My friend, Cindy's first visit to a Bee Yard.

My glue trap didn't work at all. Not a single beetle died in the trap - however about a dozen bees did. Well it was worth a try. If anyone has a great beetle trap idea, please leave a comment. I've got to beat these beetles back!

"I didn't fail. I just found 2,000 ways not to make a light-bulb; I only needed to find one way to make it work." Thomas Edison.

On the upside, the fields are filled with Golden Rod and my hives are just a buzzing with activity. I have a feeling that this will be a long cold winter but it hasn't started just yet.

I still have a little honey in the field that needs to be extracted but Saturday it will be 76 degrees for the high, so I think the 35 gallons I extracted is all I'm going to get this year. I'll keep 5 gallons for mead, gifts, and personal use but the other 30 gallons is worth $2400 at $20 a quart. That should be enough to build enough equipment for next year.

At present I can build 63 Hives (that is 1 top, 1 bottom, 1 deep super, & 10 wooden frames) for $851.61. The number 63 is a mystical, spiritual number... just kidding... given the length of the boards vs how many long sides and short sides of the supers you can cut, 63 is optimal number to reduce waste (at least in my wood shop).

It costs me $592 to build 63 supers with 10 frames each (no bottoms or covers).

So 63 Hives with 2 deep supers will cost $1443.61 (plus tax). That's roughly $23 per hive.

I'm really looking forward to getting out in the shop this winter - I think the woodworking is my favorite part of beekeeping.

Well, I checked all the Hives and they are still doing well.

HIVE COUNT: 20 Hives & 1 5FNuc

One last thing: My daughter and Noah (my beekeeping helper) got married this past Saturday 10/6/18. I couldn't be happier!

Bees, Beetles, and Mosquitoes... Oh My!

Maybe I'm cheap or maybe I'm frugal but either way, I have a hard time throwing out dilapidated supers. This is my last attempt to breathe life into my original boxes.

The super in the picture is about 13 years old and has been badly
treated. My latest act of malevolence was when I dropped the box about 8" filled with honey to knock out the last of the bees. Not only did this break the ears off of most of the frames but it made, the already weak corners, come apart.

So I used 1/4 hardware cloth to repair it. The inside lip was also rotting away, so I used the wire to make a new ledge. If it works, great. I'll get another season or two out of the box. If not, nothing lost.

One day, and I hope soon, I will have enough return on my honey investment to buy good wood and plastic frames but until then... waste not, want not.

The 5 frame nuc I made has about 7 to 10 queen cells in it. I moved it out to Dr.D's Saturday. It seems fairly strong and I think it might just make it through the winter - if the beetles don't kill it first.

BEETLES! All of my hives are filled with beetles. Luckily the hives are strong and are keeping them beat down but the beetles are there and just waiting for their chance to destroy the hives.

Wednesday, I will place a swiffer sheet and a Fat Bee-man Trap (though I am not convinced they work) into each hive. I've also broken down and ordered beetle blaster traps for all 20 hives ($48 with S&H) and will put them in as soon as they arrive - they work great but are too pricey.

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito." The Dalai Lama XIV

I think the apocalypse is near and the mosquitoes might be the fourth horseman. I've never seen mosquitoes this bad before. This pictures shows my pants leg but I was covered from head to toe. And it wasn't just out in the country - I must have killed 30 or more in my house that flew in as I came in the front door.

Maybe these incredibly hot days we are having this week will kill them back - I hope so anyway.

Harvest Continues: Well I've harvested 8 deep boxes and have gotten about 25 gallons now. I still have about 12 boxes to go.

The Accidental Split - 2018 Harvest Continues

"We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents" - Bob Ross

Last night, Noah and I, attempted (without success) to put the trailer tire back on the rim. I am convinced that someone crept out to my trailer in the middle of the night and put a larger thinner tire on the rim.

Perhaps I'm paranoid but, then again, is it so inconceivable that someone bought a different tire, aged it so I wouldn't notice, then waited for the tire to come off the rim, then swapped my tire for theirs, and then hid and watched me fight for an hour to get a seal... all the while laughing manically? "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Well played, Tire Bandit... well played.

Well we bought a new tire, waited for the rain to pass, and then, with only a little daylight left, we decided to only take the top box from the 6 three deep hives.

To remove the bees from the supers, we smoked them until they ran down. Of course this didn't get rid of all the bees, so when I got home, I used my air-compressor to blow the rest of the bees out - that didn't work at all. Next time, I'll use the leaf blower.

The only way to keep the bees from coming into my house was to take the frames out, one by one and shake off the bees. Then two frames at a time, I carried them in. It was a totally unproductive way to go about it all.

However, as I was taking the frames out, I found 5 that had brood still in them (one with pretty young larva), so I grabbed an empty 5 frame nuc and made a split. Now I don't know if this will work, given there wasn't much pollen and the brood may have gotten chilled on the drive home. Nonetheless, I accidentally brought about 2lbs of bees to the house and this gave them a new home. If it works, then great. If not, nothing lost.

Today is my half-day at work but since it is expected to rain for the next 10 days, I will spend my time extracting the frames I brought home last night.

Super Count: 20 Hives and 1 Five-Frame-Nuc

Loss 13% - Time for Harvest

"It takes 15,000 casualties to train a major general." - Ferdinand Foch.

I lost 3 of my 23 hives to beetles. Actually, I lost 3 hives to neglect. While the beetles were the final cause, I think that the hives may have swarmed and left the remaining colonies too weak to defend themselves. I could make a 1000 excuses like work, weather, and want... but at the end of the day, I allowed my hives to go two months unchecked.

Last year I fussed too much with my hives, this year too little. The lesson here is to find the sweet spot - I believe that is about once or twice a month.

To add insult to injury, the tire on my 4x8 trailer came off the rim and, not having any other option, I had to drive home on the rim. Much to my surprise, the rim seems unharmed. I will try to put the tire back on the rim tonight but I may need to buy new tires.

Just the same it was a very productive year. I increased from 7 to 20 hives. I have 20 deep supers of honey to collect and if they are all the same as the one I extracted last night, that will equal 80 gallons or 50lbs per Deep Super.

Which brings me to my new extractor: Honey Keeper Pro Electric 4 Frame Stainless Steel Honey Extractor which cost about $325 on Amazon.

It worked great. It took about 10 minutes to setup. The barrel was bent a little oval'ish when I opened the box but I'm a big guy and I was able to bend it back round. The extractor held 4 deep frames that had to be flipped midway through. One Deep Super took about 30 minutes - of course that was my first try so I am sure I will get much more efficient.

One of the ten frames I extracted was a wood frame with no wires in it. Much to my delight, it did not come apart and extracted without incident.

The drum only held about 4 gallons so that the final extraction caused the honey and wax bits to get stirred and whipped - that is why it looked a little foamy in the bucket picture - it later settled out clear.

Two other smart purchases I made were:
Honey Strainer Double Sieve for $25 and Honey Uncapping Roller for $13.00

I have spent at least a $100 on cheese cloth over the years. The double sieve is not only cheaper but it was so much easier and cleaner.

As for the uncapping roller - Why does anyone use a hot knife? I have tried a scraping tool which was awful. It made a huge mess and I usually ended up scraping off most of the wax from the frame. I've also used a hot knife and that too was messy. The uncapping roller was extremely clean and effective.

Well I only extracted a single super last night. Tonight I will try to bring home 10 more - assuming I can get the trailer tire fixed. If not, I have a rack on the back of my SUV and it will hold 3 supers.

Hive Count: 20 Hives

My Cup Runs Over

My bees are flourishing like never before. 20 of the 22 hives at Dr. D's place are packed with bees and honey. Two needed some help but still had bees in them.

I am also happy to say, that I didn't see a single beetle yesterday - not that I looked too hard for them. The heat index was well over a 100 degrees and 1.5 hours was enough to exhaust me completely. Noah is younger and fared better than me but he still looked spent by the end.

We added 11 supers to the hives that needed more room but we needed 13. I'll have to make two more boxes this weekend and wax 20 more frames.

By the way, I bought 13 pounds of wax to coat my old plastic frames. 1 pound of wax is enough to paint 10 plastic frames.

I still have lots of old plastic frames but I have used all but a couple of my old supers. So from here on out, if I want to expand anymore, I'll have to build more equipment.

Nonetheless, my bees are doing exceptionally well, as are all the aspects of my life. I have just kept my head down and pecked away at the work and God has done the rest.

"Indeed, don’t try to get there at all. It’ll happen when you’re not looking for it." - The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe.

Nothing in life is promised. Yet, I feel optimistic about the future in a very real way. My cup runs over.

Hive Count: 23 Hives

p.s. The moist black wax in the hive I mentioned in the last blog is gone and that hive looks perfectly healthy. Whatever it was has self-corrected.

Wedding at Dr. D's

My energy is split between what I have to do and what I want to do. However, it is absolutely impossible to devote time to everything. Family, work, and sleep are non-negotiable. So I am left to juggle downtime, beekeeping, writing, and inventing.

While it sounds like a rationalization of my shortcomings, the truth is I accomplish a lot each week - just not enough beekeeping. Of course that is real key to success - accomplishing more than average. I've known far too many people that complain about their lives, lack of money, or lack of success but never do anything more than work 40 hours a week.

Success is achieved when your 40 hour work week is over. But I digress.

My wife and I went to an outdoor wedding at Dr.D's this past Saturday - it was epic. However, since most of my bees are located at his country home (were the wedding was held) I couldn't go bee keeping until it was over.

The horror came halfway through the wedding when my wife whispered to me that Dr. D had been spraying the property for mosquitoes all week. While she didn't catch the problem, it made my mouth go dry.

So Sunday afternoon, when I was confident Dr. D's guest were gone, I did a quick hive inspection. All 22 hive are doing well - with the exception of one that is queenless but has queen cells in it.

Given I have let the other aspects of life prevent me from beekeeping for nearly 3.5 weeks, God has smiled down on me and my bees are thriving in spite of me - as usual.

Hive Count: 23 Hives

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the more I work the more I have of it." Thomas Jefferson

With my shoes off, I can count to 20

"Oh heart, such disorganization!" Sylvia Plath

Well, I have split 6 hives into 22 in just a couple of months. This has been the best year by far. This will be my last splits until after I harvest honey. Though, if the bees continue to do as well as they are doing, I should have a crop of honey in late July to mid August... I hope.

17 Hives on 4/30/18

The splitting process went well but ultimately became chaos. In the new diagram below, I have changed my numbering system to help make it clearer.

 At the start of the day, there were 17 hives at Dr.D's. We had considered moving all the hives to their new locations and then make the splits but we thought we might get confused (it was a simpler time).

First we split Hive-D2 to location E5. The first frame we pulled had the queen on it, so we put her back on location D2 and closed up both hives. (We felt pretty smug!)

Then we split Hive-B2 to location D4. However, despite being packed with bees and honey, there was no queen. First hiccup. So now we needed two frames of eggs. We marked the two boxes by placing an empty super on each lid and then took a break. (It was 89F and I'm fat... don't judge me.)

Now when we returned, we opened Hive A-2 (and even though I found the queen last time) it was now queenless. So we didn't split it but we made a mental note to put a frame of eggs in it. (Mental note, humf.)

Next we made it easy. We decided to move Hives-A3,B3,C3 to location A5,B5,C5.

Hive-C3 was split onto location C5.

Hive-B3 was split onto location B5... and that's when we found it was full of swarm cells. So we started pulling those frames out and giving them to the other splits. A2 B2 B3 C3 D4 and E5 all got a frame with a queen cell on it... (I think!)

However, Hive-A3 didn't have a any brood, so we decided not to split it. We added eggs (I think) and left it as it was.

Then we decided to split Hive-A4 AND THAT WAS WHEN IT TOTALLY WENT TO SHIT!

We had already split Hive-A4 at some point in all of this. In retrospect, I "think" we split it to location D3 but I can't be sure. It had a new lid and bottom on it, so we had definitely split it but neither Noah or I could remember when.

In just two hours we had made all of the splits and, in doing so, had lost the largest game of Three-Card-Monty ever played. In the end, I have 22 hives at Dr.D's.

Final Hive Count: 23 Hives

2018 The Future Looks Bright

"Never pet a burning dog," - movie quote from, A Good Year.

I do my best to keep this blog purely focused on my beekeeping but something strange happened last week that I don't want to forget - so indulge me and then I'll tell about my extraordinary beekeeping year thus far. Or just skip down past the italic part.

On Wednesday, 4/18/18 I woke up singing the 90's song "If I had  a Million Dollars" by the Bare Naked Ladies. I like the group so that's not really odd. 

However, the first thing I heard when I got to work was a conversation that had this line in it, "You got me F***ed up talking about what I would do with a million dollars." Not an unusual conversation given I work in a casino.

Then I went to Walmart after work and the overhead speakers were playing... "If I had a Million Dollars" by the Bare Naked Ladies! So I drove to Arkansas and bought a lottery ticket - and, of course, I didn't win. 

The time between when I bought the ticket and when the numbers were drawn were filled with pure childlike daydreams. I imagined all the things I would buy, the way I would invest, the people I would help, and those I would shun. I also thought how empty all of my future achievements would be and how lonely my wife and I might end up. In the end, I wasn't even disappointed not to have won the lottery.

I've spent a lifetime looking for signs and have never found one. Nonetheless, if this year proves to be an epic success, then perhaps I'll look back on this day and say, "All the signs were there."

What a great bee year so far:

It has been three weeks since I made my splits and they are all doing well... no, they are all doing awesome!

I didn't realize it had been three weeks until just now. I don't have a great excuse, other than the weather has been fairly cold and rainy. Not to mention that last week, Dr. D's father died - I keep my bees at his family's country homestead.

However, that is all spilled milk. Saturday, I went to Dr. D's and my bees were busting at the seams and about to swarm.

I moved 5 frames of queen cells to a new hives with nurse bees (Hive number 14). I would have split 10 of my hives but I didn't have enough lids and bottoms to do it.

In the other hives, I did my best to cut the queen cells out. This is always risky, as you might miss one.

Queen Cells

I then went home and got more boxes and frames and added a box to the 10 overly full hives. The other two hives were doing well but still had two empty frames each - so I left them single stacked for now.

If all goes well, then Wednesday I will make lids and bottoms and Saturday, I will make 10 more splits.

Hive Count: 14 Hives.

BTW: I had a heart scare two months ago and so I have been meditating in the mornings before work to lower my blood pressure. Well, the bees were fairly cantankerous at first on Saturday but then I took a minute to control my breathing and meditate, the bees calmed right down. I suspect my agitation was putting off pheromones and once I relaxed so did the bees.

Queen Cells: If at first you don't succeed.

"In our response lies our growth and our freedom," Victor Frankl

Yesterday's hive inspections couldn't have been worse (well anything can get worse but it was bad).  The sky was sunny but the temperature was a cool 56F degrees with winds around 20mph. The weekend will been even colder and with lots of rain, so it was now or never.

As one can imagine, the bees were quite cantankerous, to say the least. In fact, they were down right pissed. Given that it was so cool, I put my Carheart jacket on, thinking it would be a fine bee coat given its elastic waist and cuffs. I was wrong!

The bees seemed to know right where to attack. They actively targeted my wrist and waist in droves. I could actually feel them rolling my sleeves back and I am fairly certain I heard battle cries and a little laughter.

Well, I knew they would be that way, given the weather and the fact they were queenless, so I should have worn a full suit. Oh well.



Only one of the three Queen Cells I placed Saturday seemed to have made it - and even that one is questionable. I had cut the three cells from a plastic frame and in doing so, I had opened the back of the cells and not left enough surrounding wax to attach the cell to the new frame.

Two of the cells were just gone. The third cell was laying in the bottom of Hive-E and the bees had secured it to the bottom board.

The solution was to leave Hive-E as it was and see if the queen emerges. Hive-E had a lot of bees and honey, so if this doesn't work, then I will just place more eggs in it in a week or so.

In Hive-D, we placed a new frame of eggs from Hive-L (Hive-L is the smallest hive and therefore, the easiest to find eggs).

Hive-A got a Queen Cell from Hive-G. This was a very good cell since it came from a wood frame and I could cut a big chunk of extra wax to help secure the cell in the new frame. Though I mashed a lot of worker larva - ick!

Now the bees will be given a week to do what they do. We'll see what happens. Nonetheless, all the hives are packed with bees and doing well.

Checking the Walk-Away Splits

"Success in not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." Winston Churchill

Let's skip the suspense: 13 Healthy Hives but 3 did not make queen cells.

All the splits are full of bees. Three made Queen Cells and Three did not.

Now last year, I labeled the hives A,B,C, etc and then labeled splits with A.1, A.2, B.1, C.1 etc. However, that could get confusing for the reader so I have relabeled them below.

The colored arrows indicate the original location of the hives
and then where the hive-queen was moved to during the
walk-away splits.

Black arrows indicate queen cell moves.

I cut queen cells out of Hive-B and put them in A, D, & E. This would have been a perfect correction except that when I removed some of the queen cells, the wax opened on the backside. I immediately placed the cells into their new location but I don't know if the introduction of air into the cells will have harmed the larva.

I'll check them Wednesday. If the Cells look okay then I will leave them be. If not, then I will remove eggs from one of the parent hives and try again.

My beetle traps didn't catch any beetles but there were beetles in the traps. The drier sheets just didn't snag the beetles. I will make some new ones with Swiffer sheets inside and set them Wednesday when I inspect the queen cells.

All and all, my splits look really healthy and the bees seem to have made a fairly even split.

All the hives were full of bees

Hive-D made 3 frames
of new wax

Queen Cells

First Split of 2018 & Big Bryan's Beetle Box

"Necessity if the mother of invention." - Plato

I am an inventor at heart and given my beetle problems last year, I have been trying to build a better mousetrap (beetle trap). Beetle Busters are great but they can get expensive. Fat Bee Man's political sign traps seem reasonable but I still have beetles when I use them. Of course dryer sheets work really well but they seem to kill one bee for every two beetles.

So here is my latest invention. Big Bryan's Beetle Box.

It is a simple and cheap beetle solution. It's a 3/8" thick #8 hardware cloth box with a dryer sheet inside. This way the beetles can get to the dyer sheet but the bees can't.

I put my first prototypes in the hives yesterday. There were not a lot beetles since all of my hives are so strong but there were still a few. I placed 7 traps in seven hives - 3 of them I poured Apple Cider Vinegar on. I'll let you know how they work next week.


"He also divided the two fish among them all." - Mark 6:41 

I split (divided) the six hives at Dr. D's place into twelve. Of course this isn't the first time I made splits but this is the first time I did it with complete confidence.

If you've been following my blog, then you know that last year I made a lot of splits that ultimately failed. But in the words of Thomas Edison, "I haven't failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

So here is what we did yesterday.

First, we cleaned the apiary up and leveled our concrete blocks.

The next step was to decide on the location of each split. We did our best to put the split as far from the original location as possible - though this is really not that important since the nurse bees will stay with the move and all the workers will go back to the original location.

With the locations decided we began the process. We started with "F" and worked backwards to "A" since "A" had been our most cantankerous hive last year. "F" was also the only hive with only one super.

I moved the whole hive to location "F1" and then placed an empty supper on the site of "F". I placed 2 frames of eggs, larva, and nurse bees on the "F" site. Then I added a frame of honey and pollen. The rest of the frames were empty waxed frames. I added some empty frames to the "F1" site and closed them up.

Now I never found a single queen in any of the hives yesterday but I made sure to leave eggs in both hives just in case the queen ended up on the original location.

We repeated the steps for each hive. Since it was very cloudy, it took a long time to confirm eggs were in each frame. The whole process took us 3.5 hours.

Despite the clouds, the bees were fairly docile. Noah got stung 5 or 6 times and I got stung about 7 or more but that isn't really too bad considering the weather.

I will check the splits next Saturday and make sure there are queen cells in all of them.

Now I know you shouldn't count your bees before they hatch but I'm going to.
New Hive Count: 13 Hives