Top Bar Hive Build.....

[Beekissed]

well i baited up some of the empty equipment to try and catch some swarms while the hives are sitting idle waiting on the apiary to be cleared. while i was out working this weekend, despite the cold, there was some interest! should be going out today to work, so hopefully ill have some good news and free bees to report!

I've heard of that working for folks but I've never seen it personally. What did you use for bait? I've heard lemongrass works well.

 

[Beekissed]

Ideally, that's the way I'd like to gain a hive. Just think of the hardiness of the feral bees out there! I've heard of folks going out of their way to capture feral bees so they can crossbreed their queens into them to make a more gentle, but still hardy and hygienic, bee stock, but I've never seen it firsthand.

 

[Beekissed]

That's some good info! I'll keep that in mind about the old comb and hive.

How do your TBH lids operate that it only exposes one frame at a time? Slider tops?

 

[Beekissed]

I agree! That's how I did my TBH as well, with very little disturbance of the more active part of the hive. I'd just do a quick peek to see if I needed to add another bar in that section, then I'd do so and put it all back the way it was. When you were talking about none of the rest of the hive being exposed I thought maybe you didn't expose the top of your bars at all but would just slide back the hood only to the areas you were working.

And I agree about the bees....they never really seemed to care about my very minimal intrusions into the back of the hive. I used to watch my parents with their Lang hive and it was quite the big hullabaloo, with bees darting everywhere...made me nervous.

 

[FarmerD]

we normally go through the entire hive..... every single bar. this time of year is especially important to be on the look out for swarm cells that can be anywhere in the brood nest. if im really press for time, ill just crack open the back of the brood and look until i find either the queen or fresh eggs, then ill close it up

 

[Denim Deb]

I found wild bees once and couldn't remember where they were when I went looking for them.

 

[FarmerD]

I got 11 more baited up. I believe swarms moving in are imminent on 5, and the others have interest. This may be my best swarm year yet!

 

[FarmerD]

Update:
The comb hangers work great, but are a bear to get out. Still working on a reliable method for getting them out without pulling the comb off the bar. Probably going to investigate using a small battery wired to the hanger to heat it up enough to ease it out. We will see...

So far we've collected 6 swarms in addition to splits we've taken. Our population has ballooned from 8 overwintered hives to 26. We will be getting 13 more from our little barter agreement, and we should be making a second round of splits later in the summer. Looks like I gotta get back to building hives again!

 

[FarmerD]

I plan to start pulling in some income from this venture next spring. Should be in the hundreds of colonies by then

 

[Denim Deb]

Quite impressive!