It has been forever and a day since I posted something here, so I thought I would share a review my hive performance this year. They are tucked in for winter right now, some hives stronger than others. In this post I will focus on my top bar hives, perhaps prompting me to do another post about my Langstroth hives in the coming weeks.
Mars, before my inspection.
There was a post on BeeSource.com last year that asked experienced beekeepers what advice the would offer that perhaps wasn’t typically taught in books. There were a couple suggestions I started using, and today I may have learned that one of them can present some problems.
One idea was about how to place frames back in the hive. Rather than setting them in the box and pushing the frames together, I slide frames into the box along an existing frame. Pushing two frames together risks squishing bees, whereas the bees tend to get out of the way as you slide the frame in. This has worked well for me.
Another idea was to inspect the boxes from the bottom to the top. Continue reading
A quick update on the bees. We did our first inspection yesterday. The bees look good, and saw two of the three queens. The Langstroth boxes didn’t seem so full as to warrant a second box, and the top bar hive was amazing. Here are some pictures. Continue reading
Bees with eeb 