I don't get it?

3 times now I've come to this sub forum... Kitties is the last post only

her's isnt?

I have had a few times where I am the last poster, but the folder icon doesn't turn gray. It will be Ike that until someone else posts. Then when I read it, it turns gray.

@Goatboy

I was getting that too. Yellow folder but no new messages.
Until now.

Something to consider when using swarm cells when making splits is that you are automatically propagating queens that will carry those characteristics. In other words, you are increasing the swarmy genetics in your apiary. It’s very easy to produce bees that are genetically predisposed to swarming.

Well I’ve ordered bees. Picking them up on April 8th. My dad has been a beekeeper for most of my life and has decided that he’s too old to keep it up so he gave me all of his stuff. He bought new suits, boxes, frames and tools a couple of years ago so everything is relatively new. I’ve been wanting to get into it for years but haven’t wanted to drop the coin on getting setup so this is a blessing. I’m really excited to get going. I’m sure I’ll have tons of dumb questions for you guys. I’ve been reading like a madman trying to bone up.

Ah very cool. It isn't cheap getting into this gig. It was a lot like reloading for me, the initial investment hurt, but the return and the Zen they both bring are priceless.

Today we had a local bee club meeting and talked about things we do, how our bee's faired the winter, tips, tricks and bee day(when our bee packages show up) for 3.5 hours.
The Bee truck will be here the 28th of April so that Friday and Sat we will hand have a bee party and hand out 150 bee packages. We will get snow most likely through April and sometimes May. Last year we had frost all week of Mothers Day and some snow.
Mrs Ho and I are going to pick up 3 packages, 2 Carnolians and 1 Italian and move them to a different spot in out pasture and see how they compare. We were going to move bees but learned that you can move bees hives 3ft or a mile and they will find their home otherwise they don't seem to find their way back to their hive.

A trick for moving hives a intermediate distance...
Close them up in the evening or early morning when they're all in the hive.
Move them, open the entrance and put something like a small conifer branch in front of the entrance that they have to climb through.
This makes them think something has changed, and they will reorient.

Build your own equipment as much as you can. Order your frames and boxes by the case.
Make a jig for building frames, and one for boxes.
I made this out of scrap wood. It is for assembling boxes.
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It is the right height for working on the joints, gluing and nailing them. With a nail gun I can do a deep in under 5 minutes. Painting takes longer.

Frame jigs are easy. There are plans online. It is basically 1x6 and 1x2 material. If you have even basic woodworking skills, you should have no problem.

ETA: If you make many frames, go for larger than a ten frame. My next one will be a 50 frame jig. It is six feet long.

This is what I mean.Jig.
I agree that cutting out frame parts would be time consuming and tedious. I buy frames by the case.
Something I am trying is fishing line instead of wire. I also use a starter strip of wax in the top of the frame. I let the girls build it out. Wax is more costly from the bee's perspective but I can cut it into chunks and sell it with the honey in it.

There’s a beekeeping supply store local to me that’s selling these https://www.foxhoundbeecompany.com/collections/foundation-less-frames/products/comb-honey-cassettes

Little cassettes that fit into a medium frame. Looks like you just pop them out and have comb honey without any cutting. Looked kind of neat.

I make everything myself, except the langstroth frames, they are so cheap and easy to assemble with glue and a staple gun, and an assembly jig.

I do make my own layens frames though, as they aren't as common.

I made a jig for cutting the finger joints on boxes, but later just went to lap joints to save time when I needed boxes in a hurry one year. Fingers are definitely stronger though!

Good to learn, as I am beginning the process of being a keeper.  How does one avoid the predisposition?

When I started, I used the wired wax foundation, it held up fine to the extractor.
I wire my frames now.

I am stringing the fishing line and letting them build to it. I do have plastic foundation too. I'm not committed to either yet.

Is anyone having issues with varroa mites? I haven't tested for them yet.

Everyone does. The question is how you handle them.

To early for us here, we won't test and treat until later in the fall if needed. I am interested in a new non toxic treatment. I am considering swapping out to a screened bottom board this year, I have been using a solid board and wiping it down with Crisco to monitor and trap the little fuckers.
I talked to a guy yesterday that treats his bees with powdered sugar weekly for a month at the end of summer.

Look into OTS queen rearing.
You get 2-3 brood breaks a year, but you have to be willing to pinch your queen at the correct time.

I'm going to try green brood comb in the spring and trapping the queen three times this summer to break the brood cycle of the mites.

Have any of you tried the green plastic drone frames for mite control?  I’ve seen a few guys on YouTube singing their praises. I’d like to steer clear of any chemicals as well. Im into all natural remedies for gardening and would like to stick with that mindset for beekeeping too.

Also, do any of you know of a forum or something like it that sells used gear?  I’d like to get my kiddo that’s about to turn 8 a suit so she can be part of the experience but don’t want to shell out an arm and a leg. She grows out of everything so fast.

Reading up on it now. Thanks for the tip

I let mine go basically natural. I did do a mite treatment, took none of the honey, fed them a sugar granule/pollen mixture, and winter pollen patty. Got into them today, and they are going gang busters. I left a medium super on and had the excluder out in the hopes the queen would lay in it and encourage they pull the comb. It worked. Found one queen immediately, and enough brood in the other to indicate a queen.  Plan on putting some syrup on them next week. I did see a couple with pollen baskets, and some dancing.

Checking another next week. And recovering an empty in the hopes of moving a couple frames with some super cells, and workers to try a split.

I hope I get some honey this year. The numbers look good for a good start.

I put 1/4 of a patty on my hive last week. They have been bringing in the pollen from early blooms and also started consuming the patty. I also put in a frame feeder. They are using it too. The hive was really small, all bees between two frames. They seem to be expanding. I haven't been in too deep to find the queen, but there are fresh eggs. Hopefully I can boost them when my nucs come in.

Wall o' text warning!

In your overwintered hive, which should have about 8 frames of brood (or at least at the authors location in MI at the 43rd parallel), you take the queen, 2 frames of brood, and 2 shakes of nurse bees into another hive, a split basically. May 1st is his timeline.
Then you notch the remaining frames where you see 36 hour or less eggs (you are cutting into and pulling down the bottom third of the cell all the way to the foundation) in the original hive.
When those cells are capped (1 week later), you do 4 splits, 2 frames of queen cells in each split, and reduce those to 2 queen cells in each split. This gives a brood break on the new hives

These hives will have queens who will lay a LOT, but until they start laying, the bees will focus on honey.

Then, at the summer solstice, you make a decision, a super honey hive in which you pinch the 4 new queens, combine the hives, and notch just one or 2 frames for a new queen.

Or you can keep the splits as new hives, but pinch the queens and notch frames for a new queen for their brood breaks.
Either way, this is their 2nd brood break.

At this time, you also pinch the old queen, and either split them again like above-do not split before the queen cells are capped, or just notch one or 2 frames to build up that hive. In either case, reduce the queen cells in each hive to 2 strongest. This gives the original hive split their first brood break.

So why the summer solstice? It's believed that the alpha bees will force the queen to reduce laying at this time, because they know the dearth is coming,  but a newly mated queen will start laying like crazy.  This way, you go into winter with a strong cluster.

The downside? Feed! You will need to feed these new splits. Either frames of honey, or sugar blocks or syrup. Remember, the foragers you shook into the splits will go back into the original hive, and the remaining nurse bees will take care of the brood unless it's all capped, but they will still be there to keep it warm if needed.

So when winter comes along, that's another brood break. 3 for the new splits, 2 for the original hive/queen.

This can be a great way to expand your apiary, or have super honey production. Or even both if you have more than 1 strong overwintered hive.

Don't be afraid to combine hives for winter if you think any hive is weak.

The book on this is expensive ($75), being self published.
Also, there's a couple of PDF format flow charts out there available from the authors website, but those are from 2008, and the latest version of the book (2016) has a simpler layout than the PDF's.

Also, keep in mind your equipment needs. It could use boxes and frames fast in the short run.

That is similar to what David Burns does, except he captures the queen in a push in cage to stop the queen laying to break the varroa brood cycle.
I admit having more queens is a bonus, especially if you have an under performing hive you can replace a queen.

Goes even further back than that. A lot of his research is based on G.M. Doolittle ("Quality queen rearing") stuff. In fact, he refers to Doolittles book a lot in his own, showing diagrams to show how similar they are, and even recommends some of his methods.

Why the losses this year?

Cool!

We have "comb-panels" (can't think of the proper term) which just kind of snap into assembled frames. They seem to work pretty well.

Still...old school is the best school.

Foundation.

True that, but we may soon be living in a world where battery-powered-anything is but a memory.

Primitive/historical skills may make a necessary comeback.

Wish I knew/could do a helluva lot more...

I'm on my phone, but if you Google or YouTube "OTS queen rearing", you should find pic or videos of how it's done.
Basically, you take your hive tool, find 36 hour old or less eggs, then push the edge of your tool on the lower third edge of the cells all the way to the foundation, then pull down.
This tells the bees "hey, this has room to be built downwards as a queen cell".
No, you can't tell the "best" queen cells by looks, but big healthy looking cells are your best bet, because a. They are using healthy young eggs, instead of b. Older emergency larva that might not be best pick.
You're just likely to get a better queen with the young stock.
All newly mated queens are egg laying machines, with few exceptions, and by reducing the cells to the best looking 2, you also save the 1st emerged  energy from having to kill multiple sisters.

As far as genetics, well, considering every bee in north America is a mutt now, with a few isolated exceptions, a queen can mate with as many as 15 drones, that line is going to get diluted quickly.
It does help though, if you can try to spread those good genetics via drones in other hives from your stock, via daughters.

So next best bet is to spread your winter survivors and flea biters among other hives.
This, along with the brood breaks will do the most good against mites IMHO.

Here's the OTS flowchart from the book...

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