install a box by just setting the box in the hive?

[tommalia]

I'm setting up my first top bar hive and starting with a 3lb package of Russians.

The hive is pretty big and basically a TBH as the sides have a very minimal slope. It's large enough that the whole box of bees could easily be set in the bottom of the hive and then the bars and lid put on top while with the box still inside.

What I'm wondering is, might it be a better strategy to just open the package and take the queen cage out and hang that between a couple of bars, but then just remove the syrup can and set the whole package in the bottom of the hive and let them naturally migrate up to the queen instead of shaking them out of the box?

I know that shaking them out is the way it's always done and it doesn't hurt them at all, but since my hive has ample room to allow for this alternate procedure, I'm thinking, why stress them if I don't have to?

If this is a completely stupid idea, I'm open to hearing so. I'm very new to bee keeping. I had my first hive last year. It was a Lang that was very healthy late last fall, but when I opened it up to rotate the brood boxes this spring, I was down to just a very small cluster and by mid April, no bees at all. So obviously I don't know what I'm doing and wont be offended to be told so.

Thanks in advance,
Tom Malia

[MOJ "The Bee Whisperer"]

Try any thing once!!! If it works let people know. the way to advance to to make a change.

GOOD LUCK

THE BEE WHISPERER

[Ben Brewcat]

It's not a stupid idea, actually I think it may have had an article in BC in recent years. However the bees don't really get "stressed" by being jarred or shaken. Shaking out is so easy that compared to the risk of the queen being separated from the bees (unlikely), the bees drawing their first combs inside the cage, and the like I'd wonder why NOT shake them into their beautiful new home. Package bees are very gentle and I think the experience of handling a large schloop of bees is beneficial for the beek.

Your idea isn't a bad one and it shouldn't cause problems, just extra steps and hassle.

[tommalia]

I didn't see a lot of "extra steps" required in this approach other than maybe having to check a little earlier than normal on the hive to remove the box.

I did consider briefly the possibility that they might just decide to hang out in the box and start building comb there. I wasn't sure how likely that would be. It certainly would be a shame to have them waste energy doing that.

I guess at this point I'm still on the fence. Part of me really wants to try it for the experimental aspect of it.

On the other hand, I already flushed a couple hundred bucks in bees and sugar down the drain with my hive last year, and the package of Russians is costing me over $90.00 this year (long story) and I'm already "experimenting" with my homemade TBH.... My wife will shoot me if I do much more "experimenting" and end up wasting the $90.00 by having my "experiments" flop and I end up with another dead hive.

I'll keep you all posted as to what I decide to do and how it turns out.

I'm still open to more suggestions though.

[Ben Brewcat]

Consider it a $90 one-on-one instruction session from last year :). It's too bad you're switching to TBH; you could re-use the comb they drew. I suppose if you're totally opposed to langs now you could cut-and-tie the comb onto your topbars.

As to how your last colony perished, did they starve? It'd be a good idea to do a little thinking on how they died so you can learn from the season you spent with them. How much stores did they have going into winter? Are there any left, and if so could the cluster get to the stores?

Have you been monitoring for mite levels?

[tommalia]

The hive last year had plenty of honey available. In fact I've got a full super and 3 deep frames full of honey that was left after they finally all died off.

I never saw any signs of mites or anything like that but my lack of experience, perhaps I just missed the signs.

My personal theory is that I left too much space for them through the winter. I had two deep brood boxes, one half sized super on top of that with four frames removed (The remaining frames were full of honey) then another shallow super on top of that with 4 frames removed (the remaining frames of that super had no honey) The space that was left to the one side of the two supers, I used to put a boardsman feeder in to supply them with syrup inside the hive.

My theory is, with all that vertical and open space, they may have had trouble keeping the hive warm enough.

This is actually not a real strong argument though because my wife's uncle had a hive a couple feet away from mine. We started the hives at the same time spring of 2008. All summer my hive was significantly stronger than his and put away about twice as much honey. This spring, his hive is thriving while mine died. He managed his hive through the winter exactly the same way I did.

The only significant difference I can think of is, I did make up some sugar and vegetable shorting "grease cakes" for my hive that spread across the top of the frames in the lower brood about mid fall of last year and he didn't.

As for taking the safe approach and using the the Lan from last year, when I started building the TBH, there was still a slim chance my colony from last year might have survived. I had completed construction before it was clearly obvious they would not.

At this point, my curiosity about top bar hives and my desire to justify the time and money I spent building one are just barely edging out my desire to avoid the pain have having my wife give me grief for wasting hard earned money on my "experiments".

As for putting some of the drawn comb in my TBH, I've already donated the frames to my wife's uncle who is starting two more hives this year.

Maybe I can talk him into giving me some brood frames from his established colony to strengthen my new TBH in exchange for the drawn comb I gave him.

He's an old timer who kept bee's 30 years ago and is getting back into it. He's looks at me funny all the time with respect to this TBH thing (The "abomination" as he described it). I think he's was seriously considering not letting me even put the TBH on his property. So, he may refuse to "waste" any of his brood on such a crazy idea.... we'll see. (he's really a good guy at heart. It's just that there's only two ways to do things in his mind: His way or the wrong way :) )

Regards,
Tom Malia

[Ben Brewcat]

Hmm. The cluster doesn't actually heat the inside of a colony during winter, so the open space shouldn't have been a problem. Neither the grease patties, unless they were poisoned :). Did you find dead bees in the colony, or were they just absent? Lots of bees dead in the cells, butts out, usually indicates that they were too cold to move the cluster to stores and they starved.

Have fun with the TBH, and don't give up! Everyone loses a colony sooner or later, learn from it and keep on keeping on.

[tommalia]

There was a small pile of dead bees, maybe 20 or 30, in the screen in the bottom board when we opened the hive this spring and noticed the trouble.

didn't see any dead bee's in the comb itself.

When we first opened it up, there were NO eggs or larva or capped brood.

I called the state bee inspector and she suggested compressing the hive down to just the one brood box and supplying 1:1 syrup to try to get the queen to start laying. A few days later we did have some eggs but the colony was still shrinking fast. About a week or two later, queen was not be found and just a hand full of works hanging around.

Unfortunately work and personal commitments prevented me from getting back to the hive for another week and by that time ants eating the left over honey was all that was to be found.

[Jer733]

I read about a man on here that used woman's hair clips to suspend the comb from a Top Bar and just tied the clip to the bar ahead of time.

Leave the clip in or cut it out of comb aft rest is attached.


Bee Culture May 2009 issue, page 44 had a great page titled Bee Hive Autopsy. It laid out several things you would see in a dead hive and the likely root cause.

Just finished my first TBH and am putting guides on the bars tonight and looking for a swarm to stick in there.

Good Luck

[tommalia]

Well,

I got a box of Italians from a local distributor that had a few extras so I had to rush around to pick them up last night and get then installed this morning.

First thing I did was try to mount some drawn comb that I had from my Langstrum hive that died last year to a bar of my top bar to give the colony a leg up.

I have a quick question about this. When I pried the wood strip that was holding the top of the foundation to the frame off, I found some kind of larva was living in there. I'll post an image of the larva in a separate thread specifically asking if anyone recognizes it

I hope this isn't a major concern since I still went ahead and attached the comb to a top bar and installed in the hive. Where's a picture of the comb attached to the top bar:
http://www.maliafamily.com/TomsBees/imgs/S6300560.JPG

I ended up shaking the box into the hive. Unfortunately, the day is kind of crummy; low 60's, overcast and it it rained all morning, so I was kind of in a hurry to get them in and settled so I forgot to try to get pictures of actually installing them.

After having done the shake technique, next time I would opt for just setting the box in the hive. The problem I ran into, as you can see in the following pictures, is that many bees decided to hang out on top of the bars. Trying to brush them down in was a loosing battle as more would just keep coming up.

My first plan was to leave the bees there and close up the gaps between the bars, then prop the lid up enough so that the ones still up there could get out through a gap at the end.

The problem I saw with this approach was, those bees would probably never manage to orient themselves to the actual entrance of the hive and may never find there way in. The other problem was, a bunch of the bees just decided to migrate to the back of the hive body behind the follower board and hang out there.

SO, I changed my strategy. Now what I've done is, leave a small gap between two of the top bars big enough for the bees to craw through. My hope is that this that are still on top of the bars and in the back of the hive body, with the lid on, will eventually migrate to the proper location in the hive, drawn by the queen in the cage.

Late one evening or possibly early tomorrow morning when there shouldn't be too many works outside of the hive, I plan to go and see if there are any bees still up above the bars and if not or if there are only a few, then I will close the gap between the bars and drop the lid back down flat on top of the bars. Hopefully all the bees will then learn the proper way in and out of the hive.

Here are some more pictures from the install:

Shortly after the initial install:
http://www.maliafamily.com/TomsBees/imgs/S6300572.JPG

Me shortly after the initial dump of the bees into the hive. Honest, in spite of how I look, I didn't get stung and I don't normally look like this!. It was just a little disconcerting having so many of them on my head and face, it's a little hard to see but I had at least four in my hare, several on face and some on my neck..:
http://www.maliafamily.com/TomsBees/imgs/S6300563.JPG

The hive after replacing the lid and letting them settle down a few minutes:
http://www.maliafamily.com/TomsBees/imgs/S6300566.JPG

[LenInNorCal]

Where's the bull whip & chair to get them back in? No gun?

The larva left behind will be cleaned up and disposed by the girls with no problems. As for shaking them in....you're better off and so are they, especially if it is a crummy day to leave the box outside the entrance with Her Majesty suspended inside. I tried that and after a day they had not eaten the marshmallow so I simply opened her cage and put her in...it worked.
With a flat lid could you lay the lid on the top part where there were no bees or bars, thus stopping them from going in that sacred, future hive-space, while you shook them into the hive you wanted them to occupy? And smoke works wonders to drive them down into the hive from the top bar...although the Brits use vinegar and water spray but I've not found the recipe.
Nice hive...wish I put mine on legs and then put the legs into cans of oil to stop those darn ants! Good luck and like those photos...keep posting both.

[gmcharlie]

I sell top bar hives, and in the istructions I recomend setting the box in, we actually send a follower board with a matching hole 4" dia to line up with the entrance on the package.
The queen is removed and rubberbanded in her cage up near teh front. the bees will walk right in on their own in about an hour usually, 4 hours has been the slowest so far......

Email me and I will send you a copy of teh instructions with pics...