ottawabee
04-28-2009, 11:04 AM
Last spring I started 2 new hives in tbh style boxes. Boxes are 3 deeps long and wide, and I just insert standard lang frames into it. Hives were initialized with 4 frame standard nucs. We had a very wet summer, and although hive population grew immense, honey production was limited. The girls also did build some cross comb, resulting in some correction loss. I took one frame of honey from each hive in September. Shortly afterward, my wife severely injured herself and attention to the bees halted. So, no fall feeding or oxalic acid. No winterizing of the hives. Although there is an inch of pink foam on the outside top and sides, the hive is raised on legs and has a plywood bottom with screened ventilation holes. I live north of Ottawa in Ontario Canada. We had a sustained cold, snowy winter November to April. I expected the worst this spring as the girls had a pretty drafty abode. So far so good. Both hives have a healthy rate of activity. Waiting on some sustained warmth to open up the hives but keen to see what girls did for 'nesting'.