Search:

The past two summers in Kansas have been brutal. 110+ on occasion. I lost 2 hives to comb collapse the first summer. Last year I did the following: Peaked roofs on all the hives with air vents in...

I have one of my hives converted to small cell foundation in two brood boxes. Whats the thinking about foundation in the honey supers? Should I put small cell there? I'd like to go foundationless...

and you were absolutely correct Michael. I feel kinda dumb for not recognizing it. I guess I'd just never noticed it and i was trying to come up with some exotic reason why the hive died out. ...

I took the advice and put them on photbucket....see above. No, not chalkbrood.

Using the advanced button didn't help. I keep getting an error when it does the upload.

To the question about did i feed them sugar. No I hadn't fed these bees any sugar. This doesn't look like...

I had one of my topbar hives not survive the winter and when i was cleaning it up I noticed this white substance in the cells where one would normally find brood. It's fairly hard and some cells,...

Radar has some good advice. I've started many a topbar hive using this method.

Thanks Steve. That last link to the permaculture site was useful. Yes, I have an understanding of the langstroth method and have grafted numerous times. I have gradually moved to about half top bar...

I posted this in the top bar forum also.

I've never raised queens in a top bar before so I have a fairly simple question, I think. In my langstroth hives I put a queen excluder on to keep the...

I've never raised queens in a top bar before so I have a fairly simple question, I think. In my langstroth hives I put a queen excluder on to keep the queen from coming up and destroying the queen...

It's really hot in the Great Plains. It's been 105+ for several weeks with no end in sight. I've lost 2 topbar hives to comb collapse but so far, my waare hive seems to be holding on. I'm wondering...

I bought two packages of "4.9" bees from Wolf Creek last year and put them on small cell foundation from Kelly's. I found they wouldn't draw that out either. They did draw some foundationless...

I bought two packages from them last year and put them on small cell foundation. Neither package would draw out the small cell and only drew out a couple of foundationless frames. Of course our...

I used 1 3/8 bars with popsicle sticks glued to a groove in the middle for about 5 years. They worked ok, but frequently the bees got off center and the comb crossed bars. After reading an article...

Those are some fancy top bars!!

I think having brood is the key to keeping the new bees in the hive.

One of the great things about TBH's is that you let the bees build what they need and don't worry about cell size. I've tried the small cell foundation in my langstroth hives and truthfully don't...

Agree with RAK. It sounds to me like they starved. Having them dead with their heads in the comb is a good indication of that.

There was quite a bit of honey left in the old hive. Both honey and pollen on brood frames and and couple of frames in the honey super. I've been thinking that maybe the queen died but I would...

One of my good hives went into winter with good stores , enough bees, and a reasonable mite count. I had a really good hive right next to it. Both wintered in 2 deep brood boxes. Hive 1 had a...

I use a toothpick or wooden match that has been chewed a bit to soften it. Just a tiny drop of Testors does the job. This is a techinique I learned while taking the queen rearing course at the...

I'm in southern Kansas with about the same temps as you. I checked my hives last week and started feeding the ones that had exhausted their honey stores. In the past I've found that February is the...

All you guys that said do nothing were absolutely right. I checked the hive yesterday and found several bars full of capped brood. Seems like things do work if you let it. :-)

We're in a pretty serious drought here. New hives are getting established but if we don't get some rain soon it's going to be a very bad year.

3 weeks ago I had a very large hive with lots of bees. I went out today to split the hive and found I was to late. There were 4 opened queen cells, no queen obvious, no brood or larva. There...