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Yea we were kicking around getting a couple packages for the 2 dead hives but I'm not terribly sure it's worth the investment if these bees are going to have recurring issues in the future. I'm...

I've got 6 hives that were all new last year. New boxes, new bees. 3 Carn, 3 Russian.

We just went and checked my 6 hives this morning. The two weakest hives were completely dead which is not...

It basically blooms after x amount of days (it's just part of the growth cycle), but if it's stressed it can bloom prematurely. The edges around fields always tend to bloom a bit quicker than the...

I did noticed that of the 6 hives I have, 5 were bearding. The only one that wasn't bearding was the one that I have a styrofoam lid on so that makes me believe that that hive is cooler than the...

Awesome lol. Maybe I should make them each little rum drinks with tiny parasols in them?


Thank you so much for the replies! I took off the entrance reducers and will see how they react to that...

I hadn't thought of adding a super below the hive... that's not a bad idea. But I don't have 6 extra boxes w/ frames on hand so that would take some time to get around.

I always hear of people...

Like a total bee noobie I cheaped out (and am not regretting it) and got my last 6 hives without screened bottom boards or foam hive covers, so now my hives are bearding in the heat (where with sbb...

In all honesty that would be rather disappointing. Is there any way to prevent that or are you better off just letting it go? Why would you want a whole frame of brood comb? That almost seems like...

Thank you! I will look into them.

Thanks! I think that's exactly what I plan on doing. I think I'll do both a foundationless and a wax foundation in between the brood comb and see which they like best.

Maybe a BBEBWBB (E for...

Holy cow, Bush knocked this one out of the park: http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfoundationless.htm#howdoyougofoundationless

I guess I spoke too soon. I'm going to give it a try I think.

I have wedge top-grooved bottom bar frames. I've been reading some good things about just adding an empty frame into a hive between brood comb to get them to draw it out. Are you just supposed to...

I don't like getting stung so I definitely wear them. I don't know how you guys don't wear gloves and don't get stung. I wouldn't get out of that yard without 10 stings on my hands if I didn't wear...

Oh I didn't know that there were treatments you can do with honey supers on. Does anyone have a good suggestion for what they would use?

As of now my plan is to basically leave that hive alone...

Well crap, the "healthy" remaining hive has mites! Time to eat my crow :)

I went out to the hives today and first I checked the hive that was nearly dead with the queen and 200 bees, fully...

I'll try and get out to the remaining hives asap and once I do I'll give a report back here on how they are looking =) I'll try and check for mites as well.

Thanks! I do think that it is great news! =)

I included the worst piece of brood/brood comb that I could. I hope I didn't just happen to get a "clean" piece of brood, where all the other brood...

Well on their submission page it says not to send bees if they've been dead for a long time so I just sent the ugliest piece of brood/comb that I could cut out of the dead hive. They never mentioned...

Well I just got my results back today and for diagnosis it said:

"No disease found"

And that was all that was in the report. So I guess that totally rules out AFB or Nosema? Or what...

I'm still waiting on the samples. I've never sent any samples off so I'm not sure how long they are supposed to take. I'll post here as soon as I know anything.

Are you using wax or plastic foundation?

At least for my bees (russian/carniolan hybrid), they just refused to go up into the 2nd box until I finally gave in and got some wax foundation frames. ...

Ahh, thanks!

I can see why you are trying to salvage everything squarepeg. It's hard enough burning 2 hives and I can't imagine burning 10.

Roland: If I would have seen AFB last fall what could have I...

Pardon my ignorance but what is SHB?

They will be drawing this foundation out fresh so I'll probably end up putting one on at a time until about 6-7 are filled out.

I just keep hearing...

How important is it to let the bees draw out the honey supers that you put on a hive before adding more supers? Or can you just go throw 3 honey supers on in the spring and let them have at it?