OH WOW, what an incredible treasure of information and new explorational experiences with working with Insulated beehive designs! Just found BS and just found thread on what I am most interested in direction of beekeeping for MY region of long winters for honeybees to survive. Have just jumped into our second attempt with bees but have been taking the as many classes and research as I have been able to find over the last five years on the subject. There is soo much that I wish to discuss/share/learn I hope I don't wear out my welcome.
I believe in the advice of all the beekeepers(published or not) in the advantage of using bee races and husbandry practices best adapted to your region for the beat success for the "hobby" beekeeper. Over the width and breathe of our country how can anyone think that one type of honeybee and practices to house them could be or should be the exact same everywhere. Some things might be somewhat universal but others might be needed to be very different to "keep" HB's throughout our various regions, especially being faced with the many challenges to survival they are facing in our man altered environment. Being said winter is one of the toughest things to survive where I live and anyone making it thru them here firsthand knows the advantages of an INSULATED home if you need to stay warm to live. So I see that as a critical thing to address over beekeepers that can winter in our milder regions. As that direction is not(YET) nearly as practiced here in the US(as I can find) I am going to stumble off on that path, I hope with the sharing of info with any others also interested.
So far I have three insulated hive designs that I have built to start with. A 20 DD(18") frame Lazutin hive design, a modified, insulated DD(18") brood based Langstroth hive, uninsulated supers and a Lewicki design hive(a horizontal design that has DD frames with a brood area and an excluded honey frame area, like a lang on it side).
I also am trying to overcome the issue of installing single deep nuc frames in my new DD hives. Our first attempt two years ago didn't go well in that I thought that a good way to get them off them quickly would be to install them into the lower portion of the hive(on temp ear rails) as I thought as they couldn't build new comb down on them they would move over to DD frames. I also misunderstood Lazutin suggestion that once the hive is inspected in the spring to not disturb them the rest of the summer if things appear well from the outside. This lead to the bees having prospered but they built a winter core of deformed comb upward to top of hive(and just started on to DD frames before winter trapping themselves off from honey reserves above them wanted on DD frames and they starved. Also the Nuc wasn't delivered until late June, they were Italian bees and our winter was coldest in 50 yrs(3/-38F nights in a row).
Took me to two years to source bee cert Russian (I think better adapted to our attitude and as close to the "Northern European Dark Bee" I can yet find Lazutin are best matched to his methods and area. We have jumped in again with a nuc of these bees and a deeper understanding of Lazutins writings as several reading have found their way into better detail I hope(sadly Lazutin is no longer alive to inquire of hi thoughts). This time we searched new nuc for the frame with queen and installed the int the Lazutin hive(which we decided to start with) in the pattern he suggests with two DD foundation frames against one wall then the undisturbed nuc queen frame then the other 4 frames(of 5 F nuc) we brushed/smoked bees into hive(which has the extra space below frames prescribed) so we were OK when we attached another 9" frame under them and we put into hive over them. Stray bees found way into hive as they returned. Then we put 3 more DD frames to the open area side of hive as our first inspection. S 12 F's - F/F/F/NDD/NDD/NDD/NDD/NDD/QN/F/F.
We went with two plastic 9" deep frames attached together(with masonry wall ties) as it was pretty easy to do, they attach very aligned and are very solid. They are mark matched so they can be separated and fit in any standard extractor. Bees are filling them out well though we are having spotty issues on some we waxed ourselves). Starting supplies being limited for some of us such as frames, wax, used comb(especially on DD F's).
We were informed of Russian capacity of spring build up and we got them in late April this time. We thought we were set until mid summer with room for the bees but the bees filled the frames we had by early June and all we had was enough(unwaxed) frame to fill hive and we were just learning that there were different sizes of cells in plastic(which would be OK for Russians and there was drone comb(did we need it?) and in the time to figure it all out. We filled out hive with prewaxed frames but it had already went swarm mode and we got our first one mid June. It was captured in several attempts(very high 35,very hard, against tree trunk). NOT the docile bee shake so often talked about. Got it installed in Mod-Lang hive but as we only captured about 50% of swarm needed to get a feeder/pollen patties. Whew! Lot more to learn so far than I had planned. Two weeks later an after swarm(dream swarm on a branch 5' high - easy peasy).but we needed way more frames(now Covid shortage).
So now we are three colonies. One mother swarm w/ mated queen, laying brood. One after swarm, virgin queen?, new comb no brood yet. One original nuc colony, lot of bees, virgin queen?, no brood in used brood comb(being filled with honey). So much to learn about at once. ALL filtered to be applicable to three different INSULATED hive designs and Russian race bees. Good news lots of bees(two colonies of which are now all on DD frames), have excellent nectar resources for colony reserves but a lot too learn about getting colonies back to brood production(getting virgin queens mated). I am not near any apiaries I am aware of. Do I have enough drones of my own or maybe feral? Will there be a DCA around me?
Things learned so far: 1)If you want to use plastic frames wax, wax, wax, more is better than less. 2)Lazutin speaks of the use of the hive opening as a means to move the bees brood comb thru hive(queen likes to lay brood close to opening). I think I underemphasized this and did not move my portion of the hive long slit opening to maybe prevent swarming. I am not anti- swarm just wasn't ready for it this year. 3)Lazutin also suggests as little bee disturbance as possible but I think now he is talking about the developing winter core than just checking the hive to add frames, activity etc if weather/temp is not detrimental. 4) be prepared for the next thing if you can - bees don't appear to interested in my schedule/plans, lol.
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