Hi all, we were gifted a Warre hive after a friend could no longer properly care for it, all the boxes were empty. We purchased a package of bees in May and we were off to the races!
We quickly went from 1 box to 2 to 3 and finally put our 4th box in late July. We live in Boise, ID and things are starting to cool down. We have a couple of questions:
3 box are very full (see photo), the bottom box is completely empty. I am worried about, given the cold winters, that keeping the 4th empty box on the bottom would be bad for the colony. Thoughts?
Given we have 3 full boxes, can we take the top box off and extract all the honey? We are in this for the bees, not for the honey, but there seems to be a lot.
We also need to treat for mites once(if) we take honey. We haven't separated any of the boxes all year. When we crack the seals between the boxes, is there a risk that the comb will be attached between the boxes (comb above attached to top bars below)? I am worried about damaging the comb in order to treat.
Thank you very much in advance!
We quickly went from 1 box to 2 to 3 and finally put our 4th box in late July. We live in Boise, ID and things are starting to cool down. We have a couple of questions:
3 box are very full (see photo), the bottom box is completely empty. I am worried about, given the cold winters, that keeping the 4th empty box on the bottom would be bad for the colony. Thoughts?
Given we have 3 full boxes, can we take the top box off and extract all the honey? We are in this for the bees, not for the honey, but there seems to be a lot.
We also need to treat for mites once(if) we take honey. We haven't separated any of the boxes all year. When we crack the seals between the boxes, is there a risk that the comb will be attached between the boxes (comb above attached to top bars below)? I am worried about damaging the comb in order to treat.
Thank you very much in advance!
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