Ha, is it a coincidence l did bee supply shoping right on international bees day?
Bought some frames and hangers and stuff, its allso exactly one week since l installed a swarm in my empty Warre hive. They built half a box in the time, wich is great progress. This is allso the ideal time to treat for varroa.
The guy l bought the swarm from recomended me l buy a certain oxalic acid vaporiser. Around 150$. All sounds good but l had a different price in mind
Heat with a torch, pour the acid in the top plug (has a nice cavity that holds exactly 2.5g) and screw it in (vaporiser up side down). When ready, turn it right side up, the acid falls to the hot bottom and vaporises imediatly. Works good and costs about 3$ to make. Thats more like my kind of price
Traditional beekeeping in Slovenia is done in a so called AĹ˝ hive. The hive looks like a cubbord with the door and mesh on the back side. Such hives can be stacked one on top and next to each other to form a wall, wery practical. Its good for âindustrialâ beekeeping but not so much for reproducing purposes, where frequent hive checking is needed. At least in my opinion.
When there are a lot of bees in, its sometimes hard to pull out so l bought hangers and will try to make a few nukes that open from the top, then transplant to the doubledecker hives. Will report on the progress.
My bees had no treatment last year, and went into the winter appearing strong. I placed them on a pallet with 8mm openings in the inner cover (for ventilation so ice doesnât build up in the top of the hive, starving the bees by blocking movement from frame to frame), winter wrapped, bottom entrances reduced to 8mm, insulated roof put over top, fall feeding by frame feeders.
They all made it through the winter. 30% winter hive death is considered normal.
I put in Apistan mite strips as a precaution when I placed them out 2 weeks ago, but no signs of mites. But there are too many commercial beehives around to rely on that, or maybe risk causing a problem for others.
You treet whenever there is no brood in the hive. Oxalic only works on adult bees, not in the cells like formic.
When you install a swarm, when the new queen hasnt started to lay yet and in winter.
A way is allso to cage the queen for 21 days, let her go then treat a few days after. All the brood is hatched and the new brood is yet uncapped.
Michael, Iâm sorry for your loss. I decided to pick up beekeeping again, and have a show hive here at work (on camera when they want a weather picture) . last year work management contacted a local bee âpreservationâ group (company) that moved a 2 deep hive here. They asked me about doing it, I gave them a startup cost estimate, and they went with the âfeel-goodâ company. I had spent a week preparing the âperfectâ area, landscaping, wind block, etc. Just as they perscribed. The hive was pretty-painted by a local artist. The bees looked healthy (but got mean fast, so I was wondering if the queen was OK), but the âfeel-goodâ company never came back to even open up the entrance reducer, let alone check on hive health. I had to stand by and watch. The bees were all dead, and the hive robbed out in Spring. This year, I offered to start again, since the feel good company had been ignoring our attempts to contact them. I got permission (since I said I would pay all expenses) to start a new hive. I got an order in literally past the last minute to get a spring package (It was a God thing, Praise the Lord!) MY bees are doing fine, although I need to check againâŚIâm still new at this mite thing. Need to do a sugar-roll or something As soon as the feel-good company got wind of my hive, they refused to work with me and took their painted-pretty empty-dead hive away. Time will tell If I did the right thing. Seems promising so far. I think they might have thrown a swarm when I was looking the other way. Bees! are crazier than ME!!
My neighbor and I each set up 2 hives (2 deep) and bought 4 local nucs. $$$. All the bees seem to be thriving but no open hive inspections have been done.
On these warm 75 degree days I love sitting about 6 feet away and watch them buzzing. The blackberries are in full bloom now.
I was inspecting the bees and playing with the new varroa counting app a bit so l ended up with lots of pictures. Thod l wuld share if anyone is interested.
I have 5 hives with 3 different hive systems. So far l like the Longstroth style the most. The Warre hive ( natural comb) just had a bad swarm installed, all bees were treated equaly yet the Warre hive just doesent do good. No varroa on sight from the other 4 but this one is terible. I dont want weak bees so l will leave them to nature and not help them much moreâŚ
Mr bear came calling and was quite rude.
At least he didnât destroy the hives, mostly just knocked every thing over.
I spent the day resetting everything and set up a motion light and trail camera. Hoping I can catch him having a shocking surprise.
One of my hives survived the winter. Now that a few days have gone above 50 degrees they are beginning to get active.
On a 60 degree day about a week ago I gave them an oxalis acid treatment.
Bought a nuc of local bees and set it up in the dead hive.
Yesterday warmed up to 70 degrees and they were really happy.
Has anyone ever used the horazonal hive system for rising bees here on this site and how has it worked out for you lately after this last season.
I am thinking about building one of these hives. I like the no heavy boxes to stack and lift.
The hives are set up and designed for a more natural way bees live and expand in building their combs in their hives. Also you do not need to disturb the whole hive when expanding it for bee growth.
Lots of free designs on horizontalhive.com by Dr. Leo Sharashkin and others have now expanded with their improvements and designs modifications. I am reposting this site that Al Frick @trikebuilder57 posted. Thanks Al it is a great site for natural bee keeping. It is also very inexpensive way to get into bee keeping by recycling wood to make everything. The frames that holds the comb sits in is taller and not as wide frame as the American commercial bee keeping comb frames. Very interesting reading of how the rest of the world keeping their bees and how they treat their bees to keep them healthy.
People are now building longer horizal hive boxes that fit more the commercial frames size so they donât have to stack and unstack their boxes.
Bob
Well I had 2 wild swarms I caught last year in a double horizontal hive, they did great, but became honey bound, and died over the winter. It was my fault I didnât take any honey from them last summer, wanting them to have enough food for winter. They filled all 14 frames with honey, none left for brood, so there wasnât enough bees to keep warm. The nuc I bought last spring is doing fine, they were the ones I was concerned about not making it.
I decided to pick up beekeeping again, and have a show hive here at work (on camera when they want a weather picture) . last year work management contacted a local bee âpreservationâ group (company) that moved a 2 deep hive here. They asked me about doing it, I gave them a startup cost estimate, and they went with the âfeel-goodâ company. I had spent a week preparing the âperfectâ area, landscaping, wind block, etc. Just as they perscribed. The hive was pretty-painted by a local artist. The bees looked healthy (but got mean fast, so I was wondering if the queen was OK), but the âfeel-goodâ company never came back to even open up the entrance reducer, let alone check on hive health. I had to stand by and watch. The bees were all dead, and the hive robbed out in Spring. This year, I offered to start again, since the feel good company had been ignoring our attempts to contact them. I got permission (since I said I would pay all expenses) to start a new hive. I got an order in literally past the last minute to get a spring package (It was a God thing, Praise the Lord!) MY bees are doing fine, although I need to check againâŚIâm still new at this mite thing. Need to do a sugar-roll or something 
As soon as the feel-good company got wind of my hive, they refused to work with me and took their painted-pretty empty-dead hive away. Time will tell If I did the right thing. Seems promising so far. I think they might have thrown a swarm when I was looking the other way. Bees! are crazier than ME!!
The nuc I bought last spring is doing fine, they were the ones I was concerned about not making it.