This is probably my favourite, the wood bee. Its wonerfull in colour and realy big in size, sometimes bigger thain a hornet.
7 Likes
bob, what cell -size you have on the dark foundation plates?
ciao giorgio
1 Like
OK BOB MACK- i got a bee hive questain- how do you keep your hives under 104-r degrees in hot summer- since anything over that temp destroys the health quallitys.THANKS.
Donât be too hard on yourself, Bob! It is often hard to determine what the problem was that caused the hive to die out. There are so many variables, and it could be a combination of factors. Remember in the bad old days of straw skeps, a beekeeper had to destroy a hive to harvest the honey, wax and pollen. Now a hive can be harvested and preserved to serve again another year if the beekeeper leaves food for the bees to overwinter. You got a lot of high-quality honey from them, so their conditions must have been mostly good! 
3 Likes
5 mm cells OD. 4.5 mm ID , no drone size cells on the foundation. Works good for both honey and brood cells.
Bob
2 Likes
That is a great question, bees do their own venting in side the hive of air movements on the hive frames and direct the air where it needs to be by their wings and body heat. The nectar on the comb needs the water to be evaporated out of it. The bood area needs to be keeped at it production temperatures. They do it all. It is better not to have the hive in direct sun light in the summer months making to hot. A little shade helps them a lot I have found out in honey producion. In the winter months all the sun light they can get on the hive box is good.
Bob
2 Likes
THANKS again, sounds like a movable hive or roof cover might be help full , i would have a lot too learn keeping bees.IF i ever try starting a small bee hive untill i learn more, i know who to ask.
2 Likes
I put up my first Nuke swarm hive today. I need to get busy and build more Layen/Langstroth frames.
Got it hung up leveled up, went to the garage to build the bottom subport to hold it level. Came back and there were a couple of bees checking it out. Finished up on it. Prayed to the Great Heavenly Farther Yehovah God by His Word Yesuha to bring me some faral bees for the empty hive. And for His Name sake a bee went inside to check the Nuke out. Thank You Yehovah In the Name of Yesuha the Savior.
Bob
10 Likes
Yesterday I went out to the hive to check on the bees. I notice bees going in to the hive with no resoures, humm open up the hive and it was just full of bees robbing the hive out. Checked all the frames could not find the queen she was probably hiding. Quickly did a walk a way split is what came to me to do. Added more resoures of honey frames I had in the freezer. Closed up the hive with the divider wall in place. And blocked the enterance of the hive, prayed that I did the right thing.
I called my friend Matt and talked to him. He said with them robber bees locked in the hive they might switch over the queen in that hive. And the split might make a emergency queen.
This morning on watching one of my favority bee ranglers. This is what he calls himself. And wow he talked about what to do if your hive is getting robbed out. He said keep the robbers in that hive for three or four days and the robbers will become part of the new hive under the queen. If I can get the slit to make a queen I will have to colonies instead of one.
He was talking about how he uses the double screen board slit method and how that works.
I am going to build me some double sreen boards for my long hive. He uses them on his double deep boxes. Jeff is amazing guy he goes by Mr. ED. He Just Loves Jesus and thanks Him all the time when he finds the Queen when he does his cut outs on farral bee swarms that get into houses and out builds.
Thank you and bless you Yehovah God and thank for Yesuha the Son for showing me the right thing to do.
Bob
10 Likes
Here is a video of the robber bees at work.
After the video I did put on my bee gear and opened the hive, used lots of smoke. Robber bees and the hive bees were battling it out in there and they did not like me doing any refereeing.
I found what I was looking for going through each frame, one of the frames had some emergency cells on it found two hached out and one not competed and one not hatch out. That tells me I lost the queen in this colony.
All I can do is close the enterance up to this hive and hope the robbers stop coming back. I hope the smaller split will make a emergency cell queen. Then she needs to go out get mated a come back. If this happens then maybe I can convert the bigger hive over to a new queen.
Some of the bees were very small bees they were a lot smaller then the bees in this hive. Also noticed some drones fly into the hive and were on the frames that I was inspecting. I have heard that drones will drift to other hive for a free meal.
It looks like I will be needing a swarm of bees or two. I take three or four God willing.
There is a blessing in all that is happening here if I do lose this hive colony or have to put it in a small nuke box.
I will be able to put foundations in all the frames this will prevent the cross combing problems I have been having. Instead of slowly rotating the frames out. The have case of foundations standing by to do this change over and have been putting foundations in my extra frames.
Bob
5 Likes
Thanks fot posting your famley bee hive honey reserves- i learned a lot in that vidio-dident realize queens can be in short supply at times- keep us posted- i like to see them find a queen and get organized for honey-production.THOSE watch man bees can be pretty wild.
2 Likes
I think they only have a couple of days to start a new queen cell. It is only a couple of weeks for a new queen.
If you have stronger hives, you might start a new queens.
The entrance is too big and the hive doesnât have enough bees to have guards to defend the whole area. Just make the entrance small, because the bees need to get in and out. They make entrance reducers but you can probably use duck tape in a pinch. They donât need -much- space like an inch or so until they recover if they get a new queen.
2 Likes
Yes I have the reducer hole entrance in place but the word got out to the bee world that there is a hive with resourcses to rob. It will be a miracle if this hive of bees is saved. Robber bees will spend the night in the hive and continue to robe it the next day.
I might just pull the frames out put what bees are left in a small nuke hive that they might be able to defend and move the hive to a different location. The robber bees will have no place to go back to there own hive. I have nevered tried this before so I do not know if it will work.
Bob
3 Likes
it needs to be super small like just big enough to allow a bee in. The reducers are actually too big. a pencil is probably about the size you need.
You can put those bees in another hive with a separator. They have to acclimate to each other which they do by smell. IIRC you put them on top and use a piece of newspaper in between the supers. It will take them a while to eat through the paper, and by that time they are familiar with each others smell. If that works, you could rear a frame of queens, and split the hive later.
I would look to see if there are any tiny eggs that they can make a new queen with first though. and figure out why they died back so far ie make sure it isnât a disease that you could be spreading to healthier hive. Which it doesnât sound like it is the problem and you probably have already looked but it doesnât hurt to mention it.
1 Like
60*f and sun today and the bees are busy, lots of legs full with pollen too.
There are my two top bar hives that I mentioned before and I thought Iâd make a smal video before I go to work, I kind of forgot I was filming when I was checking but did think of it in the end though so sorry for not talking so much.
10 Likes
Thanks for the video, very nice top bar design on the hives. I like the side door cut out observation.
Bob
4 Likes
The observation window is really nice, I didnât make one on the other one because I was in the process building it and got a call if I could pick up a swarm in a friends garden so the hive had to be finished fast, so no window and it is very missed to be able to check how much comb they built and how strong the hive is without disturbing them at all.
4 Likes
I enjoyed hearing your voice though anyway Johan!
5 Likes
Johan, they look so nice. Thanks for the video.
Whats your general thod of the tb hive? I tryed it and have mixed thodsâŚ
Dont worry about the camera shyness, l have found that in general, woodgasers tend to be lazy in some fealds. Explaining how your woodgas sistem works with pictures and text is one of them. So most here give up and rather make a narrated video 
4 Likes
A little up date on Yehovahâs Bees. And what is happening with the hive that was being robbed out.
Also I have three nuke hive traps up in the yard.
Bob
4 Likes