Bob, lm starting to think robing isnt so bad either. It eliminates bad genes and in the meantime makes strong colonys even stronger. Nature knows what its doing.
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Thank you Don
Well, I have had the first since 2020 I think and the second one 2022, I think they are pretty easy to build and use. I like that they build their own combs and that it is simple to harvest, how it is to divide the hive I will probably find out this year. I also have a detatchable bottom box with a metal mesh in the bottom, the box is filled with rotting wood, leaves and other things from a forest floor. The idea is to simulate a hollow tree for them and create a habitat for the insects and other creatures that live in them, supposedly they will eat varroa mites but I am not sure if it works or not, I have not made a varroa count yet this year but I will report when I have. I am a bit hesitant about treating against varroa too, even with Tymol (thyme oil), in Norway there is a commercial beekeeper that has bred varroa resistant bees through natural selection but realistically I will never get to that so perhaps better to treat them if needed.
So generally I think I like the topbar hive becaue of not needing expensive machines and tools, the bees are calm in it and I dont use smoke either, just a spraybottle of water and hardly even that is necessary.
Comfortable work height, no heavy lifting.
I havent harvested propolis or pollen yet, the farm has taken too much time together with the regular job for me to study on how to do it.
I however liked the Anastasia hive too and would like to build one of those someday.
I hope you get some nice bees in your nuke hives Bob
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I agree with what you are saying Kristijan. This queen was producing really good. She was my first queen of my first swarm. I hoping she was just hiding from me and not gone. She has always been a shy queen.
Would love to do a split from these bees if possible.
A big storm just rolled over the mountains winds and snowing up higher, cold rain for us down by the river. Temps dropping fast. Good news is I am going inside to work where it is dry.
Bob
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I see we have exactly the same thods of it. I did however find it much less āproductiveā thain other hive sistems.
Do you feed them?
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Yes, i think that they are less productive too but I think the benefits are worth some too and if they produce less I am pretty ok with. Then I can have more hives until our neds are fulfilled and the benefit of āspreading the riskā if we lose a hive to winter, varroa or something else.
I do not feed the bees, I leave honey for them to last over winter. They take care of themselves, I just do varroacounts (at the cost of some bees) and a checkup of the hive at the ame time and the surplus honey harvest, thats pretty much it. And oh yes, I am adding a little insulation on top of the top bars and against the window in the hive for winter but the next hive build I will go up from 32mm thick walls to 45-50mm with the same inside measurements (so everything is interchangeable) to get more wood insulating walls.
Edit: The reason for not feeding them is that I think since they made the honey to save for later food that must be the best thing for them to eat, not processed sugar, so if they provide some honey for us, I make sure that they still have enough for winter at the cost of the honey for ourselves.
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I too want to try a top bar hive and try to make some sort of a log type 30Ā° angle hive.
Bob
Like the Anastasia hive that Kristijan talked about a while back? That one made me want to build one too.
If you want I can see if I can translate some building plans for the ones I have
Thank you that would be great. I like to look at what other countries are doing in the way of bee hives.
Bob
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Iāll see what I can do
Scout Bees are checking the hive out.
Bob
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Hi Bob, I cut and pasted together a word document for you and I have to admit that I used google translate on it to get it to english so there could be weird translations I suppose. But it is a pretty big piece of text and I am not sure to how to proceed, should I paste it in here and have a very long post or is there another way that perhaps is obvious to everybody else but me?
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You could put it on Google Docs and send a link for viewing.
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Thanks Cody
I tried to make one now and I apologize for the crude layout, hopefully it works
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Maybe the scout bees like the flake board ācamoā. I have also heard bees from your own hives want to swarm a fair distance away from the mother hive, like a few hundred feet or more? to lessen competition.
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Just save myself more than a $1000.00 building this.
YEHOVAH God You are so good to me. Thank You in and by Your Word Yesuha, Jesus the Son our Savior.
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it looks good. You will want to look for another freezer basket or some wire to extend the basket up the full length of the frame. The basket is to help hold the comb in the frame when it is spinning fast and loaded with honey. The comb will pop out of the frame if it is spun to fast.
It will also make flipping the frames over and putting new frames in the extractor a lot faster.
Be thankful for the motor, we hand cranked ours the first yearā¦ 
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Actually I thought about it while driving, and you may not like this because you did a lot of work with the basket already, but you could undo the basket and you have two halves that are long enough to cover the frames, then ours had flat stock frame that attached at the 4 corners at the top and bottom. There was maybe a 1/2 gap between the tank and the corner. There has to be enough space to get the large super between the X it makes. and you want the frame as far out as possible.
The OTHER thing is, because it is two frames, it may shake a lot because it isnāt super well balanced. You may need a counterweight or feet or someway to clamp it to something else. Ours shook with 2 frames, but it was wider and more pronounced because it was a 4 frame version.
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Sean, with the larger Langstrough/Layens frames I have a clamp that goes over the two frames at the top. They have plenty of clearance from the wall when spinning. I can also put any size langstrough frames in the basket small, medium, larger.
Granted this is only a two frame extractor spinner. But it will be a lot faster then gravity dripping or crushing comb and draining through a strainer. I do have foundations for the honey frames and for the brood I have nonfoundations frames with wire for my brood frames. All my honey exstraction frames have foundations with wire supper strong.
I was spinning the frames at high speed with no problems. This is a lot faster then is really needed.
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We used to spin them out even with the hand crank, but our foundations were wax with wire. But they were going fast enough they were flexing. The closer the frames are to the more force that gets applied the faster the honey comes out. It will be faster then the other methods for sure and you probably arenāt trying to do 15 supers in a day.
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I have right now 4 medium frame supers and two 31 frame Langstroth / Layens long hive boxes. Harvesting honey for family and friends.
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