Any Beekeepers? Need a little help...

[Inor]

I have wanted to build beehives for about 4 years. The reason I haven't yet is because neither Mrs Inor nor I are that keen on actually having to care for the bees once the hives are built. I know there are a million reason why we should: bees wax, honey, pollinating the gardens and trees... But at the end of the day, building the hives sounds like a LOT of fun, maintaining the bees afterwards, not so much.

About a week ago a lady down the road from us mentioned that she is interested in getting into beekeeping! She is about 1/2 mile from us so our gardens and trees are definitely within the range that will benefit from her keeping bees. She and her husband are preppers, conservatives, Christians and are becoming good friends. They helped us out a LOT the first couple weeks after I broke my ankle, so I offered to make the hives for her.

Not knowing shit about beehives, other than what I read in a couple books, I decided I should start with making up some sample frames and testing out the different comb foundations to get those sized property. Once I get the exact frame sizes worked out, building the actual boxes, inner and outer covers and the base should be pretty easy. (There seem to be some standards for the sizes but I am not sure how close the folks that sell the foundation material actually stick to the standards.)

So today I whacked together some prototypes for the frames. I made one set for the plastic foundation and one for the wax foundation. I also made one pair of frames for the brood box and one pair for medium honey supers.

The pair for the plastic foundation:



And the pair for the wax:



The plans that I found online were pretty good except the dimensions were a little wonky. If you took the time to add up up the dimensions of all the cut lines, they did not add up to the total size of the part and nowhere in the plans was there any consideration for the width of the saw kerf. Also, some of the parts seemed far too fragile to be prying on them with basically a small pry bar when they are full of honey. So I took some liberties to beef up the sizes a little bit. Once the glue dried, they seem pretty solid - at least solid enough to hold 5-6 pounds of honey.

I gave them off to our neighbor, Julie, this afternoon so she can get some sample foundations and we can see how they fit and make whatever adjustments need to be made before going into production.

I am pretty excited about this project! It is going to be fun!

[Sasquatch]

My grandfather used to keep bee's and I would help him collect honey. We'd suit up and I'd just do whatever he said. So I really have no knowledge of bee keeping. That said, I'm going to keep an eye on this thread because Hot Nursey wants to start keeping bees for the honey and other good stuff. Which means I will be keeping the bees and, like Inor, I'm not to excited about the work it entails.

So I'll be looking on and taking notes.

[Slippy]

Watch out for the African-American Bees. I've heard those bastards can be a real pain in the ass...

[Prepared One]

I hate bees. That is all.

[Mad Trapper]

I've not raised bees/honey but my cousins do. If you have bears in your area the only thing that keeps them out is electricity.





BTW, I had bear problem here last week. I left barn door open and went inside for breakfast/coffee, came back to see stuff from barn strewn outside door, and large bruin sitting on haunches outside dining on sack of sunflower seeds. This is morning in the daytime.......He huffed at me then took off.

I keep seeds (sunflower/bird , buckwheat, winter rye, clover, etc ) in metal garbage can in barn to keep rodents out. Barn was a mess.....

I called DFW, they said OK to use "lead poison" on him if he comes back and is damaging property again....

[bigwheel]

Good job. Anytrhing you need to know about bees...kindly axe Slippy

[Dwight55]

The easy way . . . and the way most of all the folks I've ever been around . . . they had just a few things.

I have had bees for years . . . lost em last year to something weird . . . did not bother getting any back this year . . . plan on starting 2 hives next year.

All you need basically is a landing board (that's the slanted thing you see in the picture) . . . 2 deep brood boxes . . . and 1 or 2 or 3 shallow boxes for honey collection.

Fix some kind of overhanging top to help shade them some. Put them on the east side of whatever building you want to mess with . . .

OR . . . some guys have put them in a building . . . allowing them ample space to come and go . . . but it keeps the hives cooler . . . and is a bunch easier to work and take care of. Plus you stay in the building out of the "outdoors" while you are working with them.

Some folks put a queen excluder between the shallow (top) and deep boxes (bottom) . . . I have one . . . never used it.

You in Arizona . . . will have to watch out that your hives don't get overtaken by the africanized bees . . . I don't have to worry here in Ohio. I guess they are really nasty.

Anyway . . . get your wax in the frames . . . don't mess around trying to build the frames . . . they are a lot cheaper purchased for the first time . . . then if you want . . . have at it.

Get the wax it . . . get ten frames in each box . . . start the bees in one deep brood box . . . dump them in the box and put the queen in there . . . in her little apartment. Come back in a couple of days or so . . . and you'll see they have released her . . .

You will have left one frame out for her apartment . . . toss the apartment and insert the frame. Let them work that frame for a couple weeks by itself . . . then add the second deep brood box.

Give that a couple of weeks . . . then add one of the honey supers.

The queen will work the bottom box until it is full then move up to the upper one . . . normally she won't go higher . . . because it is enough work for her to keep up with the frames emptying in the bottom of the hive. Put in the excluder . . . and she won't get into your honey supply.

In the picture . . . you'll see the top tipped up . . . we do that to keep the hive cooler . . . plus at the top under the cover you see a little hole in the middle of the lid there where bees are gathered . . . that is an upper entrance. I also made a middle entrance for them which gives them a quicker way in . . . it has a 1/2 inch by 1 1/4 inch opening . . . is a 3/4 inch piece of pine that is only around the outside of the frames . . . and goes between the shallow box and the deep boxes.

I robbed my bees about mid September . . . taking honey only from the shallow super(s) . . . and usually would get about 10 quarts per hive.

When cooler weather starts coming in . . . you put in an entrance restricter at the bottom . . . take out the upper piece I just mentioned above . . . leave the top opening though.

Leave the entrance restricter in there for the winter . . . when you see them really out starting to be busy . . . you MUST DO one thing. Go to the deep brood boxes . . . take the top one off and put it on the bottom . . . and the bottom one of cours on top. That starts her out in the bottom . . . because she moved up to the upper deep box for the winter . . . it being warmer up there.

About the 1st of May . . . put on the first honey super . . . check it occasionally . . . if and when it gets about 70% full . . . add another shallow box on top.

That is all we ever did . . . got plenty of honey for the effort expended . . .

May God bless,
Dwight

[Inor]

The easy way . . . and the way most of all the folks I've ever been around . . . they had just a few things.

I have had bees for years . . . lost em last year to something weird . . . did not bother getting any back this year . . . plan on starting 2 hives next year.

All you need basically is a landing board (that's the slanted thing you see in the picture) . . . 2 deep brood boxes . . . and 1 or 2 or 3 shallow boxes for honey collection.

Fix some kind of overhanging top to help shade them some. Put them on the east side of whatever building you want to mess with . . .

OR . . . some guys have put them in a building . . . allowing them ample space to come and go . . . but it keeps the hives cooler . . . and is a bunch easier to work and take care of. Plus you stay in the building out of the "outdoors" while you are working with them.

Some folks put a queen excluder between the shallow (top) and deep boxes (bottom) . . . I have one . . . never used it.

You in Arizona . . . will have to watch out that your hives don't get overtaken by the africanized bees . . . I don't have to worry here in Ohio. I guess they are really nasty.

Anyway . . . get your wax in the frames . . . don't mess around trying to build the frames . . . they are a lot cheaper purchased for the first time . . . then if you want . . . have at it.

Get the wax it . . . get ten frames in each box . . . start the bees in one deep brood box . . . dump them in the box and put the queen in there . . . in her little apartment. Come back in a couple of days or so . . . and you'll see they have released her . . .

You will have left one frame out for her apartment . . . toss the apartment and insert the frame. Let them work that frame for a couple weeks by itself . . . then add the second deep brood box.

Give that a couple of weeks . . . then add one of the honey supers.

The queen will work the bottom box until it is full then move up to the upper one . . . normally she won't go higher . . . because it is enough work for her to keep up with the frames emptying in the bottom of the hive. Put in the excluder . . . and she won't get into your honey supply.

In the picture . . . you'll see the top tipped up . . . we do that to keep the hive cooler . . . plus at the top under the cover you see a little hole in the middle of the lid there where bees are gathered . . . that is an upper entrance. I also made a middle entrance for them which gives them a quicker way in . . . it has a 1/2 inch by 1 1/4 inch opening . . . is a 3/4 inch piece of pine that is only around the outside of the frames . . . and goes between the shallow box and the deep boxes.

I robbed my bees about mid September . . . taking honey only from the shallow super(s) . . . and usually would get about 10 quarts per hive.

When cooler weather starts coming in . . . you put in an entrance restricter at the bottom . . . take out the upper piece I just mentioned above . . . leave the top opening though.

Leave the entrance restricter in there for the winter . . . when you see them really out starting to be busy . . . you MUST DO one thing. Go to the deep brood boxes . . . take the top one off and put it on the bottom . . . and the bottom one of cours on top. That starts her out in the bottom . . . because she moved up to the upper deep box for the winter . . . it being warmer up there.

About the 1st of May . . . put on the first honey super . . . check it occasionally . . . if and when it gets about 70% full . . . add another shallow box on top.

That is all we ever did . . . got plenty of honey for the effort expended . . .

May God bless,
Dwight

Excellent info! Thanks!

Do you think the wax foundation will hold up okay to the AZ heat or should I go plastic?

How frequently do you have to check on them? If we do end up growing them ourselves, not just building the hives for the lady down the road, I really want to minimize the time commitment.

Do you feed them in the winter? If so, how often? Do you leave a full super for them to make it through the winter?

I assume the queen wears out after a season or two. Do they take care of replacing the queen when she is no good anymore or is that something I need to worry about?

The killer bees are a concern, no doubt about that. From reading blogs from a couple folks around here that keep bees, there is not much we can do about it beyond praying. If they get attacked by Africa bees, they get attacked. If we do this, I think I am going to put the hives well outside our fence line just to keep any issues well away from where people and animals are. I have a few acres outside our fence that I own just to keep anybody from building near us. That might be a good use for that land. The cattle will be able to go near them, but I expect a couple T-posts should keep the hives standing if a cow decides to scratch herself against it?

I agree, buying frames would be easier and probably just as cheap. But... I made some jigs for building them and it is just a project that I want to try. Plus, I have a bunch of #2 pine left over from building the chicken shack and shovel shack that are too big to cut up and burn, but too small to do anything useful with. (That is the downside to being too cheap to throw anything away.)

[Dwight55]

Excellent info! Thanks!

Do you think the wax foundation will hold up okay to the AZ heat or should I go plastic?

I cannot tell you the ladie's name . . . and she is most likely passed on by now . . . she and her husband had a couple hundred stands of bees in the high desert area . . . and I'm thinking near Tucson. Varroa mites are a problem with bees . . . and her and her husband used smaller cells . . . (google small cell bees) and got rid of the problem. She used all wax comb . . . far as I know from reading years ago.

Plastic is used more for those wanting to extract the honey with a sling extractor. I don't mess with that . . . just cut the wax and frame out . . . mash it all up . . . put it in a collandar (or 2) and let it drain. Turn it over the next day (wax in the collandar) . . . and put it in the jars . . . seal em up. That's the hillbilly . . . non labor intensive way of doing it.

How frequently do you have to check on them? If we do end up growing them ourselves, not just building the hives for the lady down the road, I really want to minimize the time commitment.

I would peek in at the most once a month . . . and often times . . . once in July was all they got. They're good at taking care of themselves.

Do you feed them in the winter? If so, how often? Do you leave a full super for them to make it through the winter?

No . . . I leave them the two large boxes at the bottom. The hive will die down to a manageable "winter" brood . . . then expand when spring pops up. I usually put sugar water feeders on about the 1st of March . . . the queen gets faked into thinking spring has sprung . . . starts laying like crazy . . . so there are plenty of bees when spring and the flowers do appear.

I assume the queen wears out after a season or two. Do they take care of replacing the queen when she is no good anymore or is that something I need to worry about?

Some folks do every other year or every third year . . . go in and kill the old queen (smash her with their fingers) . . . and put a new queen in her "apartment" in there. I never bothered . . . but I probably should have . . . it keeps them from swarming and hitting you with a 6 week dead spell while the workers that are left hatch out a new queen and she gets to work.

The killer bees are a concern, no doubt about that. From reading blogs from a couple folks around here that keep bees, there is not much we can do about it beyond praying. If they get attacked by Africa bees, they get attacked. If we do this, I think I am going to put the hives well outside our fence line just to keep any issues well away from where people and animals are. I have a few acres outside our fence that I own just to keep anybody from building near us. That might be a good use for that land. The cattle will be able to go near them, but I expect a couple T-posts should keep the hives standing if a cow decides to scratch herself against it?

I would build a 6 or 8 ft high wall . . . with sides on it . . . put the hive (s) in the enclosure . . . put them a foot or so away from the wall . . . and on the east side of the wall. Also make sure your hive openings all face the east . . . minimizes on the heat problem to a certain extent.

I agree, buying frames would be easier and probably just as cheap. But... I made some jigs for building them and it is just a project that I want to try. Plus, I have a bunch of #2 pine left over from building the chicken shack and shovel shack that are too big to cut up and burn, but too small to do anything useful with. (That is the downside to being too cheap to throw anything away.)

The bottom piece is the hard part to get just right . . . that's why I suggested the first hive be purchased stuff . . . then make the next ones.

You also want to read this article. https://www.keepingbackyardbees.com/...all-cell-bees/

This is the foundation I use . . . it is only for the large brood boxes . . . I don't buy wired wax for the honey frames in the smaller boxes. https://www.betterbee.com/foundation...fnd-12-5lb.asp Plus I don't buy small cell foundation for the honey cells. The queen is not laying up there . . . so cell size is unimportant.

[Slippy]

https://www.thepollinators.net

A good documentary on bees.

References to insecticides, fungicides etc as well as government goal of simplified legislated and regulated farming aimed at ethanol and corn as well as as soy production and the harm it has had on the bee population in the US.

Get the government out of farming and eliminate 80% of the EPA dept...eliminate 99% of all EPA regulations since the Clinton era and things get better.

Oh and eliminate ethanol completely and all farming subsidies.