![\"I](\"https:\/\/www.gunsamerica.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/hive-honey-bee.jpg\" "\\"Prepping")
<\/a>I bought this book in paper form on Amazon<\/a>, because I don’t like to read books on the computer. It is in the public domain, so can be downloaded free as a PDF<\/a>, or sent to your Kindle. I bought several beekeeping books, but none were as helpful as this book.<\/p><\/div>\n As soon as you start out on your path to learn bees, someone is going to try to convince you to not buy a 10 frame Langstroth beehive. That is what nearly every commercial beekeeper in the world uses, so of course it must be bad. In my experience, this is a bunch of malarky. Beekeepers, even the big ones, are not “Big Agri.” Langstroth hives are statutory in some states, and several states have laws requiring that you use a hive with removable frames, which for the most part are Langstroth hives. 8 frame vs. 10 frame? That much I don’t know. But most beekeepers are using 10 frame Langstroth hives, patented in 1852.<\/p>\n Initially I faced that torrent of advice from “natural” beekeepers and got myself sold on what is called the Warre hive, otherwise known as The People’s Hive. It was designed by Emile Warre’ in France, after testing over 350 designs of the day. His book, (free PDF<\/a>)Beekeeping for All, was revolutionary for its day, but the Langstroth patent in 1852<\/a> changed everything, and I think for the better. As you’ll see in my video, the Warre hive doesn’t use frames, so the combs just hang from a top bar. The bees have to make the entire comb, and because there is no frame, if you damage the comb while extracting honey, which is usually the case, they have to make it all over again. The sales pitch of the people selling the Warre hive is that it is “all natural,” because according to the book, you rotate the hive bodies up, so there is never any comb that will be reused for more than one harvest. Theoretically this doesn’t trap bad bacteria and disease in the hive, but you won’t find any hard science behind this assumption. I tried the Warre method and didn’t find that the bees were willing to build comb below the existing hive body. I tried jumpstarting a frame both above and below the main brood nest, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do to get the Warre hive to work as it is supposed to. I am stuck with my single Warre hive with bees in it, but from what I have experienced, they are a waste of time and energy.<\/p>\n This was one of the frames from my Warre hive early on. The bees thrived, but they really haven’t been productive, despite months of feeding to build the initial comb. I don’t see an advantage to the top bar style hives whatsoever. The goal is to produce honey.<\/p><\/div>\n The same thing goes for what they usually call a “Top Bar Hive” or “Kenyan Hive.” The sales pitch on these hives are two. One is of course the “all natural” beekeeping, just because it isn’t a Langstroth, and then there is the price. The 30 bar hives start at like $100 including shipping on Ebay, and smaller hives are even less.<\/p>\n I was not able to order one more hive worth of bees (which I’ll explain below) last spring to start one of the Top Bar hives I purchased, but from what I can see, they have some of the same problems I experienced with the Warre hive. The Top Bar is a triangle design, which i theoretically the natural shape of the combs that the bees make. I would call that a misnomer, because eventually the bees fill any space you give them, though the combs do start out as triangle shape. In the Top Bar hive you’ll find the same thing I found with the Warre. Because there is no frame, the bees will attach part of the comb to the walls of the hive. You’ll see in the video I made of my Warre, this causes you to have to break apart the comb as you pull the bars. Could you slide a thin blade along the sides first? Yes, but I think you’re still going to break comb.<\/p>\n This is what my medium honey super frames looked like. They were solid honey.<\/p><\/div>\n The bigger question or survival is one of resource preservation. Why would you run a hive that requires the bees to make new comb? Do you need the beeswax for candles? I’d rather have the bees make food, and go to bed early.<\/p>\n I will also mention The Flow Hive here, because mine just came, even though I ordered it last spring. If you haven’t seen this thing, it is a new invention that drains honey through the inside of the frame. The Flow Hive promotions on Facebook last year were actually the impetus of me getting into beekeeping. I watched a couple Youtube videos on the subject, then ordered my bees, figuring that I’d figure it out, which I did. Now that my Flow Hive is here, I am disappointed that it came completely unassembled, and I haven’t really gotten into it yet. It looks like a neat idea. It is expensive in comparison. I would just get a 10 frame Langstroth for now if I were you, which I’m not.<\/p>\n You’ll see in the video that I had terrible problems with “bridge comb” when I first got my bees going. This only happened where I used plastic frames in my brood box, and my takeaway from this is not just to avoid these frames for brood boxes, but to also bee aware of bee supply stores. I bought these hives from my local bee supply, and they installed the bees in them for me. When I ordered the plastic frames, based on internet research, they didn’t say anything. It was only after the fact, when I told them that I had problems, that they told me they suggest wooden frames with a plastic comb, not full plastic combs. I have not yet tried their suggestion, but I did rescue those hives somewhat by swapping out some standard wooden frames with preformed wax comb.<\/p>\n To start your bees, it is hard for me to tell you to try anything besides wax comb at first. There is risk involved, because the beeswax has to come from somewhere, and that means potentially introducing another beekeeper’s problems into your hive. The risk is theoretical, and I have yet to find even one horror story, but you just never know. I’m trying to cover the bases for this article, so you don’t have to stumble on these issues as you begin your own research. Most likely I’ll start my next hive with wooden frames and plastic comb. In my problem hive I did find some wax moths, and they can’t invade hives that use plastic frames.<\/p>\n I didn’t take a lot of pictures or shoot any video when I installed my bees. We actually had a baby the same week. This is the box that bees come in when you buy the 3 lb. package. The hole holds a can of sugar syrup, and you just shake the bees out through the hole into the hive body. Spray them down good with sugar syrup first and you can do this bare handed as I did.<\/p><\/div>\n First let me back up a step. How exactly do I do this? You would be surprised at how easy it is to start bees. You order what are called “package bees” from one of dozens of suppliers online, and believe it or not, they mail you the bees, using USPS generally. Your local post office will probably call you frantic that you have to come pick up your bees, because they have never dealt with this before, but once you have the bees in hand it is pretty simple. Inside the box will be about 3 lbs of worker bees, and one impregnated queen bee, in her own little “queen cage.” You spray your bees down with sugar syrup, made in a spray bottle with half and half sugar and water, and then, after you remove a couple of frames from your hive, literally shake the bees into the hive. Then you can just put some frames back and brace the queen cage in between a couple. Close up the hive and check it in a couple of days. If the bees have not freed the queen by eating the candy plug at the end of her cage, you probably can just pry the cage open and shake her into the hive.<\/p>\n Package bees cost between $115 and $200 this year. I would check to see if a local bee supply store will be arranging for a shipment that you can go pick up at their store rather than ship it in, because often these are cheaper. Our local store in Miami<\/a>, South Florida Bee Supply, is only bringing in “nucs” this year, but last year they sold package bees for $90. A nuc is a small usually 4 frame hive that has already been started with a queen and workers, and that will already have some brood in it maturing. You’ll pay more for a nuc, but there will also be less chance of failure. I think that our supplier had a rough year and that is why they are only selling nucs.<\/p>\n I can’t tell you where to buy bees this year really. As I write this, if you Google “package bees 2016<\/a>,” you’ll get a lot of hits. Most of the early dates are already sold out, but I was able to get April delivery from Mountain Sweet Honey Supply<\/a>. Their base price is $135, and the shipping is very reasonable. I was able to snag a weekend special tonight for $115, so hopefully that’ll still be lit up when the Digest comes out Monday. I would have run this article a little earlier, because I know that the bees do sell out, but this is early enough to order bees.<\/p>\n The place I ordered from last year, Pigeon Mountain Apiaries<\/a>, still has bees available, but I have to warn you, as you can see from the end of my video, I can’t guarantee that the bees I got from them are not Africanized. Less than a year later they are extremely aggressive and when they sting, it produces a huge welt. They got into my suit and stung my face when I made the video, and the next day my face swelled up like a cantaloupe. That has not happened with the bees I got from South Florida Bee Supply. Pigeon Mountain had great customer service I have to say, but the nuc I ordered from them was not closed properly and my postman had to deal with flying bees. He put a bag over the nuc, so it was half dead when it arrived. They sent me a new queen and the hive did fine, as you can see. I am quite sure that they will vehemently deny that their bees have been Africanized, but you can judge for yourself.<\/p>\n The most important thing you can do after you install bees is to feed them, a lot. Dadant sells what I think is the best hive top feeder<\/a> for the 10 frame Langstroth hive. It is made of styrofoam, and goes for just under $30. Most hobby beekeepers will tell you to use bottle feeders, but after a ton of research last year I found that the pros all use hivetop feeders. A bottle feeder can only feed about 20 bees at one time. A hivetop feeder can feed hundreds at one time.<\/p>\n The initial feeding that you provide will allow the bees to immediately build comb, without having the find a local source for nectar. In the spring nectar can be pretty sparse to begin with, so feeding your bees could be a matter of survival. The workers that you get in your package bees will be alive less than a month, and during that time they have to build comb so that the queen can start laying. The queen already has all the eggs she will ever have, so everything is ready to go but the comb, and the bees have to make that. With a hivetop feeder, you’ll see the comb building every day.<\/p>\n I didn’t get into the lifecycle of the bee for this article, because there is plenty of information online and in books. You can see the bee larva in the cells here. Bees take meticulous care of their young.<\/p><\/div>\n I made my sugar syrup at 1:1 sugar to water, by volume. So I’d take a half gallon grapejuice bottle, fill it half way with Walmart sugar, then fill it up the rest of the way with my reverse osmosis water, because I don’t want to feed fluoride to my bees. The hivetop feeder holds almost two gallons, but even with 3 lbs. of bees, in South Florida in the spring, the water got moldy if I put in more than a gallon or so. Periodically I dumped the syrup, washed the feeder, and refilled it, because I could smell the sugar fermenting.<\/p>\n The other hivetop feeders I tried were made of wood<\/a>, with floats, and didn’t work even close to as well as the styrofoam feeders. Every time I checked that feeder I found a dozen or more dead bees, whereas during the entire time I fed with the styrofoam, I think I found about 6 dead bees.<\/p>\n I also fed my bees what you’ll see called “pollen patties<\/a>,” but I later learned that they are not made from actual pollen. If you search Youtube you’ll find how to make them out of soy flour, but I bought mine. My experience with them was not good, because I gave the bees way too much. If you decide to use them, start with very small amounts. Otherwise, at least here in South Florida, you’ll find small hive beetle maggots in the patties within about a day. I assume the beetles came in with my bees, but I don’t know what I could have done to prevent their arrival. They love those patties, I’ll tell you that. See the video for the small hive beetle traps I bought. They work great.<\/p>\n I strongly suggest that you buy The ABCs and XYZs of Beekeeping<\/a>. It will give you the most recent updates on how to treat Varroa mites and all of the other common bee ailments. Don’t let the disease side of the equation scare you away. As I said above, beekeeping is easy and mostly successful. If you are running 1,000 hives as a pro beekeeper, and your hives are being shipped out to farms who pay you to bring them pollinators, there is a pretty good chance that you’ll be exposed to something that is actually fairly rare in backyard beekeeper circles.<\/p>\n My best guess is that I killed my queen. About two months ago I saw that I needed to extract my honey. But as I explained in the video, I had not yet gotten a bee suit, so I did it bare handed and bare armed. It didn’t go well, and I dropped the hive bodies several times, killing a lot of bees. I also hadn’t experimented with the use of spray syrup instead of a smoker, and I went a little commando on my bees with the smoker. When I opened the hive the other day I found only a couple dozen bees trying to raise a queen cell. I am going to feed them and hope they succeed, but the queen will also have to make a successful mating flight and return for that to happen. Most likely I’m just going to dump a new package of bees in there once they arrive in April.<\/p>\n Thankfully, when I extracted, I skipped the hive you see here at the end of the video, because that hive had brood in the top hive body, and not a lot of honey, so I left it alone. Those bees are gloating at me today, because they definitely won that round, but I’ll be back.<\/p>\n Africanized honey bees, otherwise known as “killer bees,” have migrated to most areas of the US that produce package bees. My bees were sold to me as Italian honey bees, which are the most common type, and they are known for being docile, as well as great producers. That hive came to me as a nuc from Pigeon Mountain, and it hasn’t produced much if any honey, while the bees are extremely aggressive. For the video I first was sloppy with my zippers on the suit, and I only wore a tshirt under the suit so I would be cooler. Those bees stung right through it, so I’m going to need to put some denim under the suit and try it again, or buy a thicker suit. I’ll be moving that hive out of my backyard to my bugout location. I’m thinking that I can make an electronic sensor connected to a solenoid and kick that sucker over should an intruder arrive. Anyway…<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>A Note on Plastic Frames<\/h2>\n
Where Do I Buy Bees?<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Feeding Your Bees<\/h2>\n
<\/a>Bee Diseases<\/h2>\n
Why Did I Lose a Hive<\/h2>\n
Killer Bees<\/h2>\n
Buying a Beehive<\/h2>\n