Sunday November 28th was 58 degrees and dry. I hope you all took the opportunity to go watch the action in the apiary. I love seeing how much the bees enjoy getting out for a stretch and checking out the plant world for food. I even had one bee tire of my gaze and chase me out of there, but I was leaving anyway.

 

On Saturday my dog began barking at the front window. My investigation came up empty as nothing was outside that should arouse her. That’s when I noticed she was looking up not out. Lifting my eyes I discovered a yellow jacket walking around at the top of the window inside the house. She has never barked at an insect before, but she was definitely agitated and did not calm down until I was able to smack it and show her the dead body. Now I’m wondering if she can perform the duties of a yellow jacket alert dog and find nests to be exterminated.

 

Today November 30th it was 52 degrees and misty when I went out to see what’s up with the bees. Turns out, not much. Out of 11 hives, one was going strong with bees all over the reduced entrance and many more coming and going. I didn’t check their legs for pollen, I should have but my mind was elsewhere, I guess. The other 10 completely inactive. It is odd and interesting how different they can be sometimes. These bees have not seen a purchased queen in over 6 years, they just replace and breed their queen with the local drone population usually after swarming but occasionally through supercedure.

 

Tomorrow is December and it’s time to start those winter projects. We should normally be looking at our woodenware routinely for rot, cracking, or prying damage. Bottom boards can easily get soft spots from rotten wood which could then topple the entire hive. And if you have your hives close together you could be looking at a domino effect especially if supers are on.

 

I’ve got 4 woodenware projects I need to get started. The first though not chronologically is to redo how my mite drop check boards are installed. After listening to Christine Kurtz at our November Zoom meeting I decided to make some changes. First step is to get some blank plasticized corrugated sign board. For this I turned to ebay where I could buy 10 sheets of 24 x 18-inch 4mm coroplast for $28 including shipping. The image at Left shows what I’m planning. The wooden piece will allow me to close the space at the back of my bottom board to air drafts and insects that may want to glean the various droppings. The access at the back is about ½” so I won’t need but thin piece fill wood. Then I’ll add the hole to the extra sign board so I can easily pull It out. Screen bottom boards were first used back in 1853 before the widespread adoption of the Langstroth removable frame hive. But at that time, they were trying to control wax moths. That didn’t work out and they disappeared from use. Then they popped up again as a possible varroa control. Since mites fall off bees and drop through the screen never to return it was thought that could reduce mite levels to mere nuisance levels. But like with wax moths it just didn’t work. Not enough mites fall off to make any difference in their population. Many folks went back to solid bottom boards as a result. But others found they still had benefits in seeing the effect of mite treatments, and in reading the everyday dropping of debris to form an educated opinion of what is going on above. That’s where I am, and I generally keep them closed most of the time. I don’t believe they are necessary for hive ventilation nor humidity control which is why I’m tightening up the cracks with the wooden piece on the coroplast.

 

Project 2 is just to make a couple screened bottom boards and have them ready if I find problems during that first major inspection in the spring.

 

Project 3 is an experiment. Lifting full deep boxes and twisting my body to set them down safely is routinely straining my back which is also slow to bounce back from abuse. To that end I’ve thinking of ways to reduce weight. Going to 8 frame equipment obviously reduces the weight by 20% but requires replacement of every piece of hive woodenware. That choice should have been made when I started this 8 years ago. I could also go to using westerns as brood boxes. That switch would reduce box weight by about 30% and presents a great opportunity. Three western equals two deep brood boxes and appears to be just as adequate for keeping bees alive and robust. Only problem is a plan on how to convert those tall frames filled with honey and brood to shorter ones. Long Langstroths solve the lifting of boxes problem, but honey production is reduced. They are over 4’ long with 30 deep frames. Some have developed a way to stack supers on them but with our rain you better have a full roof to cover the box and that would be heavy and complicated I believe. So I’m hoping a shorter long lang will be do the trick. Of course, someone has already thought of it, and I found this unit available on Etsy for $255. Includes everything you see sans foundation but includes shipping. I believe that is a good price. I bought two 8-foot 1X12 pine boards yesterday for $65 and that doesn’t come close to completing the project. I am very tempted, but I like to build stuff. You can stack 2 10 frame westerns side by side on top of the deeps. It also uses 2 inner covers so when you are inspecting one end you can keep the other side covered. I think it is quite promising and the only drawback I see is that I will need help to move it if that need arises.

 

Project 4 is nuc building (thank you John for your article). Several years ago, I built 4 nucs. Last year I made 4 hive body only nucs so I could stack them two high if needed and I didn’t want to transfer to a deep. Swarm control is difficult without making splits or at least pulling enough frames to fill a nuc. But that increases the size of the apiary. I usually have 100% winter survival and I want to keep my apiary at 9 hives. I ended up at 11 this year. I’m contemplating making up some nucs and then sell them. That would help to control swarming and at the same time make me wealthy. There’s another thing I want to try and that goes back to the driver of project 2, reducing lifting weight. I want to try stacking a nuc 4 deeps high. Two for brood, Two for honey. I’ll need to buy 5 frame nuc queen excluders which thankfully are available though you must look around. I might do two of these stacks and deal with the tippiness factor somehow. If I can get 10 deep frames of honey it will be worth it. It looks like I have enough projects for this month and probably January as well. Bill