Thinking of getting bees from hives doing well and ordering 5 new queens from QLD, posted to me express. Brother-in-law has had them mailed to him before so know it all works well.
This will expand rapidly my active TBH (Top Bar Hive) box count.
As I have 3 large sized "30 bar TBHs" (one in use) and 8x medium sized "15 bar TBHs" (2 in use) - I would like to have most of the TBHs filled with bees in the coming season of plenty round the wet season.
Then have a couple spare boxes for swarm captures in the build up to next wet season - but have more scrap timber to make more when needed. Then again if the medium TBHs get bees they will soon need larger TBHs - so more workshop time will be needed focused on larger TBHs I think.
It tends to snowball doesn't it !!!
Now to the hives I do have---
Hive #1
So my Cupboard Hive is struggling.
The "countless" bees I thought were there before the transfer ended up being a lot, lot less than I had seen two weeks prior to the transfer
I did find about 6+ queen cells - so a swarm or two might have taken place reducing bee numbers before I got to it
Last inspection of the Cupboard Hive - I found countless wax moth, few bees and no visible brood.
So I removed 8 frames of comb I had transferred from the cupboard (now totally moth ridden) but left two frames with some honey in them - so less for bees to defend and control.
The other ruined comb, I placed in a bag for freezing (and to kill the waxmoth larva) - this wax for a later time of wax extraction.
My other two medium sized "15 bar TBHs" are doing well - one very well
Not much food about, as at time of last inspection the comb showed almost no honey stores at all, which prompted me to substitute feed for last two weeks - (see previous inspection blog entry)
So have a couple of feed stations set up - these will eventually go into the back of the larger TBH boxes (30 bars) when I transfer the bees from the medium sized TBH boxes to a larger TBH boxes.
Hive #2
The Grass Hive (collected off clump of grass in a paddock - see Grass hive capture details) is going gang busters. Plenty of bees and at least 12 almost full combs out the 15 available. Plenty of brood and uncapped honey.
There is a constant freeway of bee traffic going in and out the entrances of this hive - plenty of honey stores (well after the substitute feeding anyway). Last inspect showed four full frames of brood surrounded by honey stores and about 8 half combs, as well as a few just starting to be drawn out
Still did not see the queen but ample evidence of her presence in all the developing and capped brood
Will shortly transfer all the frames etc into one of my 30 top bar TBH box to give them more space to expand. (blog entry on this soon)
Hive #3
The Post Hive (see - swarm capture details) is slowly developing. Last quick inspection after school with my daughter - showed plenty of brood capped and developing with stores of honey on edge of each comb. No full combs yet but getting there - 4 top bars almost fully drawn out and plenty of other top bars are starting to be drawn down with comb too. My daughter also got to see her first queen bee on the comb - she was so super excited!
Both medium sized TBHs had issues with crooked comb that was carefully massaged back into place. also reversed position in TBH box to see if that helps. I think my strip of 3ply down middle of top bar allows the bees to draw comb from either side not exactly in the middle - all of which adds to the crooked comb problem. may need to sharpen ply to a pointed edge
So what next??
New queens to house?, split other hives for bees for the new queens, pinch a few bees from brother-in-law and think I know where a wild hive is which will be heaps of extra bees for new hives.
As Shakespeare should have said had he been a TBH bee keeper
"Once more unto the Top bar hive, dear friends, once more;"
or was it like the light brigade charging forward to certain doom
"into the valley of bee hives rode the intrepid TBH bee keeper - stingers to the left, stingers to the right!"
(I must be tired!)
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