Hi Nick,

1 question I have re: dealing with varroa mites- with Langs you have a sticky board so you can check on mites – I am wondering how you keep tabs of varroa mite with a Warre hive, and from what I am reading it seems as though one leaves it to nature and are not doing anything to get the mites to drop off the bees, onto a sticky board, etc. Is this correct? and how do you look out for mites and what do you suggest beekeeper w/Warre hive do to keep an eye on those pesky mites?

Many thanks!
Marika

You can get a sticky board and put it on the floor under your bottom hive box. Do a 24 hour test on your Warre Hive. Count your mite drop after that time is up. If you have less than 25-35 or even 40 mites, your hive is fine. David Heaf in Wales has reported mite counts higher on some of his healthy hives. Could it be that that the Warre Hive allows the bees to sustain higher mite loads without a problem? The jury is still out on that one…

If you have a high mite drop (55-65 mites or more) during the 24 hour period, you have two choices. You can leave the hive alone and hope it does alright on its own (which it may), or you can pursue a natural treatment of some sort.

You can try treating with essential oils like spearmint or lemongrass alone, or mix the essential oils with canola or vegetable oil. The theory is that the oils cover the bees and as they clean, they will spread the oils all over the beehive. Apparently the oils cause the mites to fall off, or as the bees clean themselves, they knock the mites off.

Many beekeepers have had good success with powdered sugar

I am also experimenting with essential oils for mite control. I have not encountered a bad mite problem in my hives yet, for which I am grateful! If I did need to treat for mites, I would probably use powdered sugar.

Many beekeepers have had good success with powdered sugar over the years. I know of several folks who swear by it, and it does seem to be a viable solution. Application is as follows: the beekeeper dusts the whole hive with a liberal application of powdered sugar. As the bees clean themselves, they remove the varroa mites as well.

On a last note, don’t just copy my example without researching the various treatments available. You need to make the choice for yourself. Be an informed beekeeper. Make decisions based on your own research, not just on hearsay. Be able to stand up and say why you do what you do.

With a little research into various treatments, and a little mite drop testing from time to time on your own hives, you will be able to develop your own Varroa Mite solution. Of course, you may be one of those lucky beekeepers who never has a problem with Varroa. You would be the envy of us all.

Ever since this blog was started, many of you have been asking a lot of great questions. Questions about backyard beekeeping, the Warre Top Bar Hive, how to keep bees naturally…the list goes on!

(By the way, if you have a beekeeping question, checkout the Beekeeping Forums. Those guy’s are awesome!)

After a while, I realized that I was being asked a lot of the same questions over and over. Which is good! It means that you are thinking about how to keep bees in a sustainable manner. I like that! The bees like it too!

So, in order to answer your questions in a better fashion, I packaged a lot of the most common questions in a free Quick Start Guide to Natural Beekeeping.

I need your help to make this Quick Start Guide better. Go grab a copy at http://diybeehive.com and read it. Then, post your thoughts about it in the comment area below.

How did you like it? Did it answer some of your questions? Do I need to expand it in certain areas? Do you think it is helpful?

The more feedback you leave, the more often I can update the Quick Start Guide according to your wishes…and as a thank you I will send you a fresh copy of the Guide every time it is updated.

So, download your copy right now, then come back and tell me what you think!

Thank you!

You can’t get the honey out without killing the baby bees. And you can’t get the baby bees out without ruining the honey.

Not a good situation.

So how do you keep the baby bees out of the honey?

The best way to prevent baby bees (or brood) from getting in the honey is to keep the queen bee from laying eggs in the honey cells. That is simple enough…right? I mean, if you can keep the queen from laying eggs in the honey cells, then you fixed the problem.

That should be easy enough…

Well, sort of…

If you have a beehive with wax foundation and you put a new swarm into that beehive, the bees will often start to draw out honeycomb on several different frames at once.

They may start building comb in the upper hive box…and they may start building in the lower hive box. I have even seen them build comb in both boxes at once.

Baby bees in the honey? Hmm…

Is this a bad thing? No, but it can lead to baby bees in the honey. Here is why…

The queen bee always lays eggs in the newest and freshest honeycomb. That is just how honeybees do it. So, if you have a frame hive, the queen bee will find the new honeycomb and lay eggs in that honeycomb.

Often the bees will draw out comb in the upper hive boxes, and then start to put honey into that comb. At the same time, the queen bee will smell the new honeycomb and lay her eggs in it.

The result? Baby bees in the honey. Not the easiest to work with.

If you have a frame hive you can try to use a queen excluder to keep the queen bee towards the bottom of the hive. This does not always work. Furthermore, is a queen excluder really good for your beehive? The excluder forms a barrier in the hive. Such a barrier is not a natural feature in wild beehives. In natural hives, the queen bee is free to roam about the hive at will.

But, if the queen can go anywhere in the hive, won’t she lay eggs anywhere she chooses?

If you have a Top Bar Hive, the solution is simple!

In a top bar hive there is no foundation. The bees begin building honeycomb at the top of the hive box. They draw it down towards the floor of the hive. So, the older comb is always towards the top of the hive.

And the newer comb is towards the bottom of the hive. The picture on the right displays this building process.

Since the queen always lays eggs in the newest comb, the baby bees will always be towards the bottom of the hive.

And the all of your honey will be towards the top of the hive, since the honeybees prefer to put the honey into the older honeycomb.

If you take a look at the Cut Comb Honey Harvest post you will see how I harvest the top hive box from a Warre Hive. This box was completely full of honey. There were no baby bees at all, since all the brood was laid in the new comb in the bottom of the hive.

By the way, it is important to add hive boxes to the bottom of the bee hive so that the bees can always build comb downwards towards the floor. Since each box has a set of top bars, the comb is separated into sections the height of each hive box, making it easy for you to handle each box as a unit of honeycomb and honey.

So, in summary, when you use a top bar hive and let the honeybees build their own honeycomb without using wax foundation, you will hardly ever have baby bees in with the honey.

This translates to easier beekeeping for you, a more natural beehive for the bees, and a much more sustainable beekeeping experience since you don’t need to buy or use a metal or plastic queen excluder.

I like that. How about you?

We’re pretty much beginners, our third try at keeping bees.  We have learned from our mistakes, but our latest hive has just succumbed to raiders after being so promising. We had a healthy hive as far as we could tell and had added two honey supers and were looking forward to harvesting one after opening the top one and finding it almost completely full.

We noticed frenzied activity

Yesterday evening we noticed frenzied activity around the entrance and upon closer examination it became apparent the hive was being raided by other smaller, darker bees.  We do not know how long this had been going on.  I tried driving away the raiders with a smoker then a garden hose, but the raiding continued till dark.  After browsing a little, I found a source that said close the hive entrance to about a 1/2 inch opening–it had been wide open to facilitate ventilation.  What causes raiding ? How can it be prevented or thwarted if it is discovered ‘in time’?  Our hive is now totally emptied out, stripped bare–both supers and brood box……..We are stunned.

Ouch.  Hive robbing is never good. From the sound of it, Fred’s beehives were being robbed by feral, or wild, bees.  Scout bees from a feral swarm probably smelled the large amounts of honey inside the hive.  They probably found that the beehive had a weak defense and they were able to slip into Fred’s beehive quickly, grab some honey and get out.  The scout bees would have gone back to the main colony and reported to the other bees where to find the honey.  Soon, all of the feral foraging bees were robbing from Fred’s beehive.  Robbing can get so bad that the bee colony being robbed will abscond, which is apparently what Fred’s did.

How can you prevent hive robbing?  Reducing the entrance does help.  This assists the honeybees in defending their home by giving them a smaller space to guard.  However, the best defense against hive robbing is a strong hive.  The healthier and stronger your beehive is, the better it can defend itself.  Also, make sure that your bees have plenty of forage.  If your beehives are in an area with few flowering plants, move them to a better location.

Try to remove the robbing beehive

Once hive robbing starts, there is really no way to stop it except to eliminate the robbing hive. You must follow the robber bees back to their hive and find a way remove them to another location for a few days.  If the robbing bees are from another beehive, try to move the beehive at least two miles away.  Move the beehive at night so that you are sure to get all the honeybees inside the beehive.  If the robbing hive is a feral colony, you can remove them from their location and install them into a new beehive.  Then, move them at least two miles away.  After a couple of days, move them back to see if this stops the robbing.

Often moving the beehive will take care of the problem.  But sometimes a bee colony is a chronic robber colony and nothing can be done to stop this beehive from robbing other hives.  In this case it is up to the beekeeper to decide if he should re-queen the hive.  Some beekeepers will even kill a robbing hive, seeing that robbing can spread throughout an apiary with each bee colony following the bad example of the others.  While these can be drastic measures to take, they might be the only way to save your beehives.

Build strong beehives!

In summary, the best way to protect your beehives from robber bees is to build them up strong in the spring and summer, reduce their hive entrance in the late summer and early fall, and to check your beehives on a regular basis.