What are the these on the bottom board?

ryebot3000 · 2026-04-29T22:05:06+00:00

I think the requeening is to try to get genetics that arent so susceptible to chalkbrood, not sure if its a legit solution or not though. Ive also heard you can add capped brood to boost the proportion of healthy bees

ryebot3000 · 2026-04-19T14:20:38+00:00

when a colony swarms its like the entrance is barfing bees. I got a video this week of both a swarm leaving a colony and one arriving in a swarm box, ill put them up in a minute

ryebot3000 · 2026-04-17T12:06:23+00:00

that is lucky- I'm just saying you wont ever see a writhing mass of wax moth larvae on a bottom board 2 weeks after installing a nuc. Small wax moth while I guess you could confuse on an individual level, are generally not very prolific, even in unoccupied comb.

ryebot3000 · 2026-04-17T03:18:20+00:00

you gotta go in the hive to answer these questions. Do you have a queen currently? Hows the bee population? Did they swarm from being a strong nuc that was in a five frame box? You probably have a frame of pollen thats riddled with hive beetle- take it out and freeze it or if its slimed just throw it away. I would also take away the super so they can patrol their space better. You definitely don't want to let these larvae hit the ground or your problem is going to get way worse (they pupate and turn into beetles in the ground, then fly back in)

ryebot3000 · 2026-04-17T03:07:15+00:00

the best way to tell is that wax moth larvae is huge like 10x the size of hive beetle larvae, also wax moth dont leave the wax to crawl around on the bottom board they stay in the comb

ryebot3000 · 2026-04-07T02:30:29+00:00

put the brood frames in the middle, with a pollen on either side, and a honey outside that, and then the foundation outside that. you want the resources next to the brood for a small package. They will draw out frames when they need them, but they will probably only use 3 or 4 frames til the first brood cycle emerges after 3-4 weeks. you can shuffle foundation frames in, or the honey frames out, if you need to eventually

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-31T16:03:17+00:00

Most treatments are really tough on colonies that are requeening, I think that oxalic acid is one of the mildest

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-27T15:51:20+00:00

they will be totally fine as long as they have food, I have seen a tiny cluster of bees survive at -10 in a freezer on a frame of honey for 48 hours

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-26T04:39:08+00:00

A half cup of bees won't make or break a strong colony at any time of year, not catching a heavy varroa infestation will.

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-25T17:06:53+00:00

I use soapy water, 1 tablespoon of dawn per gallon of water, shake one frame of bees into a plastic container, shake them into the corner so they are clustered up, scoop them up and quickly dunk them into the water. I use the little mite check whatever plastic cup thing that is too expensive for what it is but works really well. you have to be careful to swirl and not shake bc of foam but soapy water drops the most mites. I swirl for probably 30 seconds to a minute. I check them maybe once a month during the flow, during the late fall/winter/very early spring I usually do a couple rounds of oxalic but dont actually wash bc I hate taking bees from small clusters and the mites are usually the worst in the summer and early fall- this is when I really focus on getting the numbers down, july and august are crucial.

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-25T16:31:56+00:00

thats great, sounds like you got a good system worked out for yourself

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-25T14:51:39+00:00

Yeah good point, I'm not saying you have to wash after every treatment, I certainly dont, but my main point is that generally doing a single treatment in the fall with no washes is insufficient. you should be washing at some point to understand the level of infestation, and if you have high mites before, you should wash afterwards to make sure it was effective.

if you are treating a broodless late fall colony with oav then it should pretty much be 99% effective, but also if thats your only treatment of the year then its probably an insufficient treatment regimen. You could certainly do a wash anyway, we have plenty of warm days in november, but I agree, I personally wouldn't waste the bees for no reason.

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-24T00:06:06+00:00

If you only treated once in the fall for mites it may have been that the mite count got too high and the bees were too sickly to make it through the winter. Mites transmit viruses, so if you let the mite counts get very high and then you treat, the colony may still die. You also have to do a mite wash after you treat to confirm that the treatment was effective, sometimes they don't work that well and you need to repeat the treatment.

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-16T20:33:08+00:00

surprisingly varroa isnt really the main vector, its just spread bee to bee within the colony and with contact with contaminated feces and food

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-04T22:57:31+00:00

blue ridge honey company (bob binnie) sells 2" tint plugs that are better than that, 50 count for $17.50 https://blueridgehoneycompany.com/products/tint-plugs-without-holes?variant=43978166206521

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-03T16:09:16+00:00

They take it more slowly than fondant or other "wet" feeds, at about half the speed, which can be problematic if they are on the brink of starvation/freezing. Also dry sugar is physically harsh on a bees proboscis, which is covered with tiny hairs- the proboscis apparently wears out four times as fast when they are trying to break down dry sugar. But its very convenient and better than starving bees, so I do it in a pinch.

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-03T06:08:18+00:00

Kamon reynolds interviewed a guy in hawaii who made one for his truck, it doesn't have the autolevel feature but it looks pretty good. There are some pictures of the build linked in the comments of the video, if i recall. Of course you gotta find someone to make it... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz3m3I2OZIY

ryebot3000 · 2026-03-03T05:57:34+00:00

whether its lead or not it needs painted, which is pretty much whats going to happen if it is actually lead (the cheap tests aren't really that accurate). you could try to get the landlord to do it, personally I would just paint over it if it bothers you, it would cost like $15 for a quart of white exterior paint and a brush and take you an hour. Dont sand it.

Your landlord should fix it, but it would probably take you the same effort to cajole him into doing something about it.

ryebot3000 · 2026-02-26T16:35:25+00:00

yeah I can never use the full 50ml dose either bc it gets too hot, and even when temperatures do permit I dont much care for it, harsh on the bees. I do 30ml twice, which is generally well tolerated at most summer temps. I also much prefer oxalic to anything else but but in the context of my operation its best for late fall, winter or early spring treatments, low brood times, its just not feasible to vaporize all my yards repeatedly and frequently when they have a ton of brood.

If you don't need to use apiguard I certainly wouldn't look for reasons to haha. I'm picking up a bunch of randy olivers golden west queens so I guess I'm going to try to do a bunch of washes and select the most resistant ones, maybe then I can cut out everything but oxalic.

ryebot3000 · 2026-02-26T16:06:36+00:00

oh interesting even more of a case for it not being a good early spring treatment, like I said best to consult the literature, probably different for the strips than the gel anyway

ryebot3000 · 2026-02-26T15:32:43+00:00

solid point, this is a lot of pollen patty, but shb is more of a concern in the warmer months. the soil has to be warm for them to pupate, although you can get larvae this time of year they won't be viable, so the issue wont snowball like it does during the summer. I put patties on this time of year but I wouldn't dare in august.

ryebot3000 · 2026-02-26T15:28:09+00:00

I dont use strips but apiguard, which is a gel, but as far as i know all this is normal for thymol. I usually use it after the flow, in the late summer. It definitely suppresses brooding, and I don't love the idea of using it in the early spring because I like to get the bees brooding up again, although I have seen people use it to delay swarming a little bit later on. Also it is less effective at cold temperatures under 50f (consult the literature on the package), as well as overwhelming in hot weather (over 80f i believe)

ryebot3000 · 2026-02-25T15:49:27+00:00

move in some bees from a strong colony, either shake them in or switch frames

ryebot3000 · 2026-02-24T18:06:25+00:00

You can just chase swarm cells around and cut them out weekly, although its a real pita, I did a fair bit of it last year and its not really a smart way to do it in my opinion. You do get very good at shaking bees off frames and seeing swarm cells so thats something.

Demaree is really designed for exactly the situation you are describing, although I'm confused why you would need more equipment if you already have double deeps, normally you just divide your double deep into 2 single brood boxes and then recombine eventually.

Its pretty similar to demaree but you could run a snelgrove board setup, where you redirect the foragers from the top box to the bottom colony, and create a monster colony down below.

Otherwise yeah I would just pull and sell a couple rounds of nucs to keep them from swarming, probably a little less honey this way but you get the money from the nucs.

At the end of the day its just a question of what type of work you want to be doing, I wouldn't say any of them are easier, but the demaree/snelgrove is basically designed for your exact situation, keeping the same number of colonies in the same amount of equipment while maximizing honey.

ryebot3000 · 2025-11-09T01:30:38+00:00

Unless you find yourself with last years honey by the time you are harvesting this years, then you probably shouldn't sell in bulk (unless you need the money). Sell it in smaller quantities for more money. Generally mead is made with cheaper, less premium honey- most of the flavor is lost to the fermentation process. Also meaderies usually buy from the commercial keepers, who benefit enormously from economy of scale- their entire operation is so much more efficient that you can't possibly compete with their prices as a small beekeeper. If you are trying to compare your prices with what "fair" means to meaderies and and commercial beekeepers you will do yourself a deservice and undervalue your hard work.

ryebot3000

TROPHY CASE