I store frames of drawn comb over the winter by building a well ventilated hive in my unheated outdoor shed. Here'south a video that proves information technology:

The hive full of drawn comb (and some capped frames of dear) is well ventilated on the bottom and superlative using queen excluders and then mice can't get in. The hive can be built outside on its own too. No shed required.

I created a walkaway split up on June 20th and it worked out well. The last time I checked on it a couple of weeks ago, the queen was laying well and she looked salubrious. I'thou at the point now, pulling the concluding of the honey from my hives, where I don't want to practise anything else with my colonies other than check to run into if they've got enough honey, and if they don't, I'll top them up with some syrup. Here's a short video where I examine the love frames of the 84-twenty-four hours-erstwhile walkaway split and make a few tweaks that should requite it a better chance of getting through the winter.

Similar I say in the video, the colony is looking proficient and is well on its way to having plenty love to get through wintertime (nearly ii mediums worth of honey). I may demand to tiptop it up a fiddling syrup, but correct now it'southward in pretty good shape. Information technology's not absolutely packed with bees, merely it doesn't demand to be. My bees, possibly with Russian genetics, seem to go into winter will small-scale clusters, consuming trivial honey. Which is great because it means I probably don't need to feed them sugar over the winter or early on jump.

The video was taken from my longer video, Some other Day in the Life of a Apiculturist.

This is what it's like, again, to tag along with me while I'g beekeeping for about 28 minutes.

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Here's a 2-infinitesimal video that shows how I apply an uncapping pocketknife on my honey frames after extracting the love.

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Hither's how I inadvertently (or I could say deliberately) managed to go over half dozen pounds of honey from a unmarried medium frame. six pounds is well-nigh iii kg. (I've created a special tag but for this hive, Giant Hive 2022, and so everything I've written about information technology tin can be viewed in sequence.)

Other than giving the bees space within the hive to grow, I really didn't do much. This is 95% the outcome of good weather and a healthy queen. No bee whispering of whatsoever kind was required. There never is.

Essentially, all I did was place seven frames of drawn comb in a 10-frame honey super, creating actress infinite between the frames. If there’s a strong nectar flow, the bees will oft fill in the extra infinite with honey, resulting in thick frames of honey — and sometimes more beloved per super.

1 of 5 thick frames of honey, averaging 5.2 pounds / 2.four kg of liquid honey per frame. (July 7th, 2022.)

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I talk most this all the fourth dimension, but here nosotros go over again, a short video that shows how I become my bees to build straight comb off bare foundation (when I have fatigued comb).

Keep in mind that this method is not necessary. Many beekeepers but let the bees build rummage out from the eye frames as they naturally expand the brood nest and build rummage for love. That works besides. Inserting empty frames between drawn comb is only meant to speed up the procedure because of the bees' compulsion to fill in empty space.

Along with the five hives adjacent to my house, I have two hives on the edge of a farm (and another one in a hugger-mugger location). The weather got warm plenty for me to exercise total hive inspections on both of the farm hives. I but turned my camera on when I found something I thought could be educational for new beekeepers. Virtually of the video is me talking about what I institute in the hives, what I did to each of them and why I did it. I know it'southward a visually tiresome video, only it covers a lot of ground. This is exactly the kind of dull video I would been all over when I first started beekeeping.

Hither'southward what happens in the video:
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Here's a short narrated video that explains how I apply a swarm box to catch swarms that would usually get away. (A transcript of the narration can found below the video. And that's the terminal time I read from a script. It sounds like the stilted narration from an instructional video by Troy McClure)

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The population of a love bee colony can explode in no fourth dimension once the weather warms upward and everything comes into bloom. (That's right about now, by the fashion, at least in my piddling corner of the Isle of Newfoundland.) All that nectar, all the pollen, all the warm air, all that sunshine — the next thing yous know, the bees are getting ready to swarm, or they've already swarmed. Information technology seems to take simply a few days for the bees to get that message when the conditions are right. Every bit a general rule, when I open a hive and see bees over the top bars of every frame, I add together some other super, another hive box — I give the colony room to grow. They may not need the actress space today or tomorrow, but when they do demand it and it's not there, boom, off they go in a giant deject of bees that will fill the heaven, also known as a swarm. This video shows what it looks similar when it's time to add another super to the hive (at least for me it does):

00:00 — A deep super (and frames) cut down to a medium.
00:40 — Bees roofing the meridian confined (time to add a super).
01:x — Dispersing the bees with mist instead of fume.
01:27 — Adding the super.
01:48 — Adding a foundationless frame (for comb dear).
02:38 — Putting the hive back together.
03:x — Dislocated bees looking for the new entrance.
04:52 — The bees already reoriented to the new archway.
05:10 — A problem with a 9-frame breed sleeping accommodation.

And some bonus material for those who can hold out long plenty.

P.S. #1: I mention in the video that's it'south June 21st when it plainly isn't. That's my pandemic brain jumping upwards and saying how-do-you-do. Everybody and their cousin Bob is losing track of the days.

P.S. #ii: Some would look at this video and recall I put another box on too early, that every frame in the hive should absolutely packed with bees for calculation another box. Maybe. But when a nectar flow is about the kick into loftier gear, I prefer to play prophylactic than sorry. There are advantages and disadvantages to everything. Putting a box on too early on, like I may accept washed in this video, tin result in the bees not really filling up any frames. They spread everything out and none of the love frames get filled to capacity. However, it reduces the likelihood of swarming. Waiting until more bees to cover the frames tin accept the contrary event, more honey packed into the frames merely greater risk of swarming.

I've always heard about how honey bees won't draw comb on plastic foundation, but I didn't experience it in a big way until this summer. I had three nucs prepare upward in deeps that I wanted to expand into medium supers considering I want to endeavour on the all-medium-super apiculture game and see if I like it considering I know I don't like lifting 40kg deeps full of honey (about 100 pounds). If I was a seniorish citizen with dorsum, hip or leg problems, or just a regular homo who wasn't in the mood for any heavy lifting in their beekeeping, I'd consider switching to all shallow supers. For at present, though, I'll see how it goes with mediums.

Waxless plastic foundation and a foundationless department the bees had no problem building on.

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I've been experimenting with drilling holes in my foundation so my bees can movement from 1 frame of dear to the adjacent in the wintertime without breaking cluster.

The bees reduce the hole to the size of bee space. It some cases they seem to fill in the hole birthday. They seem to keep it open up closer to the brood nest, though it'southward difficult to guess that this early on in the game. I suppose the bees can open and shut the holes equally needed. Merely whatsoever is going on, it doesn't seem to carp the bees and I imagine information technology helps them move between frames in the wintertime.

Information technology'due south possible the holes could create an unwanted draft in the wintertime, which ways this modification to the foundation would do more than harm than skillful. Only I've been doing it for four or five years now and then far so proficient. None of my colonies accept starved to death over the winter by non being able to move between frames of honey.

Postscript: And yes, mice got into some of those frames and ate away a few patches off the comb. That'southward the main reason some of them await kind of ragged.

Most new beekeepers on the island of Newfoundland (and many other places on the planet) will kickoff up their showtime colonies with what is often referred to as a nuc, or a nucleus colony, or a starter hive that contains a laying queen, at least one frame of brood, a frame or two of pollen and honey, and usually a blank or empty frame to give the worker bees something to work on while they're stuck in a four-frame nuc box for up to a calendar week. The frames from the nuc are usually placed inside a single hive body (in Newfoundland, it's normally a deep) with empty frames to fill in the remainder of the box. A feeder of some sort is installed. And that'southward it. The following 24-infinitesimal video demonstrates the unabridged process.

I'll post a condensed version of this video at a after date if I can, but for now it's probably more helpful to show how it plays out in real time (more or less) and then that anyone new to all this, or anyone thinking nigh starting up a few honey bee colonies side by side year, volition have a realistic idea of what to expect when it comes time to install their first nuc. I plan to mail follow-up videos to rail the progress of this colony correct into next spring, over again so that anyone hoping to start up their own hives in the future volition have a not-idealized take on what to await.

It was well over 30°C (86°F) past the time I finished installing all of my nucs. The sweat was pouring off my face and stinging my optics. Expect that also.
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In my experience, it'due south important to constantly feed the bees during the offset year (in Newfoundland), merely information technology's also important to end feeding them at a certain point in the jump the following year and so they don't swarm. When I find drone rummage gunking up the bottom of the frames in the bound, that'southward my cue that the colony could potentially swarm. Queens can't mate without drones. The commencement swarms usually coincide with the flying of the first drones.

Destroyed drone comb between the brood boxes after inspection. (May 05, 2022.)

Destroyed drone comb between the breed boxes after inspection. (May 05, 2022.)

If the bees accept ii or three solid frames of honey in every box — enough to prevent them from starving — and drone comb is present, then I stop feeding. I don't feed my bees if they have enough honey on their own anyway, and unless it'due south a weak colony, I don't usually feed past May 31st either considering at that place's normally plenty natural nectar sources available by then (in my local climate), especially in the metropolis of St. John'southward that is heavily populated by maple copse. I also check my hives at least every two weeks until the terminate of June to make certain the queen has room to lay. Almost beekeeping (beyond feeding) tin can be summed up with that i sentence: Brand certain the queen has room to lay.

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June 2022 Introduction: The original postal service from 2022 was incredibly long and detailed and I apparently had also much time on my easily. Thanks to social media platforms such equally Facebook, Murray, my goldfish, has a greater attention span than nearly people flicking through their phones these days. Information technology's not in our bones to dull down and read annihilation carefully anymore. To hell with poetry! Give me a meme! In that spirit of progress, I present to yous a lovely digestible picayune ditty called, "What is this pyramiding business organisation, anyway?"

This is a hive packed with bees…

Bees crowding all 10 frames. Perfect candidate for pyramiding. (August 2, 2022.)

Bees crowding all 10 frames. Perfect candidate for pyramiding. (August two, 2022.)

…then many bees that they've run out of infinite in the hive and it's fourth dimension to add some other box (i.due east., a deep super or a hive torso) so the colony has room to abound. Simply sometimes the queen won't expand the brood nest into the new box because the workers fill up it with love instead, which can cause the queen to become honey spring (trapped in by dear with nowhere to lay), which can then trigger a swarm, not something most beekeepers want.

A piddling play a joke on chosen pyramiding is the solution to that possible problem.
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Here's a 6-minute video from an inspection I did yesterday that shows me spotting the queen, adding a frame of drawn rummage to give the queen more space to lay, and in that location's a shot of the bees cleaning upward a mouldy frame of pollen taken from ane of my expressionless colonies — and you'll hear me talking well-nigh my plans for inspecting all my hives and how I'm going to manage them. That part sounds boring, only information technology might give new beekeepers a sense of how to go about inspecting their hives, that is, having a plan and knowing that most plans are a joke. The bees tell me what they need, not the other manner around.

1:46 — The first wait at the bees inside the hive, before removing frames.
2:05 — A frame of moldy pollen.
2:18 — A close-up shot of the queen laying an egg.
3:53 — Inserting a frame of empty fatigued comb to make room for the queen to lay.

I mention in the video that I plan to add another deep to the hive, which is what I did, though it's not in the video. It'south in this one-infinitesimal time-lapse behind-the-scenes video where I explain why the hive has a moisture quilt and a few other things.

Role 2 of the hive inspection video: Combs of Pollen and Nectar.

Information technology'due south June 2022 and I've significantly rewritten this post from 2022 to reverberate my practise of non always reversing the brood boxes in the spring. To cut to the chase, these days I tend to reduce my hives to a single deep in the leap considering the colony seems to stay warmer and expand faster when information technology'due south restricted to a single deep. Only when the colony is shut to filling the single deep with bees do I add a second deep. If the weather is still cold or the colony is more on the weak side, the second deep goes on the bottom where it'southward less likely to screw upwardly the thermodynamics of the brood nest. But if the weather is warm, the colony strong and expanding rapidly, the 2d deep goes on elevation. You can pretty much skip the residuum of this mail at present.

I used to reverse the breed boxes in my hives in early leap as soon as I had a warm enough day for information technology. That means at the stop of winter in a typical 2-deep hive when the brood nest was unremarkably living only in the top deep, ordinarily some time in Apr, I would motility the top deep (full of bees) to the bottom of the hive and then the bottom deep (mostly empty drawn comb) to the top of the hive.

The logic behind reversing is to prevent swarming past providing infinite above the breed nest for the colony to aggrandize. That logic assumes dear bees always aggrandize the brood nest upwards. Maybe the bees take a greater tendency to expand upwards in the spring after a winter of working their way up into their beloved stores. But experience tells me that near colonies volition aggrandize wherever they can find space, whether it's up or downwardly or sideways. So the whole argument for reversing is easily dismissed.

Aware of that, I reversed my hives anyway considering reversing allowed me to assess the forcefulness of the colony going into the new season and make adjustments on the spot if necessary. I would add drawn comb to the brood nest if the cluster needed the room. I would add frames of beloved or pollen if the bees were starving for it. I would give them frames of brood from another colony if they were weak. In short, I would accept whatever activity was required to become the bees started on the right path for the new season.

And so for the residue of the year, because I knew exactly what status the colony was in at the get-go of the twelvemonth, I'd be able to appraise the strength of the colony without having to dig much into the hive and disturb the brood nest every time I did an inspection.

Drone comb split open after lifting up the top brood box for the first time this year. (May 05, 2022.)
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Drawn and partially-drawn comb wait much prettier on foundationless frames. Here'south what some partially-drawn comb looks like on a frame with black plastic foundation:

Partially drawn frame from Hive #two. (August 28, 2022.)

Hither'due south a half-drawn comb on a foundationless frame:

At present don't tell me that ain't style prettier.