Introduction To Placement & Hive Components

Before we get into the actual insect, let's talk about the current hive. Beekeepers, for the most part, still use hives designed by Rev. L. L. Langstroth in the early 1850s. Prior to this, beehives were kept in what looked like up-side-down baskets known as skeps. With skeps, the comb along with the total hive was destroyed when honey was harvested. Langstroth is credited with the removable frame hive and with specific bee space. In other words, he invented the ability to remove the frames of comb and place them back in the hive without damage to the hive or comb. Langstroth also discovered what is known now as "bee space" and is generally thought to be between 1/4"- 3/8". Anything less, they will add their glue known as propolis. Anything greater than 3/8" they will build comb.

Almost all hive boxes today are modeled after Rev. L. L. Langstroth's design with slight modifications over the years.

A typical hive consists of the following pieces, starting at the bottom and working up:

The Hive Stand

The Bottom Board

The Hive Bodies

The Medium or Small Honey Supers

The Inner Cover
The Top Cover

Today, let me explain the hive stand and the bottom board. The hive stand makes up the very bottom of the hive. However, many beekeepers do not find the hive stand necessary. I personally do not bother with hive stands. They appear impressive because they have a ramp leading up to the entrance. And, some people feel this helps the bees walk into the hive. However, I have watched the bees land, and they really don't land on the ramp nor walk up all that much. Bees prefer to fly, not climb. In the natural, they don't have ramps. I would recommend not using a hive stand to reduce cost and it makes it easier should you need to move your hive.

So, in my opinion the first piece of equipment you need is the bottom board. But before we place our bottom board, we have to consider where to place the hive, the direction the hive faces and how much to elevate the hive off the moist ground. I like to use wood pallets that I can obtain free from local factories. Usually one pallet is enough, but sometimes I'll place two pallets on top of each other to elevate the hive around 5-6" off the ground.

Then, I place my bottom board on the pallet. Pallets work well, but so do concrete blocks or any structure that will elevate the hive off the ground. You want the hive elevated for two reasons: To make it less stressful on your back and to raise the hive above the moisture in the ground. Bottom boards do draw moisture and so will be the first item to deteriorate over time. So, keeping the bottom board dry will help then last longer. Plus, it also means less moisture in the hive. Elevating the hive makes it easier on your back. But, do remember that eventually you'll have lots of supers, and if you elevate the first hive body to a comfortable range, you may soon find you need a ladder when you place 5 or 6 supers on. 5-6" is a good range of elevation.

Which direction? Which direction should the hive face. It really doesn't matter. We typically try to avoid the North so that cold winter wind will not blow into the front. And we typically try to face the hive Easterly so that the early morning sunrise will get the bees out working faster.

Shade or Sun? AVOID SHADE!! Get your hive in total sunlight. This is extremely important. They can keep the hive cool. Don't worry about the heat. Shade can attract pests such as Small Hive Beetle, ants and wax moths. Place the hive in direct sunlight. If you cannot avoid the shade, try to place the hive where it will receive the most sunlight.

Let's talk about bottom boards. There are many different variation of bottom boards. In the past there was only a standard solid bottom board. Now, with the introduction of mites, we have found that screen bottom boards help reduce mite populations and the screen also improves overall hive ventilation. A screen bottom board is part of what is known as IPM. Integrated Pest Management.

There are many different types of screen bottom boards. Some are simple and some have various slots and grooves to insert sticky boards or winter panels. Get the simple screen bottom board! If you want to slide in a white board or sticky board to count your mites, you can place it under the screen. And you can make your own sticky board using vasoline. If you need to restrict the air flow when applying a medication, you can slide in a small piece of cardboard or metal.

We have put much time in designing our bottom board manufacturing to produce a simple, yet very effect screen bottom board. Our bottom boards come completely assembled with an entrance reducer cleat. Our bottom boards are designed for a 3/4" opening in the front of the hive. However, with a slight modification, the bottom board can be flipped over and a smaller opening can be used. It is not advised and if reversed, an additional piece must be added to the back of the bottom board.

Sometimes new beekeepers ask which way the bottom board goes. When the bottom board is in the correct position, the screen is up. You can see the staples going into the screen. Also, the top of the bottom board has three edges.

Our bottom boards are made very strong, routed in such a way to lock sections together and are glued with exterior glue.

Finally, the bottom board's entrance is determined by the placement of what is called the entrance reducer cleat. It is a 3/4" x 3/4" piece of wood with two different sized openings. The cleat can be turned so that only one of the openings is used at a time.

In this picture, you can see the smallest setting of the entrance cleat. When would you use this small setting? 1) When installing your package of bees. They can still come and go, but it keeps them from wanting to fly away until they nest. 2) In the winter, when you are trying to keep mice out of your hive. 3) When the hive is being robbed by another hive. There is less entrance to protect.

The next picture shows the larger opening on the entrance cleat. When would you use this setting? Anytime you need a larger opening, but don't want to open it up all the way. This could also be used for all three reasons above.

Though the pictures shows the opening facing down, please remember to have the opening facing UP! When bees die during the winter, if the opening is down, then dead bees will fill up the opening. However, if the opening is facing up the bees can still fly out over the dead bees which you can clean out later on a warm day if the bees do not clean things up first.

Once your hive is more than a few weeks old and is not being robbed and the weather is warm the entrance cleat should be removed and stored in a place where you can easily find it for future needs.

This ends lesson one. You've learned about hive location, placement and the bottom board. In our next lesson we'll discuss the next section of the hive, the deep hive body.

Best Management Practices For Overwintered Colonies

We are David & Sheri Burns from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms and we are glad you’ve joined us for another lesson in beekeeping.
We are located in central Illinois where it is cold and snowy and the bees can’t wait until a nice warm day and neither can we.
I was going to jump into some lessons on Top Bar Hives, but I’m going to save that after this series of lessons.
There is plenty of information in the beekeeping literature to help beginners. But there is far less information that goes into great detail about what to do with your bees the second year as they come out of winter. In today’s lesson and over the course of the next few blogs I’ll address what you should be doing with your bees as winter draws to a close and spring makes its usual grand entry. But first, allow me to mention some important information.
We enjoy offering Beginner Beekeeping course and our first 2011 Basic Beekeeping class is coming up Saturday, January 15th. We still have openings, so sign up now!
Sheri and I are looking forward to this class and we have designed this one day beekeeping course to cover topics on basic beekeeping. I’m an EAS certified Master Beekeeper, so this course is well worth your time. Those interested in becoming beekeepers as well as those who have kept bees for a few years will benefit from this class. Register now to reserve your seat! We still have room for several more. It will be held at our honey bee farm located near Catlin, Illinois. Get a few friends to come along with you! Registration cost is $89 and includes lunch, a hive tool and outlines from the teachings. Also, why not save shipping cost and purchase all your hive equipment on this day. This course is team taught by Sheri and me and you'll have a great day learning about beekeeping.
I’m now blogging for Mother Earth News Magazine on beekeeping. Make my editor happy and check it out and leave a comment. Click here for the the Mother Earth News Beekeeping Blog
And I’m also producing a new newsletter called BEE SMART. It’s a bit different than these online lessons. The new Email newsletter is FREE and is all about beekeeping. It’s more brief, several times a week and has news events, and usually one brief article I’ll share on honey bees. It’s powered through Ezezine. Check out our sign up page.
Finally before we get into today’s lesson, join us for our next short course here at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms. It will be on Pests & Diseases. Get the upper hand so that your bees will be healthier and more able to survive winters. These are part of our First Friday of the month short courses we are offering. The cost is $20 and is on Friday night March 4th from 6pm – 8pm central time. Sign up now! Learn how to spot problems quickly, like the bee in the picture. Notice the problem? This bee has Deformed Wing Virus.
LESSON 91: BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR OVERWINTERED COLONIES
There is plenty of information in the beekeeping literature to help beginners. But there is far less information that goes into great detail about what to do with your bees the second year as they come out of winter. I'll take the next few articles to address what you should be doing with your bees as winter draws to a close and spring makes its usual grand entry. The first thing you should do is celebrate and rejoice that your bees made it through a long winter. After you've had sufficient time to celebrate, you'll need to get serious about helping your bees have a great season. I've made an acronym to make it easier to remember how to prepare your bees for their second seasons:
Stimulate For Rapid Foraging Force Prevent Swarms Rotate Hive Bodies Inspect The Productivity Of The Queen New Queen Give 1:1 Sugar Water & Pollen Patties
In this lesson, we'll look at how to stimulate your late winter bees for a rapid buildup of the foraging force. A colony that is very populated with foragers will be able to gather more pollen, nectar, propolis and water. This alone will make a much healthier colony. And if you desire to increase your honey yields per hive, increasing your foraging force is essential.
How can you help your colony build up a huge foraging force to gather an abundance of resources? To start, we have to do the math. We have to work backwards to arrive at our target stimulation date. Let's randomly choose May 1st as the day we want our full foraging force.
By foraging force I mean a maximum number of worker bees of foraging age. Since worker bees take 21 days to emerge and another 21 days until they take their first foraging flight, that gives us a total of 42 days. So we want our queen to be laying at her maximum 42 days prior to May 1st, which would be March 20th. But, we'll need to stimulate the queen about a week before March 20th so that she can be at her maximum laying on March 20th. Bingo, March 13th is our date that we will want to manipulate the colony to ensure we have our full foraging force for May 1st.
To stimulate our queen to lay at her maximum we would normally want a natural, heavy nectar flow. That might be the case the further south you live. In central Illinois I will have to introduce pollen substitute patties and a 1:1 sugar feedings to stimulate my queen to start laying prior to the natural nectar flow. And once I start, I cannot stop, because the colony is counting on my pollen and sugar water to feed to their larva. Even the adult bees feeding the larva need this same food so the glands in their head can produce the much need brood food.
Of course you'll need to be sure you have a prolific queen and you'll be able to determine this once the temperature warms up above 65 (F) and you can lift out brood frames and inspect for eggs and sealed brood.
…next time we’ll look at Spring Swarm Prevention
We hope you are finding our lessons very helpful and if you can, please purchase all your beekeeping needs from us! We sell packages of bees, 4 frame nucs, raise and sell our own queens and we manufacture beekeeping equipment as well. Make us your one stop shop for all your beekeeping needs. Thank you in advance.