Lessons from the NE Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference

During the NE Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference (which I am now going to call the NETFB to save typing), the emphasis was on healthy bees.  I learned a lot about balance in the hive, nutrition on every level, and respect for nature and evolution.

Michael Bush set the tone in his first talk about healthier bees.  He discussed microorganisms in the hive.  There are 30 kinds of mites, 30 kinds of insects and some 8000 microorganisms in the bee hive.  When we treat we affect the hive ecology.  Everything that is put in the hive as a treatment - whether "natural" or not - kills microorganisms.  Dean Stiglitz and Laurie Herboldsheimer (hosts of the conference) have done a small experiment just to show the influence of oxalic acid on yeast in general.  Their point is that whatever we introduce into the hive, we are affecting the ecology of the hive.

If you take the "no treatment" approach, then you are inviting the bees to experience selective pressure to evolve stronger bees who can withstand the varroa mite or whatever the next bee scourge might be.  What happens with treatment is that we strengthen the mite who becomes more virulent and prolific.  If we don't treat, according to Michael, the pressure is where it should be - on the pest/parasite to be in balance with its host.

So Michael advocates (and you can read what he talked about on his website - click on Four Simple Steps to Healthier Bees on the left side column)

1. No Treatments of any kind
2. Breed local survivor queens
3. Only natural food (honey and real pollen)
4. Use natural comb

To the point of only feeding natural food, Michael pointed out that the Ph of sugar syrup is 6 vs. that of honey which is 3.2  A lower Ph is more acidic and all brood diseases thrive more in sugar syrup than in honey.  

He has a PowerPoint on his website on natural cell size which you can also find in the left column on the linked page.

Dean Stiglitz, seen below, gave a talk on raising local queens.  I own but have only leafed through his book written with Laurie:  The Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping, and this conference and meeting him sent me home to pore over it.  He is the consummate researcher and researches other people's research.  He also gave a talk at the conference on how to read a research study to know if the results are something to rely on or not.

Again, in his queen-raising talk, the emphasis was on bee health.  To be a well-developed queen, the queen must be fed well.  So a hive must have stored food, pollen, and young worker bees to make a good queen.  He encouraged a walk-away split as one way to encourage the bees to make their own queen.  The queenless side of the split will be the cell builder.  If you put that half of the split in the old hive's location, then the foragers will return to it, adding to the food in the colony.

Another interesting talk for me was by Dee Lusby.  Dee and her late husband Ed raise bees in Arizona.  She was a little difficult to understand - I expect one learns more from visiting her at her apiary than hearing her speak, but I learned a lot from her about Housel positioning.

She pronounces it "HOO sul" - I've been calling it "How sul" so I am mending my ways going forward.  What I understood about Housel positioning is that when you put foundation, a foundation strip, or drawn comb into a hive, it's important that the inside of the cell have the "Y" at the bottom of the cell facing up on the frames from the center to the outside of the hive.  In the center it switches and the "Y" should face up going toward the nearest side.

I just thought that for some reason that was better for the bees, but instead there is an explanation that again has to do with balance in the hive.  If the "y" is facing up, then the bees use that upper "v" of the "Y" as a guide for the beginning of their comb.  And for the honey, for example, to stay in the cell, the slant of the cell has to be downward toward the center.

If the cells are not set that way, then it confuses the bees' system and their balance in the hive.  This is also why it is so important to put a frame back into a box in the same orientation in which it was originally.
Jeff and I do all of our hives this way, but only because I thought we were supposed to - now I understand why it is important.



Dee also talked about opening up the brood box in a pyramidal way by placing capped brood in the center of the box with a full frame of honey on either side of the capped brood (for insulation of the brood and for food provision).   She had a complex system of numbered frames to explain this to us.



There were other good speakers - Kirk Webster talked about overwintering nucs, but I'm not going to try to cover that in this post.  And Michael gave another talk on what he calls "Lazy Beekeeping" addressing issues I already talk about in this blog all the time:  8 frame mediums, foundationless frames, etc.  Paul Arnold who anchors the Young Harris Institute was also there, but we missed his talk on Thursday night and on Sunday.  It was fun hanging out with Paul, though, and Julia, Noah, and I ate several meals with him.

BTW, here's a picture of the Atlanta contingent with Michael Bush in front of his table of books that he was selling.  We left a space in our line-up so that his books might show up in the picture, but they don't really.





So I came away resolved to try to succeed at splitting my successful colonies, to forget feeding even bee tea, and to try to emulate my natural beekeeping mentors and heroes.

Stonehurst Hives are All over the Place

In preparation for visiting the Stonehurst Place hives today I waxed foundation into sixteen frames.  I assumed I would need to add a box to at least two of the hives over there.  The last time I was there on April 11, I didn't check the largest hive because a UGS doctoral student was collecting samples of the bees in that hive for his research.

In the service of his research, he probably killed about 300 - 400 of my bees.  But it's for a good cause.  I also had to spend about 40 minutes filling out a survey about how I manage my bees.

So I spent the first part of today waxing frames.  My wax tube fastener kind of bit the dust in the middle - I think it need a long bath fully submerged in boiling water - it seems clogged.



I tried a paintbrush which my friend Jerry says he uses, but just look at the picture.  It did not fare well.


I placed the frames according to Housel positioning in empty boxes to transport them to the inn.



At the inn, I found that Hive One was bursting at the seams, storing honey in comb between the boxes.  I moved the top box off, transferred two honey-filled frames to the new box and inserted the new empty box with the filled frames as ladders between the now sixth and fourth boxes.




I left Hive One with six boxes on it - the top four solid with honey.



Hive Two had a laying queen but the hive was slow to grow.  They had not really used the second box at all.  I didn't do much at all to that box.



Here's their second box - almost unused.



When I was last there about two weeks ago, Hive Three was queenless with about three almost ripe queen cells.  I was sad about this, but this week, I saw eggs - and ripped up queen cells.  The queen has obviously both emerged and started laying.

In contrast to Hive Two, Hive Three had completely filled their second box with nectar.  In the bottom box, they had lots of center-of-the-frame space available for laying and the queen had begun to do so.
I moved two frames of brood, eggs, and honey into what would become the new second box and sandwiched it between the bottom deep and the second box, full of honey.

First Semi-Inspection at Blue Heron

We're having a strange March in Atlanta - or really a typical March. March is always both lion and lamb in Georgia. We had thunderstorms and fierce rain for three days running at the end of the week.

I woke up on Saturday, the date of our scheduled inspection for the Metro club, expecting sunny weather in the high 50s. But no, that was not to be. Instead the skies remained overcast all day long and the temperature was only 46 by 11 AM. The inspection was scheduled for 1:30. We had four people eagerly signed up and we were as prepared as we could be.

We decided to meet our participants at Blue Heron and see if the bees were flying at 1:30 when the temperature was supposed to be up. When Julia and I arrived, it was 48 and very cloudy....grim weather and not conducive to inspecting bee hives. Julia brought her two sons: Sam and Noah, both of whom had helped install the hives at Blue Heron.

We decided to do a truncated "inspection." I had brought a new super for the nuc we installed last weekend and we knew it would be needed by that hive and we had a handout for the participants on how to do an inspection, derived from this blog post. We also thought we could demonstrate lighting a smoker, how to use the hive tool, and how to slide a hive box onto a hive.

Here's a slideshow of our "inspection" visit to Blue Heron. Click on the slideshow to see the captions and choose the length for each picture to remain visible to you.



We talked about Housel positioning and each participant was able to see the "Y" in the back of the honey cells - that's why we are looking so carefully at the old comb.

Because of the bad weather, we are rescheduling the inspection to happen at 10:30 AM on Saturday, April 4 at Blue Heron. In Atlanta's inimitable way, let's hope it doesn't snow!

Mellona is Bursting at the Seams

Mellona needs a new super. I put one on last Friday with starter frames in Housel positioning. Today that box is filled and all but two frames are fully capped! I was supposed to go to the mountains tonight, but I'm leaving in the morning because I needed to give Mellona a new box....how exciting!

Since I don't know if the Housel positioning was the reason Mellona did so well, I decided to go with it again. Again I didn't make a center frame but rather had the "y"s on each side of center facing up toward the outside of the box.

Mellona is making such beautiful honey that I am setting this super up for cut comb honey. I am using new frames with thin surplus wax foundation in six of them and some new 7-11 foundation that I ordered from Walter T. Kelley company at Michael Bush's suggestion. Michael says it makes pretty cut comb honey. The cell size is halfway between worker comb and drone comb. I put it on two frames and did starter strips on two more frames to fill out the honey super.


Looking at the pictures of these frames, you'll see HP for Housel positioning with an arrow. When you do Housel Positioning, you want the "y" in the center of the embossed cells to be facing upwards on the side of the frame facing the outside of the box. So I noted HP for Housel Positioning and the arrow to indicate which side of the frame should go toward the outside of the box. On the four 7/11 frames, I noted that as well and I put 2007 on these frames to let me know what year I began using them.

I think the picture below will demonstrate Housel Positioning. If you look at the "flower" made of seven cells of foundation in this picture, you can see that the "y" in each cell is facing up. The rougher edges mark the outside of each cell and the "y" is more faded looking.


I used my now trusty wax tube fastener to wax the foundation into the frames and poured the leftovers into my beeswax bar mold and the remainder into a bread pan for the next waxing event!

Back Doors for the Bees

Since the weather is getting hotter, it's time to consider the hive's ventilation. For air circulation through the hive, it helps to give the bees a propped top. I usually find a stick to put in between the telescoping cover and the inner cover. Today I propped the tops on all three of my hives.

In addition to providing ventilation, the propped top gives the bees a back door. I do see them using it as such - perhaps it shortens the distance to the delivery of nectar when the top box (just under the inner cover under the propped lid) is where the bees are storing honey.

I also added a new box to both Proteus and Mellona. Proteus has brood in the bottom box and the medium above that was filled with almost completely capped honey in every frame. This is the box where they made confused comb. Mostly the comb is fine now and the box is almost completely capped. I want to encourage the queen to lay in the medium, so I put a new medium between the bottom deep and the honey-filled medium.

In the interest of giving these confused bees the best possible chance of building straight comb, I used Housel positioning in my starter strips and included two full frames of small cell foundation. I also wrote the name of the hive and the number of the box on the outside of each box. Proteus now has from the bottom up: Brood Box, Box 3 - new mostly SC starter strip frames with Housel positioning, Box 1 filled with capped honey; Box 2 - foundationless frames with starter strips.

In the version of Housel positioning that I used, I did not incorporate a center frame. For understanding what I mean by Housel positioning, see this earlier post.























Meanwhile, Mellona is going gangbusters with honey making. Mellona, the Roman goddess of the bees, is obviously working on this hive. When I checked the status, Mellona has beautiful comb throughout the hive. They have fully built out all of the boxes, so I added a fourth. When I checked yesterday, Mellona had a filled brood box on the bottom; a medium that they drew out from starter strip frames that is completely filled, a shallow (actually painted for another hive) that is already filled on 8 frames with almost capped honey. I wanted to add another honey super - a shallow using Housel positioning, so I did that today. I also labeled and numbered the boxes on Mellona in the order in which they were added. Unlike Proteus, the boxes on Mellona are stacked in the order in which they were added.
























I thought someone might like to see how close Proteus is to my sunporch. This picture was taken with me standing beside the other two hives looking at the back of Proteus.

And here is a picture of my grandson who spends every Friday with me, looking out of the sunporch door from the inside. This is the Dylan's-eye view of my beeyard on my deck.

Housel positioning for the honey super

I’m interested in being a good landlord to my hives. If I am to do this, I should imitate nature as much as possible. Dee Lusby has written and spoken about a way to build the foundation for the bees to better imitate nature.

In nature, the bees may hang a feral hive from a branch and build their comb out from there. When Michael Housel studied the feral comb, he found that the center of the cell has a “Y” in it. In natural comb on either side of the center the “Y” faces up toward the outside of the hive.

When foundation is in a frame, you can turn the frame from right to left and see the "y" facing up on one side and the "y" facing down on the other. Here's a link
to see the Y positions.


When I added the super to Destin today, I marked the frames for Housel Positioning (HP) with an indicator of the "Y" up or down position. See how the up "Y" is on the outside from the center outward in each direction.

We'll see if the bees take to this more eagerly than they have with my previous random foundation placement