Meeting Michael Bush - I Can't Believe It!

When we arrived in Leominster, Massachusetts, for the NE Treatment Free Beekeeping Conference, here is the sign that greeted us!  It took us until Friday night to find the bar that was "accepting apps," but we were glad for the glass of wine that we bought there when we did finally locate it!

The conference was great in so many ways and I learned a lot, but I thought I'd post a few of the highlights (including the sign) tonight and then I'll post some of the content over the next week.

Sam Comfort talked about Warre hives and I was so entertained and learned a lot.  I knew nothing about Warre hives before I listened to him speak.

I had hoped we would also get some time with Sam in the beehives but it rained every day.  He is a wonder to watch as he works the bees with no protective gear and only a broad-brimmed hat.  I really wanted Noah to get to see Sam in action.  Sam told Noah that he drove his bees down to the conference inside his van - they are top bar and Warre hives - so they were not screened off.  Should have been quite an adventure.



Before we got there, Sam taught a workshop on how to build a skep.  Here is a skep that he built.  Some funny beekeeper equipped the skep with a head covering, sunglasses and a German smoker for a pipe!



But for me the highlight of the meeting was getting to meet Michael Bush in person.  I was so star struck that the first day, the best I could do was to introduce myself and essentially run back to my seat.  But the second day I got to chat with him some and got to eat dinner with him on our last night there - which was a privilege.

When I first started beekeeping, I wanted to be a natural beekeeper and found little support in my local bee club at that time seven years ago.  I went to the Internet for guidance and found Michael on Beemaster and Beesource.  He has been my model for how I'd like to keep bees from the beginning and he has always been willing to answer emails and questions I've posted on Beemaster and Beesource.  I've also learned from reading his website and posts in answer to questions from other people.

It is so rare to get to thank someone like that in person - Michael was every bit as nice in person as he is when he responds on the Internet to questions that he must have been asked 800 times.  I am absolutely thrilled that I got to meet him.

In the photo below, we are standing in front of a table filled with his books that he was selling at the meeting.  In addition to his own book, he has reprinted old beekeeping manuals from classic beekeepers.  I already own his book, so I bought his compendium of queen rearing guides.



Julia, Noah, and I had a great time at the conference and I came home more determined and informed about the importance of no treatment and the importance of raising hives that can fight the varroa mite without my intrusion.

NE Treatment Free Bee Conference

Well, Julia, Noah, and I spent the day at the conference. We've all learned lots.

Michael Bush was the first speaker. I couldn't believe I was getting to meet him in person. He is such a nice man and as good a speaker as I had imagined.


He spoke on balance in the beehive and the value of no treatment, bee nutrition, and natural comb. 


 We then heard Dean Stiglitz on the value of raising your own queens and I kept feeling inspired to come home and make splits!


 Sam Comfort talked about simplicity of keeping bees and was a delight as he always is. 


 We also heard Erik Osterlund and Kirk Webster I'll post more when I'm with my computer at home and can put up more pictures and info. 


Having a great time! Wish you were here!

Thursday's Almost Here!

I am beyond excited.  All of you know how much I admire (and often refer to or quote) Michael Bush. Well on Thursday, Julia, Noah and I are going to Leominster, Massachusetts (home of the the manufacturer of all those food grade plastic buckets we all use at honey harvest) to the NE Treatment Free Beekeepers Conference!

And guess who will be there:  Michael Bush!!!  I've wanted to meet Michael Bush for seven years!



Not only will Michael Bush be there, but also Sam Comfort, whom I love and love to hear speak (I first met Sam when he and I were both speakers at the SE Organic Beekeepers Conference a couple of years ago and then I saw him again that year at  EAS - he's always a trip); Dee Lusby, the queen of treatment free beekeepers; and the host of the conference:  Dean Stiglitz who wrote the Complete Idiot's Guide to Beekeeping.  (see below)



I plan to listen well, take lots of notes, and bask in the presence of these masters - people for whom I hold intense hero worship.

I will be completely happy if Julia takes a photo of me with Michael Bush, or better yet if someone else takes all three of us with him.  Actually I am realizing there are no photos of Michael anywhere - not even on the book he wrote.  He's from Nebraska - maybe he's part of an Indian tribe that believes you lose part of your soul if someone snaps your picture.  So whatever it is, I'll be glad to meet him, but not press for a picture, unless it seems like the appropriate thing to do.

The conference includes a lot of hands on stuff this week, but I couldn't leave work so we are going for the main conference which starts on Friday.

Wyatt Mangum on Top Bar Beekeeping

Wyatt Mangum is a professor at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. He also has written a monthly column for American Bee Journal for years and years without ever missing a month on honey bee biology. He kept bees as a boy and then started over in 1986. He keeps all of his bees in top bar hives. His book on top bar beekeeping is in the final stages. I want to buy it the minute it is available.  He spoke at EAS in Boone at the beginning of this month.



He likes top bar hives and builds them now according to his own standard although there is no industry standard. Here are a few of his hives below. The photo below shows one that he built by weaving sticks together with telephone wire to form the sloping sides of the hive!


Because he does keep to his own standard, then he can easily transfer combs from one hive to another since the slope angle is the same on every box. He uses his own template.

He starts with a 1 X 12. The dimensions for the end boards are 12" sides, 17.5" top and 9.25" bottom. The sides are 1 X 12. He uses untreated wood and he keeps his entrance holes standard as well. He drills six holes at the end of the hive with a hand drill. Because he moves these hives, he has a hand grip on each hive which is simply a top bar turned sideways and nailed to the end. The floor is a 10" board (which we know is actually about a 9.75" board). He puts a cleat at the front of the hive to fill in the space between the first top bar and the end of the hive.. He paints his hives with paint rollers rather than brushes.

His top bars are 1 3/8" wide. He cuts starter strips for his top bars that are the same width (1 3/8"). He waxes these in with a dipper of melted wax - he made the dipper by cutting down a plastic cup and melting it slightly to form a pouring spout. He attached a dowel for a handle.

Note: This man is very handy and inventive. He makes all of his own equipment in a small tool shed. He showed us the stacks and stacks of wooden end boards and sides as he worked on putting together some 200 hives over the winter.

His slides are his own and although I took pictures of many of them for my own learning, I am only going to share the one below. The top bars are upturned so that you can see the starter strip. This is a 3 foot hive with 22 top bars. Since beekeepers have been known to lose fingers ripping top bars, I asked him how he got them cut and he gets a sheltered workshop to do them for him.



Very, very generously after his talk at EAS, he stayed in the hall and spoke to a number of us for about another hour afterwards.



He uses roofing tin as his roof. He says that if you don't have a good enough roof the combs drop off of the top bars (which explains why my top bar hive has comb lying on the SBB at the bottom.) He also said that bees won't stay in a top bar hive unless you have some old comb that is drawn to help the bees want to stay in the box (which is what finally worked in mine).

He nails the roofing tin to 2X4s to allow ventilation in the hive.  I used that corrugated white plastic but it wasn't enough insulation to protect the hive from the intense Atlanta heat this summer.  I went to our big box stores in Atlanta and they don't carry roofing tin.  Maybe I can buy some in the mountains at the hardware store there.

The notch you can see on the edge of the roof is for anchoring the rope he uses to tie down the top.
He cuts the tin section so that it can have an overlap the length of his hand.  He demonstrated how he measures it with his hand when he puts the top back on the hive.

Then he begins the tying down process.  He uses the notch cut in each end of the tin roof to anchor the tie.

He is very efficient so he quickly throws the rope to the opposite side.  He has this down to a fine science.

He has a screw eye on the end of the hive through which to tie the top down.

The hive is now secured until the next time.  (Don't you love his hat and jumpsuit - he said nobody recognized him on his wedding day because he didn't have it on!)

He plugs his entrances with pieces of sponge rather than trying to find a cork that will fit - like I said he is quite inventive.

I learned so much from Wyatt Mangum at EAS.  He was the highlight of the conference for me.

As I was chatting with him, up came my buddy from the Southeastern Organic Beekeepers Conference where we both were presenters:  Sam Comfort - my other top bar hero.

Sam Comfort and Top Bar Hives

At the Southeast Organic Beekeepers Conference in West Palm Beach, FL, I had the opportunity to hear Sam Comfort talk and demonstrate his top bar hives. I want to build one - looks easy enough for a construction-challenged person. I'll bet I can do it - I'm certainly going to try this season.

He doesn't build stands, but keeps them on cinder blocks or those plastic crates that people use in offices. He worked the bees calmly and with no protection. It was a joy to watch him.


His top bar hive is quite simple. He points out that the bees just need a hollow place - no specific dimensions are called for, but he does make his top bar hives wide enough to accommodate a Langstroth frame - which makes conversion possible.


Below is a frame that includes a Langstroth frame attached to a top bar. Sam said that he can take a frame from a hive box and cut the comb at a slant to accommodate the sides of the top bar hive. Then he attaches the Langstroth frame to the bottom of the top bar and there you have it!

I've wondered how to begin with bees in a top bar hive without having to order a package. So I think there are about three ways one can do this:

• install a package in the hive,
  
• install a captured swarm in a hive,
  
• make a split with a Langstroth hive and convert the frames as Sam has done here. Well, I can't wait to experiment.

As the hive grows, Sam adds more top bars and moves the divider that marks the beginning and end of the hive further down the box.



He tops the hive with a simple board weighed down by bricks. He places two pieces of wood above the top bars to provide the bees with some ventilation.

You can see the top bars for raising the top of the hive under the hive top toward the right.

Top bar hives have the advantage of not having to lift boxes to get into the hives. They have the disadvantage of being probably too heavy to move once the bees are really up and going. Many top bar hives are about a foot longer than the 3 foot long ones that Sam builds - now those would have one foot more of space for the bees to fill and to weigh the hive down.

Sam told me at dinner on Friday night that he had made top bar hives from reeds and mud and had never moved them because not only was the interior of the hive heavy, but the reed/mud mix was extremely heavy.

Overall the conference was a nice mix of working the bees in outdoor settings and being indoors for talks about different topics.