Checkerboarding a hive during honey production

While I was checking on my own hives, I discovered that one needed a new box. I decided to video the process of checkerboarding.

There are two ways to employ checkerboarding to open up space in your hive. First is in the early spring when you checkerboard an overwintered hive to fool the bees into thinking they don't need to swarm because there is plenty of space. In this instance, you move every other frame in the top box of the hive into an empty box and replace their previous space in the old box with empty frames. You do this with the honey box that is typically above the brood nest. This gives the bees more space to use and may interrupt their desire to swarm for more space.

Michael Bush wrote this on Beemaster to explain the basics of checkerboarding:
"For a bee colony:
o  Survival is the primary motivation
  - Survival of the existing colony takes priority.
  -  Bees will not do a reproductive swarm if they perceive it to jeopardize survival of the existing colony.
o  Survival of the species runs a close second.
  -  Generation of a reproductive swarm is the secondary objective of every over-wintered colony.
  -  The over-wintered colony expands the brood volume during the build-up by consumption of honey.
  -  When the colony has expanded the brood nest to the amount of reserve that they consider appropriate, they are now able to move into the swarm preparation phase.
  -  The first activity of swarm preparation is to reduce the brood volume by providing additional stores. As brood emerges, selected cells are filled with nectar or pollen.
  -  Alternating empty drawn combs above the brood nest "fools" the bees into thinking they don't have enough stores yet for swarming and causes them to expand the brood nest, giving both a bigger field force and avoiding reproductive swarming.

During honey production, checkerboarding can help open up room for honey production. In fact the bees will not draw wax or store nectar when there is no nectar flow. I've found during the nectar flow, though, that employing checkerboarding in honey boxes increases the storage of honey. I did this in my hive today (we are still in an ongoing nectar flow).

I use foundationless frames and it is essential to provide checkerboarding when you add a box of foundationless frames. The full frames moved up to a new box provide a "ladder" for the bees to get to the tops of the frames to draw wax.

Here is a video of how to do it:

Another check on the Buckfast bees

The Buckfast bees near Emory are doing fine. In the intervening week between St. Patrick's Day when we installed them and Thursday, the 29th when I last inspected them, we've had incredibly cold weather for Atlanta after the first day of spring. We've had nights in the 30s and day time with only about an hour above 52 degrees.

That is to say that the weather has not been very conducive to bees flying to collect nectar. They have to have nectar to draw wax, so neither of the Buckfast hives (in Emory neighborhood or at my house) had a huge amount of new wax drawn. But these hives are using the wax. In most foundationless hives as soon as comb is drawn, the queen begins laying in it.

The hive at my house had done some coloring outside the lines in their wax building. I tried to get them back on proper course with heavy duty rubber bands.

These hives are doing well and I am pleased. The nectar flow is about to begin in Georgia. There is some nectar coming in, but the big flow comes with the tulip poplar and I had one errant bloom fall into my backyard today. However, in general, the tulip poplar here is beginning to put out leaves but not blooms.

Truly, Madly, Completely Foundationless Frames

As most of you know, I don't use foundation.  I have gone through quite an evolution of approaches to reach what I am doing this year.

In the very beginning I used thin surplus wax foundation because I didn't think plastic was natural and didn't want it in my hives.  Then I started following Michael Bush and cut wax strips.  I waxed them into the grooves in the frames to give the bees a starting point.  Then the next year I decided after listening to Jennifer Berry that we were all better off with NO commercial wax with its chemical composition of fluvalinate and coumaphos.  So then I started using craft sticks glued into the groove.

In December on Christmas Day I slipped on ice while hiking in N Georgia.  I didn't know it then, but I tore my posterior tibia ligament and I have been slowly, s...l....o.....w......l......y healing since then.  I still am wearing a wrap on my ankle and tennis shoes every single day.  When bee season started, standing for a long time meant a terrible burning sensation around my ankle bone.

So I have been doing lazy beekeeping.  When my frames have old comb in them that needs replacing, I remove the old comb.  But I haven't been waxing or gluing ANytHing in and the bees are making beautiful comb without my giving them any starting place.

The photos are blurry - I used my iPhone and it doesn't accommodate my shaky hands.

Old comb:

Tear out old comb (really blurry, but it falls into a box of removed comb):

In a stewpot of boiling water, immerse the frame for 30 seconds.  Obviously the whole frame won't fit into the stew pot so I put in one half and then the other.

It isn't in the water long enough to even think about warping and all the wax melts off.  Meanwhile because I do four boxes worth of frames in one stew pot, the water in the pot is laced with melted wax so the frame gets slightly coated with melted wax.  This alone may stimulate the bees to build comb.

I use a skewer or a hive tool or whatever I have to slide along the groove and effectively mess up the patterns for any crooked comb left by the bees.  In the photo below, the right side of the frame has been submerged already and the left side still has old comb on it.  

The water is boiling hot so it quickly evaporates and the frames are ready in seconds to be put back in the hive box.  

With nothing but their bare nakedness, I put the frames onto a hive and the bees build happily.  I do checkerboard as in the post just before this, and that brings the bees into the box, but obviously they don't need my time or craft sticks to know where to start to build their comb.

I am not finding that crooked comb happens often.  When it does, it's in a hive where there has been a tendency to build crooked comb and many beekeepers suggest that that tendency is a genetic anomaly - not great genetics for comb-building = crooked comb.  

And if you don't correct it, the bees continuously build crooked comb to parallel the mess they made at the beginning.  But mostly the bees build straight beautiful comb from the bare top bar and appear to be happy campers about it.

Bees at Tom's House - Second Inspection of the Year

When we first opened the hives at Tom's, we added a new 10 frame box to each hive.  These were foundationless frame boxes with one frame of drawn comb in the center of each box.

The first box has appeared to be the strongest hive so I wasn't surprised two weeks later to find that these bees had completely drawn out the new box and used all but the edge frames in the new box.

Here's what the last frame in the box looked like:

I love to watch the bees exuding wax and building the three teardrops with which they start most frames.  They are hard at work making wax and will fill it sometimes before the frame is completely filled, i.e., the queen will start laying or nectar will be stored in the teardrops before the rest of the frame has wax in it.

And then when I pulled the third frame in the box, there was Her Majesty!  I was thrilled to see her, long golden body, looking quite healthy.  And she laid an egg while I watched.  I carefully returned the frame to the hive, but not before taking several photos of her.

The second hive was built out almost as fully as the first.  They had made some crooked comb and I completely blame myself.  When you take frames out of the hive and cut out old comb, a remainder of wax is left against the wooden frame that suggests where the bees had built before.  The frames I put in these hives had been cut out but not "melted out."  

As a result, I think these bees were following the guidelines left by some previous crooked comb builders.  It only has to be a problem on one frame and then the rest follow to match the first.  So one half of this box - five frames - had crooked comb at one end.  You can see it between the hive drapes.

I hung each comb on the frame rack and worked on it there since I was alone and didn't have a helper to hold it for me.

I cut out the offending comb and then rubber-banded the comb into position.  I did something else that you are not supposed to do, but I hope helped with the situation.  When I returned the five frames to the hive, I turned every other frame opposite of the way it had been sitting so that the cut out part was against straight comb on both sides. 

This will confuse the bees as if I had rearranged their furniture without permission, but hopefully will encourage them to build straight comb.

In the photo above, you can see how the rubber bands are at opposite ends in frames 5, 4, and 3.  Hopefully this will fix the situation.

I didn't see the queen in this hive - didn't even look for her because I was doing comb repair.  But the hive looked healthy and I did see new larvae.

The hives need new boxes and Jeff has them to put on the hives on Thursday which should be finally a warm enough day to open the hives.  The foundationless frames in the new boxes have been cleaned - which means that I have dipped the frames into boiling water for 30 seconds on each end to melt the old comb patterns.  Then I have glued in popsicle sticks.  Hopefully they will not build crooked comb in these frames.

These bees are doing great and I am happy.  

Speaking to SOWEGA bee club

On Thursday, last week, I went to Albany, Georgia to speak to the SOWEGA bee club there.  They don't regularly have nonmember speakers, so I felt quite complimented that I was invited.  It's a long way from Atlanta - over three hours - so I arranged to spend the night with Bear and Marybeth Kelley who live about 45 minutes north of Albany.  Bear is the president of the Georgia Beekeepers Association and both of them are generous and very nice people.

I talked to the bee club about using foundationless frames.  I encouraged them to try a few or a box of foundationless or at least some small experiment with foundationless frames to see how their bees did. 

Hopefully some of them will give it a try.

Thanks to Marybeth Kelley for taking these photos.

Musing about Frames: The Importance of the Tenth Nail, Sturdy Waxing, and the Availability of a Handy Toothpick

Lots of people purchase their frames pre-assembled.  I am not one of those people.  However, I am certainly rethinking this - it takes me 50 minutes to nail together 10 frames using a jig - not very fast, although the jig really helps.  The jig is set up for 10 frames, so when I went through the process three times, I've completed enough for three boxes (but since I use 8 frame boxes, I actually almost have enough for four!)  Waxing frames in takes time too.  This morning I spent one hour cutting and waxing strips into about 50 frames.

Constructing a frame takes 10 nails.

Are you listening, those of you who only bothered to use eight nails?

The tenth nail is the hardest to drive in and makes me say, "*#^#$^)%(#$)," almost every time  However, it is by far the most important nail.  That nail and glue make all the difference in frames that can stand up over time.  The tenth nail is the one that takes me the longest.  I can hammer all eight into 10 frames in 30 minutes.  Then it takes me 20 more minutes to hammer in that $(*)@#*$**^ ( tenth nail into either end bar of 10 frames.

If you don't hammer in the tenth nail (or use glue), the sight below is one you might see.  This is a medium box of honey, but I won't be able to harvest the second frame.  The top bar has become unattached from the end bar and I won't be able to get it out of the box.   This is a frame from 2007, so it is in its fifth year of use (new comb every year), but the parts are wearing out and maybe I skipped the 10th nail at least on this end of the frame.

The frames for the hives at Stonehurst don't have the tenth nail.  I am not in charge of constructing the hive parts over there. I picked up the constructed frames the other day and brought them home to wax in strips.  When I noticed the lack of the 10th nail, I suppose I could have nailed it into place.  It's my nemesis however, so instead  I've decided that if one of the frames over there comes apart like the one above, I'm simply skipping it in the harvest.  And if we order any more frames for Stonehurst, I'll do a better job of educating the guy who is building the hive parts.

When I've given talks about using foundation less frames, I've had beekeepers I respect tell me that they have had strips fall out of frames in Hotlanta weather.  That has never happened to me.  I wonder if perhaps those beekeepers are not waxing in the strips well.

When I put a wax strip into a frame, I run the wax tube fastener up one side of the strip.  Then I turn the frame and run the wax tube fastener up the other side.  When I'm done it's well waxed in and I can't imagine it falling out.

Here's where the handy toothpick comes in (you were wondering, weren't you?).  Sometimes the wax tube fastener looks like it is releasing wax when it isn't really.  Then I take a handy toothpick and unplug the hole in the handle.  Wax flows out easily then and I can make sure the wax strip is being secured on both sides.

One thing I've noticed in using frames from previous years when I have cut out the old comb:  If the old comb I cut out was crooked cross comb, then the bees with the now empty frame, follow the old cell lines and build crooked comb again....even with just a one cell depth of wax left on the frame.

Going forward when I cut out cross comb, I am going to use hot water to melt the old crooked lines off of the top bar and insert a new wax strip.  I may have to put such old frames into a boiling water bath so that the bees, in trying to color between the lines, crooked though they may be, won't have the old lines to use.

Note:  There's a video on this site about how to build a frame.

Bees: A Little of This, A Little of That

Yesterday I inspected all the hives at home.  Finding lots of little tidbits of interest, I decided to post a hodge-podge of them, so here goes:

I saw a perfectly lovely queen in SOS2.  She was gliding slowly, unfazed by my arrival in the hive, over her creations and paused so that I could take her photo.  Isn't she pretty - I love the golden queens that my bees often raise.



It has (finally) begun to rain in Atlanta - we've now had several days of it.  My garden is green, and the nectar flow may get a last hurrah with the extra push of moisture from the universe.  Below you can see my water source.  It's a plant saucer sitting on an upturned pot.  Inside that plant saucer is another one filled with rocks so that the bees have somewhere to light while taking in the water.



I fall in love with the bees all over again every time I pull a foundationless frame and find that they are creating comb.



Remember the frames that have stood around untouched until the nectar flow began to diminish?  There have been bees all over them for the past few days and now every cell has been ripped open and all the honey robbed out.



The shards of wax cappings on the ground attest to the robbery.  That is a way that you can tell if your hive has been robbed.  In a working hive, the bees are quite conservative with the wax - they reuse the caps of the brood cells, they move wax from one place to the next.  But in a robbery, the bees are not invested and tear the cappings off, dropping them wherever they may fall.



Early in my beekeeping, when I was still using sheets of wax foundation, I put a box of wax foundation frames as a new super on the hive .  Later that day, I stood by the hive and could hear a definite crunching sound.  I even posted on Beemaster about it because it was such a strange sound.  I came to discover that the bees were chewing the wax out of the new frames and taking it to a place in the hive where it was needed!

Imagine hearing crunching coming from your hive!

My bees in these hives have really been collecting nectar.  They've built some pretty fat honey comb as you can see in the photo below.



I'm off to Young Harris tomorrow night and will be teaching "Low Tech Beekeeping" there on Friday afternoon at 1 and at 2 in room 106.  If you are there, be sure to speak to me and introduce yourself as someone who reads this blog.

Inviting Bees into a New Super of Foundationless Frames

This morning I visited the Morningside Community Garden hives to see how they are doing and to determine if either hive needed a new box.  I only had about 20 minutes so it helps to know the purpose of the inspection.  Once I've gotten my question answered, I can shut the hive up and go on to work.

Hive One did not need a new box.  They have three boxes and they had only built in four of the frames in the new box.  Since two of those were ladder frames, in essence they had only drawn out two of the new box's frames.

However Hive 2 was a different story.  They had built out seven of the eight frames in their second box so it was time to add a third box.  The photo below is of frame seven.  It isn't completely built out but I still want to add the box.


In a tree the bees build down.  I want to put the new box beneath the current ongoing second box.  To invite the bees into the super, I need to create a ladder of drawn honeycomb for them to traverse between the two boxes.  This will encourage them to build in the new box two which will contain six empty frames and two filled frames serving as the ladder.

I removed two empty frames from the new box to make space for the ladder frames.

In box two, I removed two frames of brood and eggs - in the same position as the two empty frames from the new box.


I put the two brood frames in positions 2 and 3 in the new second box.  It helps that they are brood frames because the bees will come into the box to keep the brood warm and fed.  You can use honey combs for the ladder, but brood combs are more inviting for the bees.

Below you can see the brood frames moved into position 2 and 3 in the new box.


In box two I pushed the frame in the number 1 position against frame 4 (making it now in position 3) and put the two empty frames in positions 1 and 2.

Now the box is all put back together.  The box with the "6" stenciled on it is the new empty box with the ladder in positions 2 and 3.  The box above it is the old second box (now box three), full except for the frames in positions 1 and 2 which are foundationless frames, waiting to be filled by the bees.

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.

It's March and Colony Square is Bursting at the Seams

Today I gave a talk at the Riverside West Garden Club in Sandy Springs (part of Atlanta).  I reviewed the talk last night and packed the car this morning.  Yesterday I volunteered at the Publix Marathon in Atlanta (5:30 AM - 1 PM); worked the bees with Jeff in the afternoon; and went to a bee course planning meeting over dinner.

I wasn't functioning on all cylinders this morning.

I put my computer in the car, the LCD projector, some honey and crackers for them to taste, a box to take to Colony Square after the talk, and my bee gear.  I drove 25 minutes to the meeting site, set up all my equipment (computer and slide projector) and then discovered that I had left my flash drive back at home with the whole talk on it in Power Point.

Luckily I had another talk actually saved on the computer that covered the topics, but didn't have the lovely bees on flowers pictures that I always take to garden clubs.   Despite all of that,  I think the talk went OK.  Then I drove to Jeff's to add a box to Colony Square.

We've made two splits from Colony Square and it is still bursting at the seams.  I got fully suited and lit my smoker and opened the hive.  This hive is so angry all the time.  Bees head butted me throughout the small intrusion.  I decided I should name the two splits from this hive (also angry bees even in their new location at my house) Spawn of Satan One and Spawn of Satan Two (SOS1 and SOS2).

All I did to them today was remove the top box (about 50 pounds full of honey) and add another box under it.  I took two frames of comb from Box #3 and put them in Box #4 in the center.  I put foundationless frames in their place in Box # 3 (see below).

With the addition of the box below the top box and with the two ladder frames in the center of the hive, the bees are supposed to build comb more easily.  In a hollow tree, for example, the bees start at the top and build down.  So putting the box below is a more natural way for the bees to build their comb.



Bees were so in my face that all the photos I took were like the one below with a bee obscuring your view as she flew toward my veil in front of the camera!



In the end I left Colony Square with FIVE boxes - it's only March - and met Julia at the Blue Heron (see next post).  If things continue to go well, this hive will produce a record amount of honey.  It was so difficult to lift that fifty pound box by myself into the top position.  The second they have capped that honey, we are harvesting it.



Jeff showed me a unique way to stop the air flow to the smoker and I employed it today.  We'll call it Jeff's acorn method: