Rookie Questions

[mtbe]

Hopefully will be starting next spring.  Too late this year.

1. I really only want 2 hives.  I've read about swaming, splitting, etc, but still don't have a good idea how many boxes I should have handy.  I plan on starting with the Top Bar Hives.  So, if I want only two hives, will I need additional boxes to handle swaming and splitting, etc.?

2. When boxing the comb for sale, I see the caps are still on it.  This of course is to keep the honey inside.  Does that mean the people buying the comb need to cut the caps of?  How do they extract the honey?

3. When scraping off the caps, what do you do with the waste?  I plan on using the simple filter method so do I just brake up the comb and filter it?  What is done with the waste?

4. I've read that I need comb for the new bees to start, but with a Top Bar Hive, I probably won't have the comb.  Do I just dump them in and let them get to work?

[BenC]

1.) It never hurts to have extra equipment.  Ideally all your stuff will be of the same dimensions so that pieces such as frames, topbars or other components may be swapped around to allow easier management.

2.) Consumers could cut the caps off but honey would still be in the cells.  I think most people who purchase honey in that form just smashed it up and eat it, wax and all.

3.) When scraping or cutting off caps or smashing comb, you are not generating waste unless your intent is to be wasteful.  The material you scrape or smash is wax.  Beeswax.  A useful product from the hive.  Rinse it and melt it down, you'll have a use (or customer) for it sometime and it doesn't go bad.

4.) If your topbars are done right, yes, just dump them in.  Use the search feature of this forum to look for "foundationless", "starter strip", "TBH", "top bar", "popsicle stick" to get started.

[Bill W.]

#1

You can just have two hives.  You may find you want more once you have two.  ;)

You'll have to accept the fact that, even if you've done everything you can to discourage swarming, your bees will eventually decide to swarm.  If you have no place to put that swarm, you may just have to let them go.  Or, you could catch them and give them away.  If you had some extra gear, but want to maintain two hives, you could box them, let them get established and then combine them back into the main hive later.

Or, you could keep some extra conventional hive boxes around, hive your swarm, and sell it to someone.

#2

People usually just eat the comb honey, wax and all.  If they didn't want to do that, they would probably not be paying you a premium for comb honey and would just buy a pre-extracted bottle.

#3

You dump the caps in a container that allows the honey to drain off for bottling.  If you are going to crush and strain the whole comb, there is no reason to remove the caps.  Just crush it all and let it drain.

#4

I don't know much about top bar hives, but bees don't need comb or foundation, just some sort of guide hanging from the tops of the frames that tells them where to start building.  It can be useful to have at least one piece of comb or foundation to give them a guide to build straight.  With no such guide, you may get some odd combs.  You just have to stay on top of them and make sure that you cull out bad combs.

[mtbe]

WOW....

Thanks for the speedy replies.  This is really fueling my desire to start. 

[Michael Bush]

>1. I really only want 2 hives.  I've read about swaming, splitting, etc, but still don't have a good idea how many boxes I should have handy.  I plan on starting with the Top Bar Hives.  So, if I want only two hives, will I need additional boxes to handle swaming and splitting, etc.?

It's probably a good idea to have an extra box for swarms, splits etc.

>2. When boxing the comb for sale, I see the caps are still on it.  This of course is to keep the honey inside.  Does that mean the people buying the comb need to cut the caps of?

No.  You eat the comb.

>  How do they extract the honey?

They don't.  They cut the comb and put wax, honey and all on their biscuit and less runs off because of the wax.

>4. I've read that I need comb for the new bees to start

No, you don't.

> but with a Top Bar Hive, I probably won't have the comb.

No, you won't.

>  Do I just dump them in and let them get to work?

Yes.  Assuming you have some kind of comb guide on the bars.

[randydrivesabus]

it would probably be a good idea to feed them.