Looking for critique of my first inspection

[IndianaBrown]

I started my first hive from a 4 frame nuc I bought on April 29th.  I just completed my first insepction a few minutes ago.  The main reason I wanted to get in there now was to place a drone frame in the hive.  (I ordered the drone frame too late to have it in time for the nuc.)  I am using Pierco plastic frames, and wanted to do the drone comb swap thing for V mite controll.

The hive has looked pretty good so far.  Bees coming and going, some with pollen visible as they return.  I have the entrance reduced to about 1/3 of the width of the hive.

Notes:
First mistake: my smoker ran out of fuel about 2 minutes after I got the hive open.   :?  I had alread smoked the entrance and under the top feeder sufficiently, so I pressed on, but did not take as much time to look at the frams as I wanted to.

The top feeder was just about empty, although there was still some activity under the panel.  There was a bit of burr comb on the underside of the feeder, with some bees clinging to it.  Since it was empty I left the bees/comb alone and placed it on it's side while I looked inside.  I plan to add a quart of 1:1 syrup later this evening.  (So far I have had not needed veil or smoke while checking/filling the feeder shortly after dark.  The bees went through a little over a quart of 2.5:1 and one quart of 1:1 syrup so far.)

There were a few bees here and there on all of the plastic frames, but the vast majority were tightly packed on the wooden nuc frames.  The bees had drawn some comb on the plastic frames that were next to the nuc frames, but had not started to fill it with anything yet.  The outer 2 nuc frames were mostly honey, and the inner 2 had a mix of things going on;  some capped drones, some uncapped honey/nectar, some pollen, and a few (dark) capped cells that I think was old honey.  I did not see the queen, eggs or larva, but the frames were very crowded with bees, and as I said, I did not want to spend too much time looking since my smoke was gone before I got very far.  I did see eggs and queen when I got the nuc just under a week ago.

Again, my main reason for getting in there was to place a drone frame in the hive.  I figured that if I spread the nuc frames out and interspersed them with my plastic frames this might help the bees accept them and draw them out sooner.

Frames before:
1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
P  P  P  W W W W P  P  P
e  e  c  h  m m  h c  e  e

Frames after:
1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10
P  P  W D W P  W P  W P
e  e  h  e  m c  m c  h  e

P = Plastic frame
W = Wood frame from nuc
D = plastic Drone frame
e = Empty, little or no comb drawn
c = Comb partially drawn
h = mostly Honey
m = Mixed cells of several types

(Is there a better way to describe this?)

After this I do not plan to move the frames around anymore, aside from moving the drone frame up (along with some honey?) if/when I place the second brood chamber over the first

I don't think I crushed any bees.  Aside from the returning workers being a bit upset the hive was relatively calm and manageable the whole time despite my smoke mistake.  I saw no dead bees, a not much debris on the bottom board or through the bottom screen.

Is there anything else I should do for now?  Any obvious mistakes? (Aside from the smoker? :roll: )

[Michael Bush]

>First mistake: my smoker ran out of fuel about 2 minutes after I got the hive open.

What did you have for fuel?

>Again, my main reason for getting in there was to place a drone frame in the hive. I figured that if I spread the nuc frames out and interspersed them with my plastic frames this might help the bees accept them and draw them out sooner.

>(Is there a better way to describe this?)

Yes.  Specify if they are brood, honey, pollen, empty, foundation etc.

The brood needs to stay together unless you have some reason (such as swarm prevention or small cell comb being drawn) to put something in the brood nest and even then I would not break it up too much.  The brood nest needs to be consolidated.

[IndianaBrown]

> What did you have for fuel?
Mostly Twine.  I had trouble getting it to stay lit so I put in a little sawdust and couple dried leaves.  It made tons of great smoke, mostly while I was tying my veil and getting gloves on.  :lol:

> Yes.  Specify if they are brood, honey, pollen, empty, foundation etc.
I thought I had, but the horizontal spacing did not work after the message was posted.  Here it is vertically
Frames before:
1 Pe
2 Pe
3 Pc
4 Wh
5 Wm
6 Wm
7 Wh
8 Pc
9 Pe
10 Pe

Frames after:
1 Pe
2 Pe
3 Wh
4 De
5 Wm
6 Pc
7 Wm
8 Pc
9 Wh
10 Pe

P = Plastic frame
W = Wood frame from nuc
D = plastic Drone frame
e = Empty, little or no comb drawn
c = Comb partially drawn
h = mostly Honey
m = Mixed cells of several types

> The brood needs to stay together unless you have some reason (such as swarm prevention or small cell comb being drawn) to put something in the brood nest and even then I would not break it up too much.  The brood nest needs to be consolidated.  

I left it in order, but spread it out just a bit.  The brood itself (in the 'mixed' frames, were separated by a single frame with partially drawn comb.

[Summerbee]

IndianaB, you are waaay more organized than me.  :)

 I get the same thing w/ my smoker, I set it up b4 I put on my bulky gloves and then it sizzles out right as I walk over to the hive.  For a medium smoke and long lasting burn, I use newspaper to start it up (I don't think it's too good for the bees though), and pine needles with green cabbage palmetto between layers.  The pine needles seem to keep it going, and the palmettos slowly smolder for maybe 20 minutes.  But pine needles and some other leafy stuff would probably work too.

Yah, I would leave the brood together unless you want frames to be drawn out, but don't break it apart completely... but there's as many ways of doing something in beekeeping as there are bees, I learned that early on  :?  so do what you wanna do; and have fun!

[Finsky]

You have 4 frame nuc. You should resitrict the room to 5 frames=half a box.

Don't give whole drone frame to build. It is too much even to big hive.

It is better if you cut an inch gap in lower part of comb and let bees make the dronecombs. That is enough for tiny hive.

10 frames to 4 frame nuc is too much untill they get new bees.

[Michael Bush]

You have only two frames of brood?  (Wm=Wood mixed cells?)  And you put an empty between them?  I wouldn't.  I wouldn't put an empty in the brood nest until they have six or seven frames of brood.  A good test is to spready them enough to put a frame in and see how quickly it fills with festooning bees.  If it doesn't fill in a couple of miniutes they aren't strong enough to put that in.

I'm with Finsky on limiting the size until they get going.

[IndianaBrown]

Thanks for the responses.  While I may have jumped the gun by spltting the nuc frames a bit, I am not worried about it since the bees seem to be getting more vigorous every day.  I saw many young bees flying 'crazy 8's' in front of the hive and crawling around at the entrance for awhile today.   :D  The workers coming back with nectar and pollen had trouble getting past the youngsters at times.  The younger bees seem to be a bit darker than the older bees, which makes sense to me because the queen is very dark.

The 4 nuc frames were pretty much completely covered with bees when I opened the hive at 1 week.  From what little I could see of the frames (remeber I ran out of smoke almost right away) every cell on the nuc frames was full of something.  (Which makes sense because they were pretty much full when I got them.)  There were many other bees around also.  They do not seem to like the plastic frames much so far, but according to the info sheet that came with the frames, spacing them out with other frames is one way to get them to accept them.  Also, at apiary where I got the nuc I was told I could space the frames out a bit after the bees 'settled in', presumably for the same reason.  As per your comments I will not do this with the brood area any more though.   The frame that I placed between the 2 'brood' frames was partially drawn comb.  The other partially drawn frame went between a 'brood' frame and a 'honey' frame.  (Again, the sheer number of bees on the frames made it hard to be sure there was not brood on the 'honey' frames.)

Finsky, are you saying that a 4 frame nuc should spend time in a 5 frame box?  I thought one of the benefits of a nuc was to get the hive going more quickly - since in a nuc there should be brood coming along constantly to replace the live bees that came with the nuc.  My nuc looked strong and vigorous, from visible eggs all the way to capped brood, when I picked it up.  As far as I can tell, I have had no decrease in the number of bees.

The only thing that I think may be a problem it is the timing of putting in the drone frame.  Since I purchased plastic frames my options were kind of limited as far as cutting gaps in foundation or comb.  I wanted to get them to start to draw out the plastic frame relatively quickly.  I am sure you are correct in that a whole frame of drone is too much for a one box hive.  The point of the drone frame is not to produce drones, but to combat Varroa mites:
http://www.betterbee.com/products.asp?dept=1577  
http://www.betterbee.com/resources/varroamites.html
The basic idea is to freeze out the mites on the drone larva on a preiodic basis.  (You lose the drone larva of course.)  I have a second drone frame that I need to have the bees draw out once I pull the first one out.

Anyway, I will check the hive again in a few days to see how they are doing with the plastic frames.  I will keep you posted.  :)

[Finsky]

Finsky, are you saying that a 4 frame nuc should spend time in a 5 frame box?  I thought one of the benefits of a nuc was to get the hive going more quickly

Basic idea is that brood area has 32C temperature. development time of bee is exactly 3 weeks. If you have too much room bees have difficulties to maintain brood temperature in colony. Warm escapes.

Good days fill combs and restrict the brood area. On another hand cold restrict also brood area. Nights are cold, it rains and wind blows into entrance.

It is my aim too get nucs going quickly. But hives developes in its own rate. Best result comes when room is restricted to size which bee can occupy. You cannot get it quicker.

When frame is full of brood it gives 3 frames bees.

Bees must be over 2 weeks old before they draw  combs. They are not able to draw combs as much as beekeepers think.

Development of 4 frame nuc is slow.  It may maintain only 2 frame brood. 6-frame is much more quicker. It may maintain 4 frames brood and it it twice.

[Finsky]

You have only two frames of brood?  (Wm=Wood mixed cells?)  And you put an empty between them? .

Bees have real troubles if you do that.