Need basic To Do list

[Kermujn]

Hello.  My father passed away last fall leaving behind 2 hives in Central Pennsylvania.  He took up beekeeping after I left home, so I never had the luxury of learning the basics of beekeeping.  

I kept an eye on the hives through the winter as best I could while trying to fish some information from the internet as best I could to maintain the hives.  Luckily I got both hives throught he winter, though I did have to supplement them with syrup in mid march.  Both hives are very active now as things have begun to bloom.  

One hive has one super the other 2.  I removed both queen excluders earlier this month after someone told me they shouldnt be left overwinter.  

My question is simply what do I need to do to maintain these 2 hives through the summer as I can get time to learn more about beekeeping.  I am not interested in harvesting honey this summer.  Letting the bees do thier thing with giving them all they need is what I wish to do this year.

I hope I havent gotten too far into the season to have poor timing in regards to some basic maintenance issues.  Thanks in advance.  

Ben

[manowar422]

I hope I havent gotten too far into the season to have poor timing in regards to some basic maintenance issues. Thanks in advance.

At this point you need some help from an experienced beekeeper.
If that doesn't come to pass, you need to educate yourself quickly.
Buy a couple of books (there are good recomendations in this forum)
and read as many dated posts here in the forum, as you can.
The search tool works very well and should get you started in
the right direction.

First thing I would check would be for pesticide strips your Dad
MAY have placed in the hives last fall.
The strips will be suspended in between the frames.
These strips need to be removed while wearing gloves to
protect you from the pesticide chemicals.

Basically, at this point in the North American season, beekeepers are
adding supers to their hives as the bees fill up the ones already on
the hives.

How many boxes containing frames are availible for you to place
on the hives?

[manowar422]

Just thought of something . . .

Ask a family member if your Dad belonged to a club or maybe
had a bee buddy close to home. Chances are he did. If you
contact someone who knew him, maybe they will help you
carry on his legacy.

[bassman1977]

Kermujn, what town are you from?

[Understudy]

As long as ytou are not to concerned about getting honey this year your maintainece list will be pretty simple for the first year.

1. Learn about bees. Read lots, ask lots of stupid questions, they are easier than stupid mistakes. Watch you bees and learn their behavior.

2. Grab a smoker and learn to use it and how to keep it smoking for more than 10 minutes. Grab a beekeeper outfit if you are not comfortable looking at your bees in a shirt and jeans.

3. Have a hive prybar or a good screwdriver to help you access your hives. Bees like to make a substance to cut down on drafts in the hive. It makes getting access sometimes a sticky situation.

4. Understand you will get stung. You got hit by the ball as a kid , you skinned you knee and you have fallen off your bike, the bees will eventually sting you. If you live in fear of that give up your bike, baseball, and cover youself in a padded suit so you don't fall down and hurt yourself.

5. Open the hive up and look inside. Pull the frames out and look at them. Begin to learn what you are looking at so you can recognize it.

6. Take pictures and look at them because you can look at the pictures without leaving frames out for hours.

7. Learn to find the queen. Okay this is way easier said than done. I still have one hive I have never seen the queen in but I know she is there because of all the eggs she is laying.

8. Learn to recognize healthy bees and unhealthy bees. Look for nasty pests such as small hive beetles (SHB) or mites. Learn to see if the brood cells show signs of diease such as foulbrood or chaulkbrood or others.

9. Learn about bee space. Bees live in a community that has rules, the rules are we need space of certain types. Bees want a certain space to draw comb. Bees want a certain amount of space to control swarming. If bees don't get what they want they will not make new bees, honey, or they will swarm. Boy those bees are a bunch of spoiled brats.

10. Understand this will take time to learn, and require repeated action over and over. And you are allowed to screw up.

11. Brendhan gets 10% of all honey cultivated, and at least two good queens a year.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Kermujn]

Thanks to all who replied.  

Kermujn, what town are you from?

My fathers hives are just outside Johnstown.


I have a hood, smoker and hive tool.  From the information I have gathered lately, I need to acquire some supers as well as frame materials.

I found some unlabeled jars of chemicals, probably terramycin and the like but decided to pitch them than risk guessing what each was.  Is there anything preventive that should be done now in regards to chemicals rather than wait to treat something that shows up later?

I will be ordering a couple supers / frame materials soon and need anything else thats critical at this point.

Thanks

[Understudy]

If when you inspect you don't see anything that is a cause for concern. I would leave well enough alone. Bees are pretty good at self maintence.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Robo]

Is there anything preventive that should be done now in regards to chemicals rather than wait to treat something that shows up later?

If they made it thru the Winter, they were pretty healthy in the Fall.  The only thing you need to watch for is Varroa mites,  if they aren't kept under check now, by Fall your hives will be so infested they will not be able to make it thru the winter.  

Do they have SBB (screened bottom boards)? If so you can monitor the mite drop.  If not,  you can tear open some drone cells (the ones that protrude like bullets) and pull out the white larvae and inspect for varroa mites.

I would definately look for a local mentor if at all possible.  Most beekeepers are more than willing to help out.

[Jack Parr]

Hello.  My father passed away last fall leaving behind 2 hives in Central Pennsylvania.  He took up beekeeping after I left home, so I never had the luxury of learning the basics of beekeeping.  

I kept an eye on the hives through the winter as best I could while trying to fish some information from the internet as best I could to maintain the hives.  Luckily I got both hives throught he winter, though I did have to supplement them with syrup in mid march.  Both hives are very active now as things have begun to bloom.  

One hive has one super the other 2.  I removed both queen excluders earlier this month after someone told me they shouldnt be left overwinter.  

My question is simply what do I need to do to maintain these 2 hives through the summer as I can get time to learn more about beekeeping.  I am not interested in harvesting honey this summer.  Letting the bees do thier thing with giving them all they need is what I wish to do this year.

I hope I havent gotten too far into the season to have poor timing in regards to some basic maintenance issues.  Thanks in advance.  

Ben

If those hives are in good condition, you need to be interested in the bees making honey because they will and maybe lotsa of it, depending. They will need some extra space to store this honey are you risk having them overcrowd their existing hive space and just maybe FLY AWAY as in swarming. If their is not sufficient space for the bees to store gathered nectar they will fill the brood comb with honey and pollen and your boxes/hive will be honey bound.  NO EGG LAYING SPACE for the queen.

So I would, post haste, obtain some medium honey supers and frames ready to install on top of your existing boxes above the" queen excluder " for that anticipated " honey flow " Perhaps one of the posters here on this board from your neck of the woods will advise about when to expect the " HONEY FLOW " or nectar gathering season is likely to start, FOR YOUR area. Some of the poster on this thread are in the northern part of the country and ROBO is one of them. Surely HE SHOULD know. The owner of this site, Beemaster is in Jersy and he should know also.

Personally,  being from the deep South, that is about ALL the help that I will offer. Actually, you being in the Northern part of the country, are at an advantage because most of the beekeeping lore in the books concerns beekeeping up there. I have honey that is ready to be extracted RIGHT NOW and been having it.  The same thing will probably happen to YOU some time in the not too distant future, so you need to prepare now.

You should master the art of beekeeping, with a cram course of book reading on the subject, in, say,  ohhhh,  about six months. Enough at least to work your way through the first HONEY season. Find some good pics because that really helps.  This forum is useful for beginners but you will get different answers from different people on the same question.  That's normal.

Good luck.

[Kermujn]

Hello again.  I have been reading quite a bit in the last week and have become aware of a few issues I am not sure how to handle.

First, my fathers hives are in disrepair, specifically the bottom boards and deeps of both hives.  The bottom board is of a design I have not seen in any reading I have done.   The bottom boards are 2 layers(most likely glued) and the top layer is now seperating and warping upward thus reducing the entrance in places.  Also the bottom board has been attached to the lower deep with wood screws from the underside.  I cannot find reasoning for this in the reading I have done.  This seems quite hindering to the keeper.  Raccoon deterrent?  I am puzzled to explain this.

I have gathered that swapping out these bottom boards and deeps probably isnt a good idea this time of year.  The situation isnt critical with the hives in threat of falling apart, but I would like to get new ware in place before winter.  

So when the time does arrive to replace the bottom boards and deeps, is it simply putting the lower deeps frames into the new deep and reassembling the hive upward?  


Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[Finsky]

I think that it is better to buy a beekeeping book and try to read that. It is diffucult to get information fron internet in right order.

In beekeeping basic is to follow the speed of colony development during spring and summer and how colony reacts on weather and flowering times.

When know a liitle bit what bees are doing in their hives you may anticipate it is good direction or should you lead them to some direction.

To prevent swarming and to take care of new space is important in sring and early summer.

To watch brood area do you see signs of diseases is important. If broos area is porous, it needs closer search.



.

[Understudy]

Hello again.  I have been reading quite a bit in the last week and have become aware of a few issues I am not sure how to handle.

First, my fathers hives are in disrepair, specifically the bottom boards and deeps of both hives.  The bottom board is of a design I have not seen in any reading I have done.   The bottom boards are 2 layers(most likely glued) and the top layer is now seperating and warping upward thus reducing the entrance in places.  Also the bottom board has been attached to the lower deep with wood screws from the underside.  I cannot find reasoning for this in the reading I have done.  This seems quite hindering to the keeper.  Raccoon deterrent?  I am puzzled to explain this.

It was probably put their to either help with moving the hive around or to prevent it from being easily knocked over and seperated by predators.

I have gathered that swapping out these bottom boards and deeps probably isnt a good idea this time of year.  The situation isnt critical with the hives in threat of falling apart, but I would like to get new ware in place before winter.  

Not an expert, but changing a bottom board should not be a big deal. Change out the bad bottom boards with new ones.

So when the time does arrive to replace the bottom boards and deeps, is it simply putting the lower deeps frames into the new deep and reassembling the hive upward?  

Sounds like a good idea. When you replace the bottom board, replace any bad hive bodies and work your way from the bottom up.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

If you don't replace the wood and a the wood finally collapses or gives out it will suck even worse than having to spend some time swaping good wood for bad. As long as the frames are in good shape you should be okay. Keep the structure of frames the same. Those frames that were in the bottom stay there, those in the middle and the top stay in the same position.

I hope that helps.

Sincerely,
Brendhan

[Jerrymac]

So when the time does arrive to replace the bottom boards and deeps, is it simply putting the lower deeps frames into the new deep and reassembling the hive upward?  

Sure! Do it at the next inspection. Simply place a new deep on the bottom board of your choice next to the existing hive. As you pull the frames out of the old and inspect them just place them in the right order in the new box. Problem solved.

[fthomas]

I am in my very first year of beekeeping.  There are a lot of books that you can purchase but the most basic one I have found to get started is the $5 "First Lessons in Beekeeping" by Dadant  http://www.dadant.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=240
It is easy to read and pretty much walks you through the whole process. I have found that this gives me a good basis for everything else I read.  If you really do get into it then there are 2 magazines that are both very good-- American Bee Journal and Bee Culture.  Both have articles for beginners and experienced beekeepers.