new beek anxiety

beesNme · May 23, 2014, 09:21:30 AM

my wife and i got all excited to get our bees, 4 nucs 2 itailian and 2 carniolans. this is our first year. we hived them and are going to have rain for 2-3 days :( well at least i can look at the hive boxes when i feed them sugar water. we feel like a kid in a toy store. we can look at the toys but no playing allowed

BeeMaster2 · May 23, 2014, 09:36:13 AM

Congratulations on your new hives. How are you feeding the?. Is it inside of the hive or on the front door step? If it is on the front of the hive I recommend that you put on top of the hive and place a super with the cover on top.
Jim

Ryan820 · May 23, 2014, 09:40:48 AM

What Jim said. And no worrying about the bees...when I installed my package of bees it then snowed for a day and then high winds and rain for six more. They did fine partially because I had to let them be.

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beesNme · May 23, 2014, 10:02:01 AM

thank you , right now i am using boardman feeders. we choose them because we don't have to disturb the hive to feed. i was going to do the top feeder when the hive got a little bigger ?

ryan820 6 days ? wow. but your proberly right, but making the hives, spending money on the nucs and just being able to watch the sugar water go down is a bummer, lol

oh i should state i am using sugar water with honey b healthy mixed in.

BeeMaster2 · May 23, 2014, 10:24:35 AM

Quote from: beesNme on May 23, 2014, 10:02:01 AM
thank you , right now i am using boardman feeders. we choose them because we don't have to disturb the hive to feed. i was going to do the top feeder when the hive got a little bigger ?

Since you are using a board man feeder, I recommend you use a 3/4 x 3/4" x 6" board to block the entrance near the feeder. It will reduce the chance of robbing which can kill a hive.

ryan820 6 days ? wow. but your properly right, but making the hives, spending money on the nucs and just being able to watch the sugar water go down is a bummer, lol

oh i should state i am using sugar water with honey b healthy mixed in.

Bee careful with the HBH. Only use a tiny bit. Used to bee the instructions were wrong. A good friend of mine lost a few hives when it first came out. She sent them a nasty letter describing the problem. Now she works with them to develope new products.
I am pretty sure they fixed it if you have a new bottle.

Jim

danno · May 23, 2014, 03:59:48 PM

with a nuc disturbing them is not much of a issue. They have there queen and although small, have there brood nest. Where it would come into play would be introducing a new queen. Even packages that have spent a few days in travel can handle some disturbance. Boardman feeders have there share of problems. They are the worst for starting up robbing and with HBH it can be worse. They load up and have to run over the brood nest to store it above. They dont allow a standard entrance reducer to be installed. This isn't a problem if you can make one to fit with the feeder. Last they dont hold much so you have to fill more often. A miller hive top feeder will hold about 8 times more feed

Intheswamp · May 23, 2014, 07:08:51 PM

I agree with getting those boardman feeders out of the entrance, they are known to cause robbing issues...something even an experienced beekeeper dreads to have to deal with.

Syrup can attract ants. If you are using telescoping covers with inner covers and you think you might have trouble with sugar ants you can sprinkle some cinnamon on top of the inner cover and smear it around...it is somewhat of a repellent to the ants. People have varied results using the cinnamon...it has worked pretty good for me.

You said you hived your nucs, so I take it that you have them in full sized 8 or 10 frame boxes with comb, brood, honey and pollen, and empty or foundation-filled frames inside?

Ed

beesNme · May 23, 2014, 08:20:58 PM

hi ed. yes they are in 10 frame deeps 1 with full foundation and the other with a mix of foundation and foundationless.

danno. the nucs came with new queens. i just went out to check the feed levels and found one drawback is rainwater, so i will proberly be using a different type feeder

jim. the hbh is homemade a club member makes it. i will get the recipe and post it. i know tea tree oil.lemon grass, sugar and a few other things are in it

jayj200 · May 25, 2014, 10:24:53 AM

How much to the quart? hbh the says a table spoon my girls stayed away from it till i dumped it out. went back to sugar water
jay

beesNme · May 25, 2014, 02:22:34 PM

here is the recipe i hope this works

5 cups water
2 ½ pounds of sugar
1/8 teaspoon lecithin granules (used as an emulsifier)
15 drops spearmint oil
15 drops lemongrass oil
15 drops of Tea Tree oil

Use hot water to mix the sugar and water.
While mixture is hot add the Lecithin Granuales, spearmint oil, Tea Tree oil, and lemon grass oil.
Put ingredients in a blender and mix for 4 minutes.

add 1 teaspoon per quart of syrup
The emulsifier can be bought at any Health Food Store.
It lets the oils and water mix and adds animo acids that bees need to stay healthy.
Makes 2 quarts

danno · May 26, 2014, 11:09:43 AM

If you got a caged queen then you didn't get nuc. What you bought a split.

beesNme · May 26, 2014, 02:05:56 PM

ok i thought they were one of the same for the most part, right know they are bringing stuff into the hive at a great pace. the carniolan hive which is made up of 2 8 frame mediums isn;t doing anything, they seem lathargic. they were inspected by the state. i don't want to disturb them. maybe they weren't feed enough ? i thought carns would be better in the cooler weather ?