Natural Beekeeping

Next morning is nice and sunny and the bees are flying well from both hives. As I walk around to the front of the South hive it looks like the bees are about to move out – the front of the box being covered by the biggest beard I have ever seen!

A bit of a panic, deep breath and we quietly add an additional box back to the hive.

Analysis over tea and biscuits convinces us you really do need an inspection window per box so you can see the comb building and know when to add boxes. The fact our bees bearded so late in the year I expect was due to the shock of having their space below the brood whisked away from them by two whole boxes. If we had built the hive up more accurately this would not have happened. We will try reducing the hive height again come late October when we rotate the hive from warm to cold setting, i.e. comb at right angle to the entrance to reduce cold winter drafts.

This one has four boxes; again we know the bottom box is empty, so reducing to two boxes should be easier. The procedure is as follows:-

Remove roof, remove top box, but keep quilt and insulation box on to maintain some warmth. Remove second down box and inspect, third and fourth box accordingly.

Now, to our surprise, the third down box is completely without comb, as well as the fourth box, which we already knew. (This is why you need windows) We decide to rebuild the hive second box down first, then the top box on top, finishing with the roof. It feels good, the sequence going well, although the top box feels light and we shall have to think about feeding. The air is full of bees, perhaps not overly pleased with our actions.

September has started with warm, sunny days, but today is overcast so we’ll start feeding the bees’ honey back to them. We simply utilise the empty bottom box, placing a deep bowl on the base with as much comb broken up into this as we can get. Co-ordinating a smooth and upright lift of the four hive boxes, being top heavy, is slightly awkward: even a small movement off the vertical seems dramatic. Do the bees notice? I don’t know. However, we will build a lift before next summer, simply to give more control to the process. 

Four days later, we repeat the feeding process, pleased to see the comb had been thoroughly cleaned. I expect the bees are still light on food, do we feed sugar?  By the way, we reduced the bee entrance for the first few days of feeding to help prevent robbing, I used a block of wood with a small channel cut out.