This time of year, as folks come to pick up their Nucs, I often get the question of what kind of boxes (Deep, Medium or Shallow) should I use for my bees. It’s a logical question, as there are all sorts of different set-ups out there and it can get confusing.

First, some basics – there are generally three types of langstroth hive boxes:

1. Deeps (frames are 9-5/8 inches high),
2. Mediums (frames are 6-5/8 inches high), and
3. Shallows (frames are 5-11/16 inches high)

When I first got into beekeeping, I remember wondering why in the heck were there three sizes? It’s not like we have small bees and large bees – they are all the same size! I soon found out that Deeps and Shallows had been around a long time. Deeps were traditionally used for the bees to keep their home – raise the brood and store some resources (honey, pollen, etc…) Shallows were for honey – they were smaller and easier to pick up and move around when full of honey. I think most of the old time beekeepers in our area kept bees in two deeps (home/brood chambers) and used a bunch of shallows for honey.

(I use two terms to describe my boxes – brood boxes and honey supers. They live in the former all year round. They store honey in the latter for me to harvest in May/June/July. Depending on the situation, I have used all three boxes sizes for brood chambers, but only Mediums and Shallows for honey supers.)

Mediums came along later, initially to replace the heavy Deeps for brood chambers (I am sure lifting the top Deep off in a two Deep setup would break anyone’s back) but then folks also started to use them as honey supers.

I started off using a double deep setup (as described above) for my brood chambers. Within a couple of years, it was clear to me that it was too much space for my area. The bees hardly made it through a fraction of their honey over the Winter, it was a huge amount of space for smaller colonies to manage and it seemed to encourage swarming (by creating a honey boundary above them from the start of the season.) I soon started to experiment with a single deep under a single medium. This is my primary setup today. I do run Deep-Shallow setups and a few with only 3 mediums for the brood chamber. All of these setups work for me in my area. I seem to prefer the Deep-Medium setup, based on the numbers.

For honey, I use both Mediums and Shallows. Shallows are a dream, mainly because they are fairly light, even when full of honey. I continue to use them to this day, but may end up phasing them out. They are fine if you are running a few hives in your backyard, but having 3 sizes can be a pain when I need to run to 5 different yards in one afternoon and need to be stocked up in all three sizes to be prepared. I am thinking of moving to only Deeps and Mediums, to ease the inspection cycle, but have not committed yet.

For Nucs, I create both Deeps and Mediums. 5 frames of bees, in either the Deep or Medium size.

Wow. This site is full of defects! Folks have been messaging me over the years, but I really didn’t realize how many things had stopped working! No doubt many have given up on me (I probably would have.)
The Contact Me form is now fixed. I probably need to do more tweaks to it, as I do not think it prevents the spammers at the moment. Regardless, it now works, along with the Swarm Report. I believe that I have also finally nailed down my site skin. Lots more to do, but the site is getting back on her feet!

Now that mid-March has arrived, the season for the Bee Keeper in central Virginia is in full swing. My primary goals right now are to get honey supers on any hive that appears strong. I also want to note the hives that appear ready for Nuc creation (which starts in about a week, for me.) Of course, there are lots of prep tasks that are constantly taking place now (new frame and foundation creation, patching boxes (or, more likely, putting boxes in need of repair in my garage for future work – whenever time allows!!!)) and general equipment prep.)

Adding a honey super now is probably not the best idea for the normal hobby beekeeper. It’s probably better to shoot for early April for this task. I mainly start in mid-March because I have found that I can rarely get around to all of the hives in early April. So, to make sure all are ready on Tax Day, I start a month early. In truth, this probably slows down some of my hives (too much space to manage), but I have never seen a long term negative impact (maybe I get less honey than I normally would have, but I get enough honey as it is!) Why do I add honey supers? For honey, of course! But, it is a swarm management technique. Giving them that extra space now can keep some hives happy and out of the swarm mode as the nectar flow starts to pop.

I was also able to fully hive all but one of my overwintered Nucs this past weekend. I say it way too much, but these nucs really impress me. With the exception of a few swarms, I have never seen a build up like I see with overwintered Nucs at this time of year. I think the fact that I raise the queen in July (and sometimes August) means that she is born, gets to raise a few new bees and then the hive tells her to STOP for the Winter. She was just born and probably says “What the (*&(*&!!!!!”. She then waits all Winter and, once they give her the green light, she goes to town. At any rate, they really roll (and that’s why I have learned that they need to be fully hived in early March – this year, I am running behind a bit.)

But, I ran across one this past weekend that was definitely not popping. She was probably working 3 frames, max. If I combined all of the brood, I bet I could get it all onto one frame. These things frustrate me. Early on, when I was just observing and not messing with them, I had a couple of instances where a hive that appeared much slower than others, significantly outperformed its peers by May. In those days, I remember thinking they wouldn’t make it, but didn’t try to manage them (this was my “leave them bee and see what happens” phase), and was surprised to see that most did just fine. The queens simply like to start their build up later.

But, since then, I have had many experiences where weak queens never amount to much and the hive, eventually, peters out. I always wonder “if I had just killed the queen in late March, would the hive had recovered?” As of this moment, I am sticking with the “late bloomers” theory and letting them be. I did reduce them to only one Deep super and am hopeful they will be rolling by early March (unlikely, given normal Bee Math, but we shall see.)

Site Update: I have successfully implemented HTTPS, so everything is secure now. I am currently playing around with various themes. I do not recall being so particular, but nothing seems to suit my fancy at the moment. At any rate, next up on my list is fixing the Email and Contact forms.

February is a month of great anticipation! I seem to have more energy and/or enthusiasm for getting ready for the Spring garden and, of course, the Flow than any other time of the year. February always has at least a day or two that pops up close to or above 60 and gives everyone a taste of Spring. The bees begin flying in earnest and beekeepers have their first real chance to go in and actually inspect a hive. It’s exciting thinking about what is coming in the next couple of months – it’s probably the most exciting time if you keep bees.

I personally do not feed my bees anymore, but I do think it is wise for the new beekeepers to feed any hives that seem light at this time of year. I would say that anything less than 5 medium frames of honey would be a problem in my book. It really doesn’t take a lot of honey at this time (I have had a full hive make it with only a bit over 1 full deep frame of honey in early February). Initially, I simply fed because I wanted to be sure to have bees. In year two, I was a little more selective and by year three, I was taking risks to see exactly how much honey they needed. Nowadays, I have a pretty good handle on the honey stores by December and I just need to lift the back of the hive (a weight check). Mistakes do happen, but they are very rare. My goal is always to keep feed away from my bees. I want them eating honey made from natural nectar!

So, besides doing weight checks and maybe playing with an Overwintered Nuc, I used almost all of February to get my gear ready. I plan to create/sell 15 Nucs, create 5 new hives and sell 15 existing hives. In addition, I want to swap out some of my older, drawn frames with frames of foundation. This means that I need to make sure that I have plenty of new frames ready and lots of hive boxes prepped. For whatever reason, it is a labor of love for sure. It is an exhilarating chore, preparing for March.

So, now that March is here, my first real activity takes place. I have found that Mar 1 (or the first period of decently warm Spring weather (maybe 3 days with highs at or above 50) is the best time to hive my overwintered Nucs. These Nucs always come out of Spring stronger than any bees that I am used to (maybe excluding a really strong swarm). I have to get them space in early March or they are guaranteed to swarm. The weather looks cold and wet right now, but I am confident that a good day will pop up shortly for me to begin my work.

Once that’s done, I hope to post here about my next task – Swarm Management and Nuc Creation!!! Bonzai!

Site Update: I have fixed several of the problems that had crept into the site due to months of inattention. There are several more, including the Mail engine and a couple of other items that need fixing. I also cleaned up the skin, but this needs tweaking as well. Bare with me:)

I get this question a lot when folks purchase a Nuc or a full Hive from me. It’s a good question and I remember well my own curiosity about how often, am I doing it too much or not enough, and so forth.

For any new beekeeper, I firmly believe that they should be going in and pulling every frame about once a week. Hopefully, they started with an honest-to-god Nuc (not a package or something that folks today call a Nuc which is just a package that has been queened by the seller) and have at least two of them. This is a rare opportunity to inspect an entire hive and only be dealing with between 4000 and 8000 bees. When the hive gets to full size, it will run from 30,000 to 60,000 bees and be an entirely different animal.

With so few bees, you will be able to reliably identify some of the key parts of the hive (capped brood, larvae, honey, pollen, etc…) You might even see your first egg or that elusive queen (it should be noted that I never laid eyes on the queen of either of my two first hives during the first Summer!) More importantly, this is the time to get comfortable going through the bees. By late June, the bees can become a bit agitated during inspections since nectar sources are low and all of their neighbors want to steal their honey! So, for the new beekeeper, once a week for 3 months is right on target. Even 2 months is good.

But, I do not believe this is necessary for someone who is experienced. For me, I make sure that I look into every hive at least once a month. By “look in”, I typically simply pull off all of the honey supers and the top brood chamber, pull the center frame from the bottom brood chamber and make sure that I see some evidence of the queen. Usually, larvae is good, but I do want to see capped worker brood (only capped drone brood can be a problem!) If I see that, I mark the hive for it’s next inspection in 4 weeks. Of course, there are other factors that might bring me back to the hive, such as checking honey supers or maybe creating late Nucs off of a particularly good queen line. But, these are all nice-to-have…my main Must Have is “check to be sure that I see evidence of a queen once a month”. If I do not see it on the center frame, I dig deeper to see if I have a problem.

Finally, since I am actively working on creating Nucs, I typically go into the hives once every two weeks during Apr, May and Jun. But, this is really just to create more hives.

Mother Nature is definitely the most fickle lass that I know! Last year, we had a very wet Spring, coupled with a bout of freezing weather in late April that I believe was the primary culprit in the struggles of the last year. Rain washes nectar out of plants – not a good thing for bees. The freezing weather whacked both my blueberry and strawberry blooms. I have to imagine that similar things happened to many weeds out in the wilds (weeds that my bees rely on for nectar). All of this lead to a below-average honey crop and difficulty in getting new hives to build up as they normally do.

Fast forward to this Spring. The lack of rain has enabled me to create what may be a record number of Nucs. I think I have 30 out in the field, or there about. With the exception of one that I let starve (like a fool – even noted in my journal that their “resource frame was light” and that I should feed these gals…), my Nucs seem to be doing really well. But, it has been unusually dry by my reckonning. Over the last 10 days, I believe I have received 1.5 inches of rain. Not terrible for a June or July, but pretty poor for an April. They do not even forecast rain in he foreseeable future.

Although I do not think that there has been any impact yet, I do believe that I will change my tune on that score by the end of next week if we still do not have rain. But, only time will tell…

Although I have heard of several eager beekeepers talking about creating Nuc’s (for a variety of reasons, mostly around purported queen cell creation in their overwintered hives) already, I never create Nuc’s until I see a lot of walking drones in my hives in a given area. I an definitively say that my areas (eastern Henrico and central/western Charles City County) do not have a good population of walking drones in the hives, based on observations of a half a dozen yards, at least, in each area.

In truth, I have already been down that road, in my early beekeeping days. Warm weather hits in February, a few hives look really strong and I was off to the races in my Nuc creation! Some Nuc’s failed and those that made it seemed to start off strong but always had issues in short order. On the other hand, I have found that creating Nuc’s when there are plenty of walking drones in the hive is a very good indicator of success (a strong, long living queen and hive.)

Some might ask what the heck I am talking about, when it comes to “walking drones”. The base of this practice focuses on a theory (that I personally have found to be VERY true) that queens (and their hives) do much better when bred very well (by 13+ drones) in their mating flights. To get this kind of mating, the local population of drones needs to be high enough to make this happen.

By the time we hit February, I rarely ever find any drones from the past year still in the hives. All were either kicked out the past Fall or have died of old age in the hive. As things begin to ramp up (pollen and nectar start ebbing into the hive), the workers will encourage the queen to begin laying drone eggs. The key for the Nuc creator is to determine when these new drones will be out to mate with their queens!

It comes down to good old Bee Math. Once a drone hatches and begins “walking around on the comb”, you have about 3 weeks before it starts flying out of the hive to do the “mating thing”. Thus, many beekeepers use the date at which they find “walking drones” as a good time to start a new Nuc. When you start a new Nuc, it takes the bees about two weeks to raise a new queen and then another week for her to get her legs under her before she goes out to mate, for a total of 3 weeks. Thus, “walking drones” (also 3 weeks) is a good indicator of when to start a Nuc.

But, in my view (and experience) this just means a few drones will be out when my queen is ready. I like to have A LOT of drones out there (see theory above). So, I usually wait a week or two AFTER I see the first walking drones before I even begin my Nuc creation.

As of yesterday, I have only seen capped drone cells in all of my hives (despite all of the warm weather) – not one, single walking drone. So, I am at least two weeks out from the creation of any Nuc’s as of now.

The first hive inspections of the year are always an adventure of up’s and down’s, although “inspection” is a strong word for it. Typically, I am going to 3 or 4 yards, checking hive weight (lifting the back of hive) and pulling off each super and/or brood chamber until I get to the bottom box and then I level her out for the year. Finally, I remove the entrance reducer if one was placed on her last Fall.

As long as there are lots of bees, decent hive weight and they are bringing in pollen that is about all that I do. I make a quick note about weight and how many bees are in the hive. The heaviest (with the most honey) are noted as emergency stores for any light hive and ones with the most bees are noted for early Nucs. The majority are simply noted for when I believe it will be good to check again and (maybe) drop a honey super or two on them. In rare situations (lots of bees, but low honey), I will make a note to quickly bring a super (or at least a few frames) of honey from another hive out to them.

Now, to the challenges! Sometimes, I find only a few bees. As will be noted from my past “lesson’s learned”, I do not like to spend a lot of time on a queen that is a poor performer. Even so, I will give her the benefit of the doubt (in these early inspections) and make a note to drop a few frames of capped brood in the hive (from a strong hive.) Maybe two or three at the most. I already know that a hive with this few bees is unlikely to produce honey this year, but I am willing to take a chance that her genetics are good, she just drew a poor hand this past Winter. But, that’s it. The hive needs to show marked improvement in about 40 days, otherwise I will be re-queening them.

Finally, the dreaded Dead-out’s. I know they are out there, the very first time I don the beekeeping suit for the year. The question is “how many”. I have been fortunate to only lose between 5 and 10% of my hives in any Winter, but I know the Big One is in my future. Will it be this year? My first outing this year was to my westernmost yard which literally looks out over the city of Richmond on its eastern side. That yard had two mature hives and one overwintered Nuc. For the first time in my recollection, I arrived at a yard to find all hives were deadouts. The nuc, in fact, had died the previous Fall (based on the wax moth damage). The other two were pristine, with a good bit of honey and pollen, but no bees. I could not help but wonder if this would be my experience with the rest of my hives. I did very little “Winter Prep” last Fall, due to work related issues consuming all of my time. Would I lose a ton of my hives?

As fate would have it, the next three yards that I visited had very strong hives and even one overwintered Nuc that was only in ONE NUC body (I run overwintered Nucs in 2 Nuc bodies, so this one slipped thru the cracks because of how busy I was last Fall.) That little queen had made it through the Winter on 5 frickin’ frames!!! Booyah! I did have a couple of other deadouts in other yards, but the rest of the hives were roaring strong. And so the year begins, with successes and failures. I like to think that the strongest continue to thrive and my genetic pool gets stronger and stronger with each passing year.