Decided to try Beekeeping and the TBH this year.

The EZup didn’t work so fukn well with 21 mph winds. Lol. I was kinda expecting it but just left it anyway.

Well, at least I made a heavy hive. All is good.

Oh damn, the wind just crumpled that thing.

I really like the flag stones under the hive, that should help keep the grass around the hive from getting out of hand. Trimming grass around hives sucks.
Looks awesome!

@Funkentelechy - my bars are 1 1/2”. All off them. Do you use two different sizes? I was thinking about just leaving them as is.

So they ate the marshmallow and queen is out.



Due to the crappy weather over the last few days, I only pulled a few bars to take a peek and check on the queen. Put everything back together. I come in and take my stuff off.

Forgot to check the sugar water. Guess I’ll go back out later or tomorrow.

I thought this was a cool pic.

All of my bars are the same size, 1 1/4".

I recommend this stuff(I have no association with the company) for the inevitable stings. Bees also release pheromones when they sting, so after one stings you the others can smell that something happened and they will all be a little more defensive. The scent of sting stop helps to cover pheromones that the bees release when they sting you.


One time my friend and I collected a swarm from a campground near me, it went terribly and neither of us had protective gear on. We got stung so many times both of us were straight up hallucinating. I drove us back to his house and had the distinct feeling that I shouldn't be driving,we only had one tube of stingstop so we just passed it back and forth talking to each other about how bad it was, my wife had to drive me home. The next day his wife said we were talking gibberish to each other and none of it made sense.

I’ll get some. Thanks.

Took this today. This is the entrance I have. Far left is feeder area. Board with screws is the follower. It was getting dark, but I noticed in the RED areas there were no bees. Then I closed it up and walked away.

Probably an entrance and an exit? Are the bees blocking the opening because of the weather? Too big of an opening?

I checked bars 6-5-4. No comb but festoonig was going on. Bar 4 had a good amount of bees. When I picked it up they all fell off and no comb there. So I stopped.

Got to say, I was a little disappointed not seeing any comb. But I understand it just rained for 3-4 days and it’s still cold. It got up to 65 today and they were doing there thing.

Opinion time. Should I see what’s going on under bars 1 and 2 or leave it alone for a while?

I think tomorrow I’ll shave 1/4” off half the bars.

They ate half the sugar water so far.

Based on what you said, it sounds like the bees are clustering towards the front, they look like they are just guarding the entrance.
The queen is probably somewhere on the second bar and the bees will probably move the queen to the center of the hive eventually. Although not always, I had a hive in which the queen lived in the the back of the hive for two years.
I would leave it alone for a little while, I think I usually wait about a week after removing the queen cage to do any inspections, almost definitely everything is fine and you're right, it has been a bit cold and they are probably just starting to build comb.
When there is comb, look in the bottom of the cells for eggs, they are hard to see at first, they look like a grain of sand attached ideally in the center of bottom of the cell.

You guys with hives should think about at harvest time collecting propolis. Cleaned up it is probably way more expensive than honey.

If you have ever bought it in a health food store the sticker price will amaze you. But never spoils. And will kick the crap out of colds and flu.

Tastes nasty but definitely one of the best natural remedies there is.

Funkentelechy said:

Based on what you said, it sounds like the bees are clustering towards the front, they look like they are just guarding the entrance.
The queen is probably somewhere on the second bar and the bees will probably move the queen to the center of the hive eventually. Although not always, I had a hive in which the queen lived in the the back of the hive for two years.
I would leave it alone for a little while, I think I usually wait about a week after removing the queen cage to do any inspections, almost definitely everything is fine and you're right, it has been a bit cold and they are probably just starting to build comb.
When there is comb, look in the bottom of the cells for eggs, they are hard to see at first, they look like a grain of sand attached ideally in the center of bottom of the cell.

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Again, thanks for sharing your experiences and info. It’s really priceless.

I’ll check on them next week. Weather here is suppose to be between 70-77 starting this Saturday through next Saturday. No rain.

Here they are this morning.

Checked on the hive today. First thing I did was take out the feeder. The follower board (on the hive side) had a small comb attached. I detached it and set it aside. Discarded the follower board.

Exciting stuff today. Saw the queen. Think I saw some capped honey. They made 3-4 perfect combs right down the center of the bars on the guides. Then a smaller one and a smaller one as you get away from the entrance. I think I left 8 bars there and added four or five 1 1/2” bars. Then I added the follower board and closed the top

So going back to the comb I scraped off. I brought it back to the house and was checking it out. It’s maybe 1”x3”. It has what looks like pollen or nectar in the cells and it smells like flowers. I ate some wax just to be a smart ass. My wife had to smush the comb in for some reason.

I need a good camera I can put on a tripod and take vid the whole time. I looked up GoPro on Amazon to get me in that area. Found some cameras for $40-$50 that I think would do me fine.



No stings yet. Knock on wood.

Yeah that's pollen in the bottom of the cells.

This came up on my feed and I thought of this thread


I don't have enough imagination ever having the confidence of this guy to do this video in sandals and not suited up.

Love the thread. I have bottom so into watching bee videos on YouTube and there is 1 man that does a great job of relocating bees from around where he's from, here's a link you should check out his stuff, great bloke. https://www.youtube.com/user/JPthebeeman
Again, Great thread .

hanimmal said:

This came up on my feed and I thought of this thread

I don't have enough imagination ever having the confidence of this guy to do this video in sandals and not suited up.

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I watch that guys videos, he's got some good information. The rotting meat part sounds disgusting but you can't argue with results.

I had a massive Yellow jacket nest underneath one of my honey bee hives a couple of years ago, it was a serious pain to deal with. I had to lift the honey bee hive to get to the yellow jackets, and because the Yellow jackets had been living under the honey bee hive the honey bees had become super defensive, consequently the honey bees and the Yellow jackets were both stinging me throughout the process.
I wrapped duct tape around my wrists where the sleeves of my jacket meet my gloves and around my ankles for the pants to boot connection. That helped because they sometimes get in that way, but they still stung me through my Carhartt pants and I got a few on the wrists despite the duct tape.

Last week I opened the hive to check things out. I noticed they started to make two different combs on the same bar. I broke the smaller one off and tried to straighten the bigger one. Well it broke.

Pulled a few nice bars up. Put them back and closed it up.

doing a great job with them man @HighLowGrow

Today I thought what the hell. I need to check things out. Brought my phone out this time.

Hell ya

I came across something a couple of weeks ago that made a lot of sense so I did it.

I put a blank bar between two good straight combs. Did this about 4 places. Sure enough, they built new comb on those blank bars. And they are perfectly straight.

So far I’m having fun.

HighLowGrow said:

Last week I opened the hive to check things out. I noticed they started to make two different combs on the same bar. I broke the smaller one off and tried to straighten the bigger one. Well it broke.

Pulled a few nice bars up. Put them back and closed it up.

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You can reattach comb to the bar with small twine, if a comb breaks off that you didn't want to break off. The bees will reattach the comb to the bar if you can hold the comb in place with something.
Looks good, in the second picture you can see capped brood(and some capped honey), the cells that have domed caps are drone brood, the flat capped brood are workers. In the first picture there are some tiny new hatched brood in the bottom of some of the cells, its always good to see brood at different stages it means the queen is alive and laying, if you ever see all just capped brood it is a sign that your queen may have died.

HighLowGrow said:

Today I thought what the hell. I need to check things out. Brought my phone out this time.

Hell ya

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Nice looking queen