<h2>Spring hive evaluation</h2>

Spring hive evaluation

Hi Steemers Thanks for viewing this post

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Here is a quick unedited video of hive valuation. It was done entirely of the cuff. The video was shot on my students phone.

Placing your hives on pallets arranged in a circle Placing your hives on pallets arranged in a circle Have many advantages over linear Setups. Watch http://beemaster.ca for that post. The elevate the hive so it is easier to work on, reduce drift, compact the yard, make winterizing easier to name a few.

ave many advantages over linear Setups. Watch http://beemaster.ca for that post. The elevate the hive so it is easier to work on, reduce drift, compact the yard, make winterizing easier to name a few.

WorkStation

Setting up your workstation is important as it will reduce stress on the bees and you. I place a support box down One for each of the hives. In this case even the bottom box. Normally you don't need to move it unless you are cleaning the bottom board or intending on reversing the boxes. I like to place the boxes so they are comfortable to work at. I put the top box furthest away This reminds me of the order the boxes came apart. The order you work the boxes is not critical but keeping the same order helps you and others in the yard know which has been done.

Bottom board scrapings.

Keep the scraping for your compost. This material is rich in resources for soil organisms that you will feed with your compost. Yes you feed the soil organisms not the plant.

Cleaning your bottom boards is important. It saves the bees the work of doing it. Gets rid of disease potential. This is a classic view of disease bacteria causes disease rather than a symptom of disease. I do it mostly for the garden resource and saving the bees work.

I share the setup with a http://skyefarm.com. They grow seed garlic. They are in the process of pulling tapes for summer irrigation.

Cleaning frames and boxes

We are getting rid of all the old bur comb and Propolis in the box. This is done to get chemical contamination out of the hive. Don't keep this over wintered hives it is not really useful if you share your pastures with agra biz. Keep the spring bur comb collected for the medicinal market. Only white comb free of propolis is used for candles. The propolis clogs the wicks and makes your candle sputter and drip.

Frame Evaluation

This is the most importance part of your beekeeping. You are looking to see how the bees are doing in this snapshot of time. The pattern on this hives is not as great as the duologue is saying. There are many reasons for the shot gun pattern. I will be doing more videos and writeups on the topic soon.

You will see that many of the frames don't have foundation. It is my belief is that the bees should draw their own comb. That way they will draw the comb the way they needed it.

Inner Cover.

We use many styles of inner covers. Carpets, plywood with one bee space strips on one side. We also use divider board with a top entrance on the bottom and a side entrance on the top. This one allows us to put one hive on top of another. This is part of wintering process.

The one shown in this video we use on singles that we over winter and for spring build up were the top entrance has no advantage. The bee space on one side allows the bees to have a layer of bees over the queen to keeper warm in the winter as she goes from one side of the frame to the other. They will burr it up though and that is a waste of wax needed to draw comb.