@@Primal_Tao welcome to beekeeping. I am always learning something new and better ways of doing things. The one thing I wish someone would have told me when I first started was to make sure you are feeding during the dearth at the end of July or around that time and to make sure you treat for mites by the end of September. I lost my first two hives that first year and started making sure I kept up on those two things and I have only lost one hive due to it being very small going into the winter.

@@roosterpighoneybees Thank you sir! I have been feeding the girls religiously on the advice of the folks at Beez Needz where I got the nuc. They added an apivar strip before I picked it up but I will research the mite problem on my own as well.

@@weegaz22 I have run thermometers during the winter in the past just to see how warm the bees kept the hive. But, that’s a good idea about different entrance sizes and the temp inside. I might try that. Thanks.

I got a box of swiffer dry sweeper sheets. I cut 4 strips from one sheet. The box I have has 32 sheets in it. That should give me 128 strips. You can get them at Walmart or Amazon. Amazon has a lot of choices. A Layens hive is like my horizontal hive with langstroth frames, correct? So, when you take the cover off of the hive, just lay a couple of strips along the top of the frames next to the side of the hive. It will catch the SHB even if they are laying in the middle on top of the frames. They should be sitting between the bottom of the cover and top of your frames in the 3/8" space. I hope that gives you a good picture of where I put sheets.

Clemmons. Just the other side of Winston Salem from you.

This was my first year to open the entrances all the way. It has seemed to make the flow of bees a lot better.

My hives were definitely growing earlier. I kept them with space and frames to work with. Our flow slowed and we will pick back up for sourwood any time.

Does the trampoline let enough light through to keep the wax moths away?

I have been able to stand, walk, and mow in front of the hives without any issues. I think the bees have to work harder to keep the entrance guarded with it all the way open. But I think I’ve helped the flow of bees in and out by opening it.

I have noticed that I don’t have the back up of in coming and outgoing traffic. Seems that the bees can move more freely and don’t impede the flow of workers. If anything it keeps the bees out of my way instead of hovering outside the hive waiting for a place to land.

I have two suppers on one, and three on another. I checked today and they are almost finished capping it all.

I have always made entrance reducers with openings that are about 8” wide and 1/2” high. In my mind I was hoping to keep SHB populations down and intruders out. The past several years the bees make a cloud outside waiting to get in and I always say I need to open up the entrance. This year I did and it has made a big difference in my hives. I reduce the entrances to about 3” wide with 3/8” screen in front to keep mice out in the winter or when it drops down below and stays below freezing at night. I take that off when spring comes. Guess I will be taking off all reducers from now on. TY

I ordered 100 for $8 on Amazon.

They are called 1.5ml microcentrifuge snap top tubes.

I used reducers all year last year. So this year I was going without. I started noticing that a huge cloud of bees would wait to get in the hive. As soon as the reducers were removed the cloud went away and all the bees could land and take off. I have a lot more honey this year so far. I’m going to sling a couple of supers this weekend and put them back on wet.

The only deeps I use are with the long hive. It’s been an experiment for me. I decided in the second year having to restart from all dead outs, that I only wanted medium bodies so I only had one size to deal with and could swap them around anytime if I needed.

Thank you

I’ve been trying different things to see what works best.

This is my 2nd year of beekeeping.. I had 1 hive only last year. Earlier this year they EXPLODED, and I split them, plus they swarmed TWICE. totally my fault I should have been on top of it but it all caught me off guard. Now I'm at 7 hives lmao. Next year is going to be fun!

I concur that this has been an exceptional year for the bees, at least here in Fairfield County, Connecticut. I expect to extract honey sooner than usual.

Depends on your climate.

I use unscented swiffer sheets in the hive for SHB. I cut them into 2” strips and place them in the corners on top of the frames. I doe this under the inner cover and the next box down also. SHB get their legs stuck in the fibers and can’t get out. It has helped me in the at department the last few years.

I have stopped using grease on the legs because I kept getting into the grease and messing up my pant legs. My strong hives do not get ants in the front but try to enter through the top. I sprinkle ground cinnamon around the top and it messes up the ants ability to communicate the ant trail. I sprinkle diazinon on the ground under and around the hives to kill the ant colonies. It seems to work for me.

@@roosterpighoneybees I’m in Bakersfield ca. we have an abundance of black ants and they don’t care how strong the hives are.

@@Bakersfieldman we have black ants in NC and so far the diazinon has knocked them down pretty good. They are bad right now since we are in a honey flow.

@@roosterpighoneybees I’m waiting on my boric acid in powder form to arrive to mix with crisco and put in beetle traps so only the ants can get into it. Then they will carry it back to the best and do me the favor to die

@@Bakersfieldman I did the same thing with Vienna sausage cans and put 1/8” hardware cloth over it so bees couldn’t get to it. I mixed in a little honey to sweeten up the bait. I laid them on their side under the hive stands. It worked pretty good. I have a lot of wooded areas around so no telling where the ants are coming from. Seems like a constant battle. They slow down for a while and then back at it.

not the point of the video

@@froggyplaysgames8708 did I ask

Nope. Ants didn’t stick to it either. It just stopped them from communicating their trail. The diazinon has worked really well.

She is not marked. I have thought about getting a marker to do that but have not had the time.