I assume you mean putting the water around the hives? Not great, the clay medium is saturated with the chemical so that as the clay breaks down slowly the chemical is time released. If you just use the water, the next ten inch rain (like last weeks) will just wash it through leaving nothing behind.

You seem to be indicating that the base is about six inches under the frames. Is there much burr comb to clean off, or do you rely on it to help with varroa control since the comb would most likely harbor drone comb?

South Florida Bees often think outside the box and build their hives the same way. Out in the open air on a branch, breaking every rule we make for them.

​​​​​​@@southflbeekeepingwithrich It was a case of ...Oops (error) Re internal measurements in 'creating' this Horizontal Hive out of a Dead Freezer ! So far the Bees haven't done any 'Random Burr Comb' in this x6 Inch Area, as : Probably in using Jumbo Deep Frames, means the Bees have enough Comb without them building 'more' in odd empty places. I do also add 'Insulation' Dummy Boards (Block of thick Insulation Board screwed under a Standard Hive Top Bar. This is done either side of the Colony "Nest" in late Autumn (Fall) through the Winter and into early Spring, so the Bees are 'well Insulated' on each side : during Colony Clustering in the lower Temp moments. The Bees have the opportunity to move up these Bigger (Double Deep) Frames as the outside Temps drop. By Clustering 'higher' up on the Frames, they utilise the cosier upper part of the Hive (as Heat Rises in Colder times.) Maybe in time, this Horizontal Hive can be made into a Double Colony : where we add a Divider Board in the centre of the Horizontal Hive. And then add another Entrance at the further side on the South Facing (Front) Wall. A little bit earlier today, I was able to source another smaller 'Dead Chest Freezer.' Locally someone had dragged out 'their Ex Unworking Freezer' onto the Communal Area. (I guess for later Municipal Collection.) On leaving a Message on this Unit, I asked if it was possible to 'Upcycle' it instead. . . They accepted ! 👍 (A case of removing & getting the Motor & Coolant Disposed of Correctly.) After that, this will allow me to have a Smaller Horizontal Hive, using all standard Langstroth Brood Frames. Almost like maybe x2 Nucs Side by Side : with different Entrances. This hopefully might enable some Queen Breeding to be done 'in more controlled' Insulated Hive Setup. Yippee ! Just a Case of Collecting up some Pallets. Making more Internal Boards, with Port Holes (using coverings) of Glass Coasters so the Bees can be seen within the Colony, without opening up the Hive itself. . . Yes ! Anyway : We can just 'Copy' the bigger (Original Horizontal Hive) and see if any 'tweaks' are needed to make the little one a bit better ! Think the Space below won't be there. So Storage of Gear can continue in the bigger one. 🤭 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝 Happy Beekeeping 2024 🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝🐝

Actually , narrower and much shallower. Though a Layens with 1ft deep frames may be in my future if this works.

It just fell into my lap. The man who commissioned it did not want it anymore. I think the dimensions did not suit his new setup.

You guys keep wanting to get ahead of me. Think Layens frame cut down to size. You really don't want to make a one off hive like this that doesn't match up with anything.

I intend on maintaining about 8 frames of brood, and the problem is that we don't have strong flows at any time of year. Only moderate to light flows. So there will probably only be about 12 frames of honey by the time they max out. I have run both 36 frame deep long hives, and 36 frame medium long hives, Mediums were much better suited to our conditions, but still too big. I have had much better luck with 17 frame mediums that can be supered one level up. See my Hurricane Hive videos. That is why finding someone who has come to the same conclusions is of interest to me.

@@southflbeekeepingwithrich yes, that's good insight for sure, and beekeeping is of course, local, so making a system to fit your location is a great way to go. Keep us updated on this hive. I am very interested to see how it turns out. Poppleton was very skilled, for sure!

You will all go with me every step of the way.

One to one might be a good tip. Thanks Haven't had a swarm in a few weeks. Might be winding down.

That hive had 2 frames of old comb, it was two nucs stacked with frames in the top box, it did have lemon grass oil rubbed on the back wall. It was on a platform so plenty of room for the incoming swarm to hang out as they waited to go in. It was just all brand new equipment and smelled like turpentine. Three days after treating with propolis tincture and slum gum a swarm moved right on in. Here in south Florida, it seems that swarms fit themselves to the size of the trap. Little ones don't move into big traps, nor vice versa.

Keeping bees SHOULD be fun.

You are welcome. Stay tuned.

I would not recommend it. What I would recommend is going to the Horizontal Hives website and downloading their free plans for making a Layens hive and getting the book "Keeping Bees With a Smile" by Fedor Lazutin. Why will become clear in time. If you choose to modify it to 12 inches deep instead of 16 inches, I think you would be on the right track.

Definitely intend to.

That's the general idea.😉 Stay tuned.

Hello to you. I'm originally from Shreveport/Bossier, but have lived in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Metarie, and Sulphur as well.

Yep, you are looking in the wrong part of the big box store. Go to the roofing section and find the 4 or six inch wide rolls of roof vent repair mesh. You can get eighth inch hardware cloth or expanded mesh aluminum readily available and inexpensive. www.homedepot.com/p/Gibraltar-Building-Products-6-in-x-25-ft-Kwikmesh-Utility-Screen-Roll-KM625/202093092

You need to do a video on that one!!! I know Langstroth Jumbos are still popular in England and Europe, but I haven't seen one listed in an American catalog in more than 5 years now. How much space is there between the bottom of the frames and the bottom of the freezer?

I intend to. Still researching Mr Poppleton's history as well.

Should have added that the two week after installation video is already queued up after the frame construction and swarm transfer videos.

I would like to see it as well.

I found the article on internet archive website. It is issue 12 of american bee journal 1915.

Oh, keep looking, there are many more. The only problem is that he was a contributor to a regular questions column so doing a word search for O.O.Poppleton will bring up more than 50 hits, many of which are just him answering a simple question.

I need to understand what is meant by bee newspaper.

Not sure I understand bee newspaper. Do you mean our club newsletter?. Reading the comments below, others take it as meaning the Article in the American Bee Journal from issue 12 1915. Available from the Internet Archive. There were several articles before and after that as well. The Stuart News did an article on him as well, but I wasn't going to pay to get through their paywall for a rehash of an article his daughter wrote

Well, in South Florida bees build their hives on tree branches in full sun so sunlight is not a big issue. Heat inside a black bucket, big issue. While I have never done a video on the upgrade, all of my buckets are now covered in reflectex so that does make it dark inside as well as keeping it cooler. The soft plastic of the bucket makes a good seal against rain and holes around the bottom drain any that comes in, mostly through the entrance. Our rain is often nearly horizonal. I may try burnt wood next year, though that just makes one more thing I would have to remove from the trap before I can "bump and dump" them at the end of the transfer. Thanks for the idea though.

Since you asked how to contact me, I have to assume that you are not a member of the Broward Beekeeper's Association because I am the president after all, and members should know how to find me. My give away hives are reserved for club members, so I would suggest joining the club. I mean, $30/year, or $150 for a 5 frame nuc. Check the website, browardbees.org. Meeting this Thursday the 13th at 7pm. Info on website.

@@southflbeekeepingwithrich Yes, I forgot to add that I did join today. I forgot to include my email on the Zelle so, I emailed the Bee association. I've gotta go up to Daytona Bch, to visiit my ailing 102 yr old grandmother so, I won't be able to attend the meeting this week. Check the association's email (sent today) where I explain that when I paid the #30 fee I forgot to include my email. --thanks, Cheryl

Hi Cheryl, that's great. I will get the membership person to send me your e-mail when she gets it and we will set up a pickup. I am down to two hives that are ready to go. Expanded both of them last Saturday to make sure they don't swarm. Welcome to the club! Oh and my next video is going to be on ant prevention. Don't get excited, it won't come out for a month so you can see it in action before then.😁

Yep, cheap and easy and versatile. I don't even use wire any more. I use dog proof nylon screen mesh.

When I do steam extraction, there are usually about 250 bees hovering just outside the screen room which is why I do it inside the screen room. Beyond that, concrete is well sealed, and I have a scraper. Patio furniture is teak. Cushions are in a bin and not at risk. Biggest risk is tracking some in the house and not getting it cleaned up before the boss sees it.

No, I want my bees to have all of the pollen that they bring in.

Honestly a have a solar wax melter that leaves me with many pounds of that old comb residue after the suns heat process and neither wax moths nor hive beetles want it anymore after its been heated. Just thought you might need to know. I've had that junk sitting around in my compost piles for years slowly returning to the basic compounds. It would be nice to use it for something . I've dumped hundreds of pounds of it over the decades.

@@inharmonywithearth9982 Wow...

I guess we will see, though my steam extracted slumgum has very little wax in it to attract them, and it have never been an issue so far. Could happen up in the corners.

My thought exactly, and I have put slumgum from my solar extractor through the steam extractor and gotten a little more wax from it so I know it is pretty clean.

😉 Use it if you got it.

So am I, and I have high hopes for it.

Just trying to make use of everything from the hive.

When doing it with alcohol, I would definitely throw caution to the wind. Wax does not seem to be particularly soluble in alcohol. I haven't tried to see how soluble wax is in acetone, because I would mostly use propolis in acetone for painting hives and frames and I don't see a downside to having some wax in the mix. Actually, I should do an experiment and see how soluble wax is, it might make for another hive application. Stay tuned.

​@@southflbeekeepingwithrichthis kinda leads into a comment I was going to make. After reading "The Hive and The Honey Bee" original 1853 edition my L.L. Langstroth, he mentions he used his own synthetic propolis/glue he made from Rosin (likely Pine rosin) and bees wax. I can't remember the mixture, I think it was 3lbs rosin to 2 pounds beeswax, or something of that nature. Rosin isn't as abundant or as cheap as it was in the mid 1800s, now days a Kilogram of it can cost anywhere from $150 to over $1000... unrefined pine sap is a little cheaper, but still relatively expensive and hard to source... the only difference between trystalized raw pine sap and rosin is that the pine sap has a higher concentration of the turpentine/terpenes that's present in the sap. Where Rosin is the hard plastic like byproduct of turpentine production. You put it to a slow low simmer in a still and you distillate off the turpentine, and what's left in the still is essentially rosin. Langstroth did this as a means of coating the hives with a propolis like substance and hopefully save the bees some work and allow them a little more time for foraging. As well as using it as a glue to adhere the glass panes together inside the box. It seems his hives were double walled, glass lined, and more triple walled, as the "cover" had side that came down over the outsides of the hive. So the hives we use now aren't Langstroth hives, they're "Root's" hives, which was a return to the "simple wooden boxes" that Langstroth despised and found to be insufficient for protection from heat and cold. Anyway... everybody is always looking for ways to get woodenware to last longer or hold up to the weather better... Why not a mixture of beeswax that's diluted a bit with some oil and Pine sap. The pine sap would make it harder, the oil would make it softer, once the boxes are built, I'm sure there's a way to set the oven on warm or set them out in the sun, and keep painting them with the melted mixture until the wood soaks up a lot of that mixture... which would be the oils, fats, etc that soak into the wood fibers and help delay deterioration. Old dead dry wood rots when it's devoid of it's natural oils and moisture, wood that's properly saturated with oils cna last centuries without signs of age, if given another coat from time to time. And as for bee attractant or "smell" for inside boxes. You always see people render wax at a boil with a layer of water underneath it. Many of the chemical compounds that make up the particular smell are VOCs and tracking down the boiling point (where the compound becomes volatile and boils off as a vapor) for each and every chemical compound would be a daunting or arduous task. Anyway... everybody always dumps the "dirty water" after rendering wax... what if one rendered wax more low and slow, closer to the melting point, and saved that water for brushing in and on swarm traps, new equipment, soaking burlap for Russian scions, etc? Beeswax melts between 145-160F, crock pot "warm" settings are often set to keep it between 145-175F... seems like it woukd be simple for finding out if that "dirty water" can be put to good use. However... one should probably keep in mind that hives showing obvious disease (especially of a fungal nature) should probably not be used in this manner. Disease is where there's a lack of beneficial microorganisms, and overgrowth of pathogenic microorganisms. And most bee diseases are of a fungal nature. So this process... it reaches a temperature where any active microbial cultures/cells woukd be killed off and pasteurized. But it doesn't reach a high enough temp to denature or destroy any spores. So healthy hives, hives that died out from freezing or starvation, hives that absconded with no significant signs of disease or pests, etc would be suitable. Hives that show symptoms of disease or ill health probably shouldn't be used. But... beeswax us a lipid (fat), much like how oils are also lipids but with a different structure. But... if you look at where cutouts are done on an old shed or barn and the wood is all rotted or faded.... the wood where the hive is, being treated and coated with wax and propolis, the wood there will often still be very solid and stable. I remember seeing a couple Jeff Horchoff videos where they pulled the siding off and you coukd see where the hive was, because the plywood or particle board all around was old and grey and dry, but where the colony was, the oils and everything had soaked all the way through the wood and you could still see the grain and detail. A few other examples, mixed with Reverand Langstroths description of his synthetic propolis... I kinda want to get some cheap raw hive boxes, pain Hive A, wax+oil+sap mixture saturate hive B, have hive C as an untreated Control, and see which lasts longer. I have a feeling that the oil/wax mixture that's soaked into the wood will last longer than paint and untreated. I may have babbled about this before. But I like the Acetone to dissolve propolis idea. It seems much more effective. And now I'm curious as to whether Acetone would dissolve wax in the same manner. I suspect it might. Or at least partly dissolve it until it's a gooey gelatinous mess.lol I love you videos. As always. Stay Curious and inquisitive.

Your brain works like mine, which worries me since they call you Crazy Ivan. 😁 If you look at the video I did on putting propolis tincture in a spray bottle, and change that up slightly by putting your more concentrated acetone based tincture in the bottle (cut with equal parts of 91% alcohol I think to start with anyway. I am going to spray some of that on some new frames soon. Based on your thoughts, I have put slivers of beeswax in a jar with acetone, but have not done any experiments yet. On the other hand, I can assure you that alcohol and heartwood pine sawdust makes a good propolis substitute so alcohol and pine resin should work the same. Actually, I just stopped typing and put a tablespoon of pine resin in an inch of acetone, swirled for 20 seconds and had a clear tincture. yep, it works. Check Diamond G Forest Products, A small Georgia firm that is once again tapping Slash pine trees and processing naval stores. A pound of powdered resin is $25. Pebbled resin is $20/lb. May I point out that all you need for your trials is a 4 inch by 12inch piece of Southern pine or Eastern White pine (decays faster) not a whole box. That is all the USFS Southern Experiment station uses for its tests. You might want to try linseed oil as your fat source in one test as well, or a harder oil like Walnut or Flaxseed. I think maybe it was in my first video on prepping bucket traps that I opened a plastic bin that a swarm had moved into and demonstrated how the bees had propolized the kindling wood in the bottom and it looked like a layer of varnish. That is exactly the same way the wood in Mr. Ed's videos looked. Keep me posted on your experiments.

That is a point, but only a small fraction of the honey is in contact with the metal for a fraction of a second. Then at the end of the session the frames go through the dish washer so any honey that remains in contact is washed off. I think the risk is minimal. Going back to the chicken wire frames I used to use would decrease contact to probably 25% of the contact with the rabbit wire, they are just fiddly to use. Rest assured I will stay on the lookout for a large mesh 304 stainless sheet. Now as to using plastic queen excluders with the wooden bottom board, I am afraid the answer is a big THAT DEPENDS! If the plastic is flexible, then yes, you will just have to spin longer to get the honey past all of the bars. However, when I started cutting up plastic queen excluders to make QE for 5 frame nucs, I found that some of them were made from a brittle plastic that I don't think would work well for this. Though maybe if you used zip ties through holes drilled in the wooden bottom bar instead of staples that would give them enough flexibility. Sourcing your QEs is the big pain.

Capped at 21.5. You must be in South Florida.

@@southflbeekeepingwithrich North Carolina

????? I thought capping at such a high moisture content was mostly a south Florida thing! Although now that I think about it some field crops like safflower and some trees can also produce a thin honey. Do you have any idea if anything common to your area produces a thin honey? Or, if some commercial beekeeper within 5 miles of you might be open feeding after coming back from almond pollination to strengthen their hives? I guess my first question should have been whether this was an unusual thing to have happen or something you kind of expect?

@southflbeekeepingwithrich i dont know of any commercial guys around. Lots of rain and humidity is what im contributing it 2

Gotcha, Down here the bees only cap when the humidity goes down for a week. Not unusual to have two boxes of uncapped nectar that does not drip when the frame is turned sideways if the humidity is high. Then high pressure moves in, and you smell that wonderful aroma in the bee yard as they make that last push to cap.

If you mean my double wide 17 frame boxes, no, I may go back to using them, I just wanted to try vertical stacks again to try a couple of techniques I wasn't sure about. Not loving it so far. If you meant my 33 frame looong hives, I sold one to a club member and donated the other to the PBCBA for their training apiary.

Since that video was made, I found a source for wire bound 5 frame excluders so you would be competing with the price for those. Now I personally would be interested in 5 frame plastic excluders with a rim that would act like the wooden rim with a quarter inch and quarter inch spacing and an overall thickness of 3/4 inch. You do understand that the reason people like wire excluders whether flat or wood framed is that they can be heated with a torch or heat gun to quickly clean them off? Plastic works well on 5 frame nucs because they usually aren't on for very long and don't have a chance to get too gummed up. But just this morning I watched a video of a guy with a 25 colony bee yard of nothing but nucs stacked 1-3 deep so he is going to be leaving QE's on for quite a while and may end up with an issue unless he is just catching swarms and selling them in nucs. It wasn't suggested in the video. By the way, I torched one of those flat wire bound QE's and the next morning it was 100% rusted. Won't be buying any more of those! Oh, also, the 3-D printed 7 frame spacer I bought was a great design, but I set it down on a telescoping cover in the SFL sun and it warped significantly. Not a big problem given what it was, a little heat gun action in the shade and it was back in operation, just a little funky. That would not be the case with a QE. Make sure your resin is heat stable. 3-D printing is going to open all kinds of avenues in beekeeping. Very exciting times.

@@southflbeekeepingwithrich My Idea is more for temp use. I'm not sure about the resin being flame safe. But I know a good soak in hot water is no problem. I was think of designing it doe top bar hives. To fit on a follower board. Thank you for the input.

I am sure the resin would not be flame safe! nor even heat gun safe, I was just curious about SFL sun safe. I am thinking water at 160 degrees or so. Top bar follower boards is an idea. I used to do the same thing I did in this video on my follower boards when I ran top bar hives and they did not seem to care. Then realized that the queen was unlikely to cross a frame of honey and that the follower board was just for insulation and didn't need a window screen. Soon you will see a series of videos about a very different long hive that I have built and populated, so give some thought to constructing custom sized frames. Not the funky asymmetrical frames I am using in this hive, but standard Hoffman style frames, or wide top bar frames like Lazutin frames but 12x12 inches square with a 14 inch top bar. 3-D printing technology gives people without a woodworking shop the ability to create anything they want. We need more crazy ideas out there being tried.

@@southflbeekeepingwithrich The follower board would still be there. I was meaning to put one on a bar like a follower board. The resin is UV cured. Not a real problem inside a hive I would think. It's the cleaning them that may be an issue. I am a sawyer and carpenter by trade. But I have a buddy that is into 3D printing. Try to include his knowledge and tools into things I do.

Good Morning Redbeard, The point I was making was that in a top bar hive, if you place a frame of capped honey next to the brood nest, then one or two empty bars, or frames behind it for the bees to draw new honey comb, then the follower board, the queen rarely crosses that honey boundary unless she is desperate for somewhere to lay because you have not inserted an empty bar in the brood nest in front of the frame of honey for them to draw new brood comb. queen excluders are rarely needed in horizontal hives and can even prompt a swarm trigger. Vertical hives are a completely different thing, and you need an entire box of honey to stop a queen so queen excluders are much more of a necessity.

Yea, but sometimes it removes paint finishes while removing glue residues which are safe to remove with alcohol. Ask me how I know.

Sounds like you’ve been there and done that

Yep, and I've got the scars and nervous tics to prove it. And had to repaint part of the camper.

IGR could affect bees as well. Not really sure.

You will enjoy it. I like working on plastic table tops for ease of cleanup and not having to worry about where I put the smoker down is a relief.

I let the acetone evaporate out of the sludge experiment and it did not persist.

Yea, that is why I thought polish remover was not as toxic, the stuff my wife uses is actually a gel. I never thought it had that much Acetone in it. Then again, women have been applying poisons in the name of beauty for over 3,000 years so nothing surprises me.

I was talking about using acetone and not fingernail polish remover for dissolving propolis or other organic oils

Understood. Just don't try borrowing your wife's fingernail polish to clean the propolis off of your hive tool. I won't take the blame for that one.😂

@@bobbyperkins9188 understood. I've used acetone as a solvent and think of it as toxic, so this use surprised me. Most nail polish removers are acetone (some are a lower percentage than others) and there are also non-acetone polish removers.

Never heard of Englewood before, looked it up, so a little north of Sanibel. If your area lost its managed hives in the hurricane, you may just not have any swarms that have to travel very far to find condemned buildings they can move into, whereas they may have to travel to find nectar and pollen for the same reasons. Ask friends on the mainland if you can hang traps in their trees. Keep in mind that bloom cycles in areas where a hurricane has gone through can be disrupted for at least three years.

Not at all. The Grub-X is in the soil in a clay medium. Other chemicals are in a corn meal medium and their could be a slight concern in early spring or summer pollen dearth if they found the corn meal dust, which is why I work it into the soil and water it in. At worst, the dust is on their feet, or gathered as pollen, not in their honey stomachs so should not be in the honey.

Thanks!

Great to hear Tom.

Yea, I wonder if his brother has broke it to him that he wants to start keeping bees and wants to keep them here at his mother's house

Well, it is three months later, I harvested some supers this week and the bees drew some comb down from the super above to the super below. Not an unmanageable mess, but I did a video on it that will be out in a few weeks.

Yep, the BBA website has an article explaining why "FREE" bees aren't free. Tom says they are doing fine.

Lack of bees in the area? or hoity-toity snobbish bees that only want a penthouse? I have to hide my buckets to keep from having more swarms than I can handle. Other people in the club have brought their traps to my house and caught bees in a few days after weeks with no luck at their apiaries. Bees gonna do what bees gonna do.

I have caught 11 with 5 bucket traps, and two with nucs. One was a double stack with frames in the top set up as a swarm trap, the other was just a stack of nuc boxes waiting to be used. none in a 0 frame deep with medium frames in it. Go figure.

Well, I use Ryobi which is as far from industrial construction as you can get, But it works.

I water my bees from Boardman feeders on the front of the hives to keep them out of the neighbors pools.