Your 1st year

[davemacdon]

Hi everyone.
This is my first year in beekeeping and after the numerous mistakes, lack of equipment and bad weather situations, I am wandering who else is in their first year and how have you got on.

I now have two hives, not as many bees as I would like and no honey to remove, however am looking forward to next year and any harvest I can get then.

I am also planning a winter of building more equipment.

To the 1st year beginers, What experience have you had and how much have you harvested?

Dave.

 

[AndreaW]

Hi Dave,
I have one hive, no honey to speak of as far as I am aware although it might be mixed in a bit with sugar stores as I put a super on too early and then fed them to help draw out comb - now feel that was wrong thing to do but.......

I think I have a lot of bees in there but going to do an inspection today if weather holds up

Looking forward to building another hive over the winter and slowly getting my head around the winter preparations.

I got my one nuc in June so quite a late starter

Best of luck with the building
Andrea

 

[Blue Spinnaker]

This is my first year too. I have a 14x12 unlike the local beekeepers so I'm getting most of my information from here.

I got it in June, and they have becone more and more manic and still are. The brood box has been crammed full of brood, but last week did I see that the outside two frames now have capped honey stores instead of brood.

They drew out and filled a super within 2/3 weeks when the balsam appeared, so I put another super on two weeks ago.

I'm planning (ha ha) on taking off one super of honey and feeding back any uncapped frames/bits from the second one at the start of September when I do the varroa treatment/feeding. I'm not going to leave a super on over winter, but put a bit of insulation on the top and leave the OMF.

But all that could change .........

 

[madasafish]

Having just finished my first year, I would say:
you can never have enough equipment.
Open floors and winter can be a disaster if really cold like 2010 and 2009 - and snow may get inside hive if we have blizzards.

I hope you all had swarm gathering practise this year : it will be needed in year 2.. so have a swarm box for 2012..

 

[AndreaW]

Having just finished my first year, I would say:
you can never have enough equipment.
Open floors and winter can be a disaster if really cold like 2010 and 2009 - and snow may get inside hive if we have blizzards.

I hope you all had swarm gathering practise this year : it will be needed in year 2.. so have a swarm box for 2012..

will be buying another hive to help with artificial swarm over the winter

Great that has made my decision on not buying an open mesh floor for a while then .

 

[oliver90owner]

I'm not going to leave a super on over winter,

Quite right, too! A 14 x 12 holds more than enough stores for winter and most or all of the spring build-up. The rest of your wintering plans look good.

I do remember my first year. Started with four colonies. Once had to walk away as the bees were so uppity and return a few minutes later just to close them up! Shared my first crop from the pair of WBCs with my mentor. I now know that probably contained a fair amount of sugar syrup. It was used for cooking as it never crystallised (compared to the other pair of hives, where the honey did crystallise as one would expect).

Apistan controlled the mites in the autumn and I did not get any serious varroa problems in that first year (the second was different!).

Seems a long time ago, but I clearly remember those points. A forum like this is a huge advantage over just the local die-hards in the LBKA.

It was also the last time I bought 'first quality' boxes and frames from Th*rne (or from anyone else for that matter)

RAB

 

[Rich0909]

Bought a 4 frame commercial nuc and collected it at Easter in the middle of the dry sunny weather. Within 3 weeks they had drawn all the comb in the brood box and the box was full of brood apart from a few stores on the outside frames with the queen laying up virtually the entire frame. A couple of weeks later despite putting on a super to give them space they produced queen cells in preparation for swarming - so much for the first year being a slow build up to a full colony and then having to deal with swarming the second year!
Carried out an AS, very nervous but all went well. The new queen took an age to get mated and start laying but eventually did so and lays as enthusiastically as her mother. Just as she started laying and on the day of the Allotment Open Day they decided to swarm for no obvious reason and with no QC's in the hive, then as the queen evidently didn't go with them they all returned to the hive - just winding me up I think!
Both colonies now very strong and I have a super on each to take off next week and a second part filled.
Now just got to get them to make some room for stores in the brood box, get them through the winter and next year will be easy.....

 

[rae]

Open floors and winter can be a disaster if really cold like 2010 and 2009 - and snow may get inside hive if we have blizzards.

Not sure this is the case in the UK (unless you are somewhere rather extreme). Our lot survived the -13 nights just fine on OMF and all came through the winter. Bees can deal with cold - it is the damp they can't cope with. I would suggest that a sealed, well insulated roof + OMF is better for the bees that a vented roof and solid floor.

 

[madasafish]

Not sure this is the case in the UK (unless you are somewhere rather extreme). Our lot survived the -13 nights just fine on OMF and all came through the winter. Bees can deal with cold - it is the damp they can't cope with. I would suggest that a sealed, well insulated roof + OMF is better for the bees that a vented roof and solid floor.

I agree: but I close up my OMFs for the winter..

We had -19C in 2009 and -18C in 2010 - many condensing boilers stopped working due to frozen condensate (bad installation). We also had prolonged cold and wet in Feb/March - ie. a normal winter...

Running in -19C is good fun

 

[gatley]

Hi Dave. My first year as well, got hold of a colony late July! Bees are doing well, lots of orientaton flights which are amazing(the first one scared me as I thought they were going to swarm- now its a pleasure to see) I am being mentored by a friend at school who has been a beek for 30 years. WE bought a total of three colonies from a man and will be having the other two at our apiary in school for the students to look after.
I have almost a full super of honey to take off, probably next week. I have also seen some deformed wings and watch bees walking away from the hive to die and wasps nabbing them! The y also defend the entrance fearlessly! Its a pleasure to have the bees in the garden, they are at the corner of our large garden behind a shed. Our garden is full of bee friendly plants, at the moment we have marjoram, aster and goldenrod. Plenty of ivy for next month and a large willow tree for spring pollen. The bees are all over our plants. Plenty of bumblebees too.
Looking forward to the honey crop for honey but also making mead which I used to do years ago. But my main reason is the pleasure of looking after them.
Good luck in your first year!

 

[herefordshirehoney]

Can I ask the newbies - did you go for 14x12 or something else? From what im reading it seems it probably is the best choice if starting a fresh, but everybody will have their own opionions. Most of the local people from the HBKA use national's on brood and a half.

Also did you get a nuc hive's for AS or another hive sitting by?

 

[oliver90owner]

chrisbond,

Can I ask the newbies - did you go for 14x12

Good question for finding the actual numbers (if you get a sufficient number of responses to get e reliable answer). But probably the wrong cohort, to be asking, to get a reliable answer to what is best. Better to ask those who have experience of both formats, rather than inexperienced new beeks.

Regards, RAB

 

[gatley]

Can I ask the newbies - did you go for 14x12 or something else? From what im reading it seems it probably is the best choice if starting a fresh, but everybody will have their own opionions. Most of the local people from the HBKA use national's on brood and a half.

Also did you get a nuc hive's for AS or another hive sitting by?

Hi Chris,

I have a brood box with a super(brood and a half),its a national. It has a super on top of that where the honey is. On monday my mentor hlped me locate the queen and move her to the brood box for the winter. The QE is now above the brood box to get all the brood down there for preparing for winter. The roof is not flat but has an apex, think its off a WBC, picture attached.

 

[CB008]

Gatley your roof is a Thornes gabled roof for a national hive - the rest of it is standard Thornes as well

 

[gatley]

Thanks CB008, I owndered whether the hive is cedar or not? Can anyone tell? Will ask my mentor next time he is here

 

[Nose Ma]

chrisbond,

Can I ask the newbies - did you go for 14x12

Regards, RAB

I went standard national - because that was the frame in the nuc I received!

I was too nervous to think about getting them on 14x12 as well as dealing with several thousand new bees.

I now regret that decision. I think it would have been easier to put the nuc frames in a 14x12, and use any wild comb off the bottom as a varroa trap. I now have 12 frames of drawn standard to get into 14x12 rather than just the 5 from the nuc.

 

[sjt]

This is my first year too. I started with a swarm in early May in a standard national hive. They have brood on 9 frames still and I have a super with 7 frames fully capped so far.
They are at the bottom of my garden and seem very gentle. I do think I need to find an alternative site 'just in case' even though I would prefer to keep them at home as I enjoy just watching them every day.
I wonder if I should have had them on a deeper brood box as at present there isn't a lot of space there for winter stores.
I've also enjoyed getting to know people at the local BKA, very friendly lot.

 

[Firefly]

Two WBC hives - one which was there all last summer before I started taking an interest. One empty plywood national - bought too late for effective AS

16lb honey in jars - crystallising fast. 2 * 75% full supers to come

2 swarms, both lost. Must try harder

1 hive with too many Varroa - using hiveclean and itching to get the Thymol on

Learned a lot - mainly here - and enjoying myself. So are the bees, as far as I can tell

David

 

[Greatbigchicken]

First year

This is my first year, I bought a full colony on brood and a half in October last year so I didn't do anything all through the winter, in spring they built up very quickly so I wanted to split the hive to expand to 2 hives, unfortunately I lost the queen so split the queen cells between the 2 hives. Then we had the bad weather in May/June so neither queen came into lay until very late June, hive's been building up nicely. I took off about 7 frames of OSR honey which has all totally solidified so I'm waiting for some more honey so I can make some soft set, but it looks like I'll have to wait till next year as none to take off this year.

This forum has been totally invaluable with advice and others experiences. Thanks all.

 

[Ely]

Hi. My first season too. I encountered many problems, such as swarming, equipment not being set up properly etc. I have really enjoyed beekeeping so far even though I won't have honey this year. I have 1 colony and 1 swarm. Quite worriend about the swarm going into winter.