The Honey Factory

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duluthralphie

Dux eradication specialist
8 Years
Jul 11, 2014
40,472
114,267
1,577
Orrock township, Minnesota
I have just started my very own honey factory.

I was going to ha e two hives but decided to just buy one batch of bees, in case I kill them instead of two.

I can use advice from anyone and everyone with experience.

I do not plan to over winter my bees. I will use them as protein for the birds when their work is done.
My bee box:


21C5E99E-8596-40BE-8A28-C984B27C2B42.jpeg
DD57BB23-A96B-4B6C-AAC4-5DE13C4662A6.jpeg


I have it level side to side and and 1/8th bubble high on the back side.

Here are my new workers;
A99D14D3-A9A4-4A8D-AE99-274B81168B6D.jpeg
C8E91369-D18B-4838-AE08-F571B455E560.jpeg
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this was right after I moved them into their new home.

I was out and visited them a little bit ago. There were 50-100 bees crawling on the box above the door. I hope that’s normal.

I have Saskartraz bees. I think that’s because the Sasquatch developed them.

@R2elk might know more. As I said these are my first ones.

I know they were friendly and would purr when they sat on my arm, so I could pet them.


It was a tad intimidating to have a box of bees clumped together and buzzing like mad in my hands. I was not sure how getting them into the box would go.

It was not bad, I took the queen out first. She assured me we would get along fine and she had no hostility towards me. Hopefully, she pays her rent.

Her box had a wood plug and not a candy plug in it. I popped the plug out and put a marshmallow into the hole.

I hung her box between two supers, then dumped the rest into the box and replaced the supers I had removed to make space to dump them.

All of this was accomplished without a sting!

I am a tad nervous they won’t like my box and leave tonight.

I gave them a pollen patty and a jug of sugar water inside the box and I have a chick waterer set up outside the hive for them.

They have been here 4 hours. I will check on them in an hour or so.
 
I hung her box between two supers, then dumped the rest into the box and replaced the supers I had removed to make space to dump them.
I am sure that you mean that you placed the queen cage between two frames. Supers are the boxes of frames that you will place on top of the hive.

I would recommend that for the time being you use the small exit hole in the entrance reducer rather than the large hole you have shown in your photo.

I am assuming that you have your feeder inside of the hive bodies since I don't see one on the outside and it is essential that you feed the bees until the weather is warm enough and there are enough blooms to sustain the bees.

The sister site BackyardHerds has a dedicated Bees & Beekeeping forum.
 
I am sure that you mean that you placed the queen cage between two frames. Supers are the boxes of frames that you will place on top of the hive.

I would recommend that for the time being you use the small exit hole in the entrance reducer rather than the large hole you have shown in your photo.

I am assuming that you have your feeder inside of the hive bodies since I don't see one on the outside and it is essential that you feed the bees until the weather is warm enough and there are enough blooms to sustain the bees.

The sister site BackyardHerds has a dedicated Bees & Beekeeping forum.

Got it, thanks.

I moved the frames!!
The feeder is inside the top super? (Box)..

I had a guy that goes to our church help me. I bought the boxes and stuff off him.

He told me to open the cover in 5 days and check to see that the Queen is out of her cage And to check the feeder.

He also told me to space the frames more evenly once I get the Queen cage out.

Hopefully they will let me do this without incident.
 
I have just started my very own honey factory.

I was going to ha e two hives but decided to just buy one batch of bees, in case I kill them instead of two.

I can use advice from anyone and everyone with experience.

I do not plan to over winter my bees. I will use them as protein for the birds when their work is done.
My bee box:


View attachment 2078027View attachment 2078028

I have it level side to side and and 1/8th bubble high on the back side.

Here are my new workers;View attachment 2078032View attachment 2078033View attachment 2078034

this was right after I moved them into their new home.

I was out and visited them a little bit ago. There were 50-100 bees crawling on the box above the door. I hope that’s normal.

I have Saskartraz bees. I think that’s because the Sasquatch developed them.

@R2elk might know more. As I said these are my first ones.

I know they were friendly and would purr when they sat on my arm, so I could pet them.


It was a tad intimidating to have a box of bees clumped together and buzzing like mad in my hands. I was not sure how getting them into the box would go.

It was not bad, I took the queen out first. She assured me we would get along fine and she had no hostility towards me. Hopefully, she pays her rent.

Her box had a wood plug and not a candy plug in it. I popped the plug out and put a marshmallow into the hole.

I hung her box between two supers, then dumped the rest into the box and replaced the supers I had removed to make space to dump them.

All of this was accomplished without a sting!

I am a tad nervous they won’t like my box and leave tonight.

I gave them a pollen patty and a jug of sugar water inside the box and I have a chick waterer set up outside the hive for them.

They have been here 4 hours. I will check on them in an hour or so.
is that a real possibility that they might all just fly away and not come back?
 
About the hole. I had it set for the small entrance, but he said to turn it to the larger one because there are no other bees around.

He said if I had another hive or if there was one close I would use the small door so they could defend it easier.

Does that make sense?

Does the block ever get removed completely?
 
Got it, thanks.

I moved the frames!!
The feeder is inside the top super? (Box)..

I had a guy that goes to our church help me. I bought the boxes and stuff off him.

He told me to open the cover in 5 days and check to see that the Queen is out of her cage And to check the feeder.

He also told me to space the frames more evenly once I get the Queen cage out.

Hopefully they will let me do this without incident.
They will still be friendly in 5 days especially if the queen has been released. I would check it sooner than 5 days to make sure they have plenty of sugar water. You don't want them to run out of food.
 
About the hole. I had it set for the small entrance, but he said to turn it to the larger one because there are no other bees around.

He said if I had another hive or if there was one close I would use the small door so they could defend it easier.

Does that make sense?

Does the block ever get removed completely?
I use the small hole to start because it also slows down their exit if they decide to leave and it helps keep down the amount of cold air that can get into the hive. Once the brood starts hatching (population explosion), I switch to the larger entrance. When the hive is well established and the weather warms up, I remove the entrance reducer and replace it with a mouse guard entrance.
 

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