James E. Tew
Just recently and long ago
Last week, Grandma and I were essentially old wall ornaments at our youngest grandson’s seventh birthday party. His entire school class was invited to his Ninja-themed party. So far as I could tell, everyone came. The amount of life’s energy that those kids wasted at that event was staggering. And the noise – it was truly deafening.
As I sat there watching those youngsters run, jump, climb and crawl, I had ancient memories from my own childhood birthdays. As you read this, can you recall the eagerness, the excitement, the anticipation you felt on your special day? For me, while I can recall it, I simply can’t get the intense feeling back. I know what the pure excitement is supposed to feel like, but it simply will not come back to me.
So, at seventy-three, again – just for me – birthdays are somewhat of a necessary evil. They are no longer a great source of excitement (but hypocritically, I still want the acknowledgement). After my dad crossed over, as we were cleaning, clearing, and sorting his worldly possessions, we uncovered about ten new shirts – still unopened – duplicated gifts from numerous birthdays and Christmas gifts. Do not my dad’s unopened gifts equate to faded eagerness? Did my father experience these same feelings that I am describing?
And Christmas? As a pre-teen, there was a feeling I had on the morning of December 25th. What was it? Anticipation, eagerness, excitement, respect, mysteriousness? In the predawn shadows of that special day, I felt all these stimuli – at once. I wonder if my grandkids have anything approaching my cherished memories. Now, my modern beloved memories are watching all my family members on that special morning. You see, at once, I can look forward and I can look backward.
Beekeeping – Just recently and long ago.
Careful, Jim. Be very careful here. I just put you through all this birthday and Christmas business to get to this point. As the years pass, your beekeeping eagerness and passion will evolve. It will shift. In all things beekeeping – through the years – your passion will wane in some areas and wax in others. Beekeeping as a personal endeavor is defined by the age and life’s stage of the individual beekeeper. Like watching my grandkids on Christmas morning, I enjoy being around new beekeepers as they discover the joys and solve the mysteries of beekeeping. Though I can remember my own early, exciting feelings as I stumbled through the initial phases of this craft, my introductory time has now passed. Though I still deeply love beekeeping, I wish I could feel – just for a moment – my original long-gone youthful eagerness for my craft.
Stop. Just a minute. After I write all of this – late last season, I had a bit of a bee yard epiphany. Essentially, I unintentionally reset beekeeping myself.
I wrote about my experience – at painful length
In previous Bee Culture articles1, I wrote about my experience to extents that could only be called, “boring.” I won’t do that again here. For decades, I had done “Big Colony Beekeeping.” After growing old, I abruptly decided to go back to smaller scale colonies and implement “Smaller Colony Beekeeping.” I like to think that – rather than quitting – I am adapting. Evolving. Relating to my earlier articles on smaller colony management, you wrote me various messages.
You wrote me…
HD wrote: I switched my beekeeping to single brood boxes last year. Knowing where my marked queen is has made varroa checking a lot easier. After removing honey supers, I keep a medium on above the queen excluder for the Summer and Fall (not much Fall flow here in central MD). I remove the queen excluder in November giving the cluster access to stores.
LES wrote: I am one year your senior, and I can relate to the thought that smaller might be better. I have 50 colonies in eight apiaries including one long Langstroth which I am still trying to warm up to. It has 30 deep frames, is divisible into thirds and has room to super upwards if that’s what I want to do.
I still like a deep brood box, with a medium or second deep and medium honey supers. A one-block hive stand may be better for strong colonies than the two blocks I started with. You might have already thought of all 8-frame mediums?
My last suggestion is to start with half the colonies you would like, and just plan on splitting to avoid swarming.
LES above mentioned moving to 8-frame equipment as well as his use of a long Langstroth (a Long Lang).
TK wrote: I really enjoy and appreciate my long Lang hives. They are just a little over waist high. So far, they’re working really well for me. As far as wintering, they’ve done well for me, the hive construction is 2X lumber.
Others of you wrote to me suggesting I look at Warré Hive design. A few seasons ago, I bought the Warré Hive book2, but I have not yet built one.
My ignorance arose again when MF suggested I explore the AZ Hive. As with the Warré Hive, I am still pondering the concept, but have made no move. MF wrote: I’ve been following your column in Bee Culture magazine and am just getting started this last Summer with AZ Hives / Slovenian Beekeeping. Have you heard of it? I ask because while three and even four deeps are becoming available, the traditional AZ Hive in Slovenia is only two deep – i.e. one brood chamber and a super. Through management techniques that philosophically work along the lines you discussed in the March issue of Bee Culture (that discussion was a more active manipulation of the brood chamber); this small AZ hive idea works well.
Advantages to this hive system is that there is no lifting to be done. The colonies are worked from behind within the bee house.
I didn’t see that coming…
To all of you who wrote me concerning this topic, I thank you, but honestly, I was expecting advice and comment on “traditional” beekeeping equipment use and management procedures. Instead, what I got was an educational update on alternative beekeeping techniques. It was unexpected, interesting and insightful. Clearly, beekeeping is evolving and is seemingly crossing national boundaries.
But, here’s my excuse…
I already own all of this “standard” equipment. It’s the inventory remnants of my family’s bee supply and pollination business. I suppose I could have something like a fire sale, move it all out, and begin again, but that feels stern to me. When I began this thread, I suppose I meant to change my beehive management scheme, but my timidity governs just how much change I can tolerate. For now, I will make traditional changes with traditional bee equipment, but I will be more aware that new bee housing and management options are already available.
Back to where I started
In many ways, I am back to where I began. Since my initiation into beekeeping in the early 1970’s, incredible changes have come along. It feels right to drift back to the simpler, smaller times in my present bee life. What follows is the beginning of my first season’s plans for Jim Tew’s new and improved scheme for convincing bees to stay in smaller hive bodies.
An Evolving Small Colony Management Plan (Part 1)
Looking backward – Buy Nucs
When I got my first beehives, my uncle brought me single story splits. They were essentially small, queen-right colonies. Since then and through the passing years, I’ve been buying packages. In a significant change for me, in the upcoming season, I plan to buy queen-right nucs rather than my usual 3# packages. Please know this – I love packages and have installed hundreds of them. No doubt, I will again – at some point – go back to them. But this season, I plan to buy nucs and confine them to single deeps. As they outgrow the single hive body, I will make splits. Though they will initially cost more, I can grow and split nucs faster than I can grow and split packages.
Looking backward and forward – Hive Stands
As have so many other beekeepers, I have tinkered with all kinds of hive stands. By the very fact that so many variations exist clearly indicates that the best models have not yet claimed the top spot.
Untold numbers of four piece hive stands have been sold and are still being sold. They are simple, efficient, too low to the ground, but provides a home by giving them a snug place to live beneath the hive. Also, cement blocks (8”) are frequently used as hive stands. I have often used these blocks as standard hive stands.
I would like my hives about twenty-four inches from the ground and level. Through the years, in addition to standard hive stands and cement blocks, I have tried pallets, wheel rims and hive stands that I built from 2”x10” treated boards. None of them worked perfectly.
Even though I plan for my colonies to be smaller and lighter, I will want stable hive stands beneath them. The hive stands are for my aging back, and not so much for the bees.
Looking forward and backward at bottom boards
I have a motley assortment of bottom boards – mostly old but some that are mostly new. About 50% are screened bottom boards and the other 50% is everything else. I use quite a few BeeSmart bottom boards. That’s not an intentional advertisement. I just like them – especially the small pegs they have that aligns the hive body on the bottom board.
But none of my bottom boards are insulated. Is this an oversight? In my eclectic collection of bottom boards, I have several prototypic electrically heated bottom boards. Is this the way to go? If I want to winter smaller colonies, do I start at the very bottom of the hive and make changes there? Is there some way to sit a colony on a block of insulation foam? Or do I just go “different” like Miller describes below?
C.C. Miller3 described a deep bottom board – I mean this was a deep bottom board – two-inches deep. He said this bottom board was, “a very nice thing for the Winter.” He went on to say that it was inappropriate when a nectar flow was ongoing. He recommended during those times to shove a bottom rack in the two-inch space. Essentially, Miller described the design of a slatted-rack and said, “I value this bottom rack highly.” The highly respected apiculturist felt that this bottom-racked, deep-bottom board prevented overheating and thus prevented swarming.
Many years ago, I found plans for a “Bottom Hive Ventilator.” For the life of me, I cannot find my source for this device again. I built one and used it occasionally. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in the Tornado of 2010 that struck the Ohio State Bee Storage Barn. I only have the low-resolution photo that I have presented here. It was a simple build. In fact, the pictured unit is filled with bees at the time of the photo.
As I recall, it was a simple 2½” rim with the holes that I bored and covered, on the inside with eight mesh screen. During nectar flows, this device would allow bees to build burr combs on the bottoms. A slatted rack above the ventilator would probably inhibit that behavior.
A clumsy place to stop
For this month, this is an awkward place to stop, but I am out of Bee Culture space. Next month, I will be one month nearer to my Spring season – though you are probably well beyond that seasonal mark. I will continue to delineate my evolving plans. I have lots of them.
Thank you to all who have written. Please know that I have a difficult time responding to each of you. It’s not that I don’t care, but rather that there is not enough of me. Please continue to write. I promise I will try to do better.
From the Honey Bee Obscura Podcast
Jacob asked: “What is your favorite or most frequently used tool, that is not really meant to be a beekeeping tool?”
Hey Jacob, thanks for asking. I admit that this is a question that is new to me. When I read your question, my iPhone immediately came to mind. I cannot imagine not having my electronic friend with me for emergencies and questions. But I suspect you were thinking more along the lines of equipment and devices.
From that category, one of my favorites (not necessarily the most frequently used) would be my Milwaukee Heat Gun. While I would love to use it in the field to soften stubbornly stuck frames, that is not practical, so I use it in my shop to soften hard propolis on nearly anything. I use it to clean wax and propolis from my extracting equipment. I used it to unseize stuck bearings in my old extractor before the season starts. I soften wax and propolis on the glass on my observation hive. I sterilize my hive tool, but an odd use is that I put a small chip of beeswax on the closed hinge of my pocket knife. Carefully holding the distal end of the knife, I heat the wax until molten wax seeps through the hinge mechanism of my pocket knife. For months afterwards, I get a nice, smooth action when opening and closing my knife. A heat gun as a bee hive tool – who would have thought?
Thank you. I hope to visit again next month.
Dr. James E. Tew
Emeritus Faculty, Entomology
The Ohio State University and
One Tew Bee, LLC
tewbee2@gmail.com
http://www.onetew.com
www.go.osu.edu/may2022
Weekly podcast at: www.honeybeeobscura.com
1 December, 2021.
2 Heaf, David. 2013. Natural Beekeeping with the Warré Hive – A Manual. Northern Bee Books. https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Beekeeping-Warre-Hive-David/dp/1908904380 104pp.
3 Miller, C.C. 1915. Fifty years Among the Bees. The A.I. Root Company, Medina, Ohio. 319pp. (Available online or digitally)
