Recent Posts

1

GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Not good news

« Last post by TheHoneyPump on Today at 12:34:47 pm »

I have said before, here on BM and everywhere the topic comes up. The honeybees are well looked after by the beekeeping industry.
The focus of the public and concern for the -save the pollinators. / save the bees- needs a complete paradigm shift to putting all that attention on the native species.  I have been saying this for 15 - 20 years.

2

GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: 8 frame vs 10 frame

« Last post by TheHoneyPump on Today at 12:28:07 pm »

For those looking for followup info.
I tried a few with cut foam inserts wrapped in tech tape to protect the foam. The spacers worked well. What did not work well is that loss of 20% of volume per box. Very quickly became an issue of over packed hives and swarming. Experiment done, 8F does not work and is unmanageable here. Completely abandoned the idea. Sticking with 10F standard.

3

GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Can you see the signs of the times?

« Last post by TheHoneyPump on Today at 12:15:17 pm »

HoneyPump. Confession time.
Is that you in the photo, or a meme copied from the web?

That one is off the web, but is EXACTLY what is going on here. The March sun radiant power is warm, but the air is still cold and well below freezing.
It does not look like we will be seeing flying weather above freeze temperatures until after Easter weekend.
Right now, busy clearing off snow for lay down areas.

4

GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: What did you do in your Apiary/Bee yard today?

« Last post by Occam on March 29, 2023, 10:50:27 pm »

Good call, thanks for the advice!

5

COMPUTER TECH HELP FORUM / 3D printers Trying to update firmware

« Last post by BeeMaster2 on March 29, 2023, 09:41:29 pm »

Does anyone have an Ender 5 Plus 3D printer. Do you know how to flash the firmware.
My Main Mother board blew the X and Y drivers so I decided to upgrade to a silent mother board from Creality. i ordered it from Amazon because i trust them and have not had problems returning items or getting my money back. They sent me a new board, i installed it but it is in Chinese. I changed it to English but every time I change screens it switches back to Chinese. So I just used Google Translate to read the screens. It comes with Energy mode set to on but that makes it so that the prints fail as soon as the Hotbed cools down. I tried to turn it off but it will not change. I also cannot turn on the Auto Leveling. I found that others have had the same problem and many others did not. I returned the mother board to Amazon and ordered a new one. Received it last night, installed it and I have the exact problem. The new silent board is extremely quiet. other than the fan noise, you cannot tell it is printing. It prints beautifully until the Energy Saver turns off the hotbed. As soon as it cools down, the printed item starts moning ahd it fails. I have looked at several videos on how to install the firmware but I have not been able to. For one thing i cannot get the Slicer software that has the ability to update it to connect. It sees the com port is connected but will not talk to it.
Any help would bee greatly appreciated.
Jim Altmiller

6

GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Honey Authenticity

« Last post by Skeggley on March 29, 2023, 09:17:25 pm »

There has been a recent petition to get the UK government to label all  the "countries of origin" used in blended honeys.
Currently the non descript, "product of more than one non EU country" suffices (read China).
I don't hold my breath for anything happening soon....currently honey and its authenticity is well down the list of political "to do's".

We?ve had a petition here on Oz for the same on the Change.org platform with over 300000 signatures. Been going for a few years now with no headway.
My thoughts are that labelled or not most who purchase these products from the supermarkets wouldn?t read the label or care, anyone who really cares buys from their product from local suppliers already.

7

TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES / Re: Does anyone have a Layen's hive?

« Last post by Bill Murray on March 29, 2023, 08:02:16 pm »

Bob, how many frames did you start with? I dont have a lyens but I am running double deep frames in a hive as an experiment. I installed a swarm on two singe deeps one over the other. one double deep on each side with empty feeders filling the voids. once good comb was started removed two feeders ( one was over the top of the other) added two more frames. Maybe too much room, just a thought.

8

GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: 8 frame vs 10 frame

« Last post by Oldbeavo on March 29, 2023, 07:41:13 pm »

The only flaw in the modification of 10 frames to 8 is that what ever you use will create a bias.
65mm polystyrene will take the place of 2 frames, the bees only chew it when they run out of room. This or any other solid frame replacement will tend to insulate the side of the 10 frame box, better for the 8 frame bees.
If you insert a 2 frame feeder you will have the opposite effect by providing space the will be needed to be kept warm.
HP, from what i understand of your system of stacking supers, for the 8 frame system the stack will be higher.
The weight is why we are an 8 frame system, and at over 70 yo the lifting of an 8 frame super full of honey 4 high is becoming a struggle. We are using our Ezy-loader crane more often to harvest full supers.

Having spent some of my life in agricultural research i am insure that if 100 hives will give you a conclusive result. The variation in bees would be a variable, that you may have to requeen the 100 8 frames and 100 10 frame comparisons with queens that are split equally between the groups.
I am unsure if the work required in modification and measuring honey yields will give you meaningful result.

Another way of looking at the trial is to buy the required 8 frame hives and boxes, put your bees into them, run the trial and if the 8 frames are better then you have a head start on converting, or if the trail is in the favour of the 10 frames, then sell the 8 frame set ups with bees, hopefully at a profit.
Easy to say HP as it is not my money.

9

TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES / Re: Does anyone have a Layen's hive?

« Last post by The15thMember on March 29, 2023, 02:28:11 pm »

Well, Acebird. I spoke too soon.
The swarm which I put in the Layens hive ignored the starter strips in the foundationless frames and built cross comb. It was a mess, but I got it cut out and rubber banded strait in the frames.
My problem here is that the Layens is new to me, and these are the very first combs. Give me a month or two, and when I have a few full frames to use, I won't have anymore of this cross comb business.
My one issue now is that with a langstroth deep frame (9in), any comb I rubber band into place is not far from the top of the frame, but these Layen's frames (16in) are taller, and they may build cross comb at the top again, even though there is straight comb at the bottom.

If you just try and piecemeal it as best you can, they should be fine once you have a couple of frames nicely built.  It's a lot of work, but I just cut and pasted for my first colonies, and it worked out fine.  I've still never used foundation.

   Bob, could you maybe put a temporary stick under the shorter comb to hold it next to the top until the bees glue it tight?

That's not a bad idea.

10

TOP BAR HIVES - WARRE HIVES - LONG HIVES / Re: Does anyone have a Layen's hive?

« Last post by jimineycricket on March 29, 2023, 10:43:01 am »

My one issue now is that with a langstroth deep frame (9in), any comb I rubber band into place is not far from the top of the frame, but these Layen's frames (16in) are taller, and they may build cross comb at the top again, even though there is straight comb at the bottom.

   Bob, could you maybe put a temporary stick under the shorter comb to hold it next to the top until the bees glue it tight?