It's been a while since I posted here. Last year, I put out the top-bar hive (Hive Beta) and installed bees into it. I also cleaned and put new bees into my two Langstroth hives (Hive A and Hive B). They all seemed to do well, but I ended up combining medium hive bodies from Hive B to Hive A so that Hive A would survive the winter. Hive Beta seemed to be behind, and I think it was due to me not much feeding syrup to them and the bees truly starting from scratch--an empty hive with no foundation or wax at all.
We put a thermometer into Hive A, and we could see that the bees were alive as recently as late-January of 2016. In fact, on one day, the hive was in the high-90's when the ambient temperature in the area was well below freezing.
I have yet to check Hive A or Hive Beta. I don't think that either survived, but I haven't had a chance to crack either of them open. I did put straw bales around them this year, and that is a first for me.
Going forward, I'm going to move to deep hive bodies. I only need to use three of them instead of the five mediums that I have been using. They will be heavier, but easier to and track.
I just got word that the bees are coming Sunday, April 10, 2016. I tried a guy who is closer than the place I was using in Stillwater, so we'll see how pick-up goes.
I need to get the hive bodies ready. They are assembled, but I have to drill the holes, get the corks, prime them, and paint them. I also have to assemble at least 20 frames for the deeps.
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