June

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JUNE - HONEY SUPER TIME

Honey flow is a term beekeepers use to describe the abundant flow of nectar into the beehive. It's that once or twice time each year when surplus honey is produced by the hive. When a flow is on, the hive will gain weight on a daily basis as the bees bring in the goodies and turn it into honey. We wait with anticipation for this time that starts in our part of Idaho around the 10th of June and can last through July, sometimes August and even September. Supers are the special boxes and frames that are stacked up on top of the hive as required to collect the surplus honey. Supers are only used this time of year and only for honey production. They are placed in storage the rest of the year where they must be protected from the wax moth - a pest that can destroy the beeswax combs.
Who figured all this out to begin with? To appreciate what goes on in perpetration for the honey flow a little background in hive history, types and construction is helpful.

THE BEGINNING . .
Beekeeping began thousands of years ago. The Egyptians kept bees in straw baskets later called skeps - the word comes from the old English and literally means basket. These early beekeepers caught swarms and hived them in these upside-down woven baskets made of straw. The curved surface inside the skep made an ideal place for the bees to build their comb attached to the irregular curved surface inside the basket.
A disadvantage of this hive is the fact that bees must be killed in order to remove the combs and harvest the honey. Additionally there is no way to inspect the hive as combs are fixed in place and are destroyed in the process of removal.

However, the most serious limitation of this hive arrangement is the inability to control disease.

1. Skep (basket) Beehive
The principal disease of honey bees is foulbrood and left unchecked can destroy an entire apiary. It is spread when a bee colony dies and bees from another hive rob out the honey or take up residency in the old combs. There is no known cure for foulbrood and the most effective control when it appears is to destroy the bees and equipment by fire. Without this rather drastic measure it can rapidly grow out of control. Many beekeeping operations have been distroyed over the years because of foulbrood.
Hive inspection is therefore an indispensable tool in maintaining healthy and productive beehives. Since the wax combs containing the brood and honey cannot be inspected in the skep hive, there is no way to tell if the bees are diseased - let alone inspect the hive to determine if it has a healthy queen (i.e.. queen right).
Most states have apiary registration and inspection laws to control the spread of foulbrood and other things harmful to beekeeping. Having or keeping diseased bees like any other livestock is not permitted and in some states skep beekeeping is outlawed for this reason.
This coupled with the other disadvantages makes skep beekeeping impracticable and should be discouraged.
MODERN BEEHIVE:
What we know as the modern beehive today had its beginnings over a 200 year period starting in the 1700's. The early discoveries included building a hive with removable frames followed closely by the development of an encased or closed-end frame consisting of a top bar, bottom bar and side bars around the comb.
Another discovery in this time period was the concept of "bee space". Bees like a space of about 3/8" in which to move around inside the hive. A space smaller will be sealed - plugged with wax or or a sticky substance made from tree sap (propolus). A space larger than 3/8" will be used for comb building. Thus, this 3/8" dimension becomes an important factor for frame spacing and hive construction.
In the mid 1800's a gentleman by the name of Langstroth put these various ideas together and defined a hive body containing ten removable frames together with a shallow super on top. He based the dimensions on his idea of brood area required by the bees and the fact that bees prefer to store their food supply above the brood nest. Bees instinctively expand the hive up and so the idea of adding additional supers above the brood nest fit well with this preference.
The ten frame "Langstroth" hive as we know it today is shown at left (fig 2). It consists of a bottom board, lid with the deep and shallow boxes and frames. The inner cover together with a "telescoping" lid provides ventilation and additional space with a center opening that allows the bees to crawl to the top of the inner cover. The inner cover makes it possible to feed the hive during winter by removing the lid and placing sugar on the inner cover.
2. Clasic Langstroth hive.
The hive stand provides a landing board for returning bees as well as a place for the bees to cluster outside the hive. It also helps keep moisture away from the bottom board by elevating it off the ground.
The bottom board is reversible to provide an larger entrance of about 3/4" for the heavy summer traffic and by flipping it over an entrance of about 3/8" for winter. It is desirable to further restrict the entrance in the winter using an entrance blocker to keep out the cold and prevent mice from entering the hive. Mice which would ordinarily be stung to death on entering the hive can live to tell about it during the cold winter months when the bees are clustered.

VARIATIONS ABOUND:
The hive description so far is ideal for a hobby beekeeper who has several hives that may sit in the back yard year round. The system described above is the classic Langstroth ten frame hive system.

Because of time constraints and the need to constantly move hives, the commercial bee person does without some of the parts and pieces of the classic hive configuration. Out of necessity the ideal is reduced to a practical manageable compromise in a commercial operation. How this compromise is made can be the subject of endless discussion when beekeepers talk shop, but here's one approach.

Arranging the hives on pallets and the use of a fork lift addresses the efficient movement of the hives when necessary. Both four and six hive per pallet arrangements are common - our pallet setup is shown at right (fig 3, 4 & 5).

While the reversible bottom board is a good solution for changing the entrance with the season, we settle for a 3/8" entrance year round and use a tapered wooden (wedge type) entrance reducer in the winter or at other times of the year when bees from other hives may be robbing.

The lids we use are made of plywood with two end cleats - no inner cover. There isn't much opportunity to feed bees during the winter, so we concentrate on having enough honey (weight) on the hives to make it through the winter without additional feeding. A small grove in the lid provides a small top entrance as well as some ventilation.

The pallet arraignment provides a combination bottom board and hive stand for all four hives. The three 2x4s going the long way have two 1x6 cleats across the bottom that take the worst of the ground moisture and somewhat protect the rest of the pallet from moisture. The boxes simply sit on the pallet and are captured by the metal clips for side to side stability and wood cleats at front and rear (fig 4). Additional boxes are simply stacked on top without any means of capturing one box to the other. Eventually the bees "glue" the boxes together but before this happens, hives are difficult to move and keep the boxes stacked together.

For single hives (normally splits) we use a bottom board attached to the deep box with screws. For single hives it is desirable to attach the bottom board to the hive body so the hive can be picked up and everything stays together. See April for a description of how splits are made.

Notice the hand cleats on all the deep boxes which provide a place to grab hold of the hive or box. These are a great aid in lifting the hive and work much better than the hand recesses cut into the boxes by some manufacturers.

Once the hive out grows the single deep box the bottom board (attached with screws) comes off and the hive goes on a pallet before another box is added. Lifting a two story single hive isn't something you look forward to, so when they need a second box they go on a pallet. The same lid is used for single hives as those on pallets.
3. Pallet - 4 hives, one with a super.
4. Bare pallet - note construction.
5. Hive entrance on pallet - approx. 3/8".
6. Attached bottom board on single hive.
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