Скачать или смотреть Opening a box of live honeybees - Inspecting our First Two Foundation-less Honeybee Hives

We are new beekeepers and we are going foundationless!

We're trying out two different types of frames: one type has a wooden paint mixer wedged on the top part of the frame to provide the bees with a guide. The second type has a wire across the middle of the frame along with the wooden paint mixer.

This was our second inspection on these foundationless hives. Our immediate observation was that the bees built out the comb so quickly. It took them about 3-4 days to almost fill the entire box! We are excited to see how well they do this year so we can compare them to our hives that do have frames with foundation.

In Hive 1, we did not end up replacing any of the frames because the box was full of comb already and they were on their way to start the final frame.

In Hive 2, we replaced two of the frames with the adjusted frames to help guide them to build straight comb.

We are working on improving our hives and apiary this year. Our goal is to combine science & research with ancestral knowledge & three generations of beekeeping.