GrandmaB's Notes

Beginning backyard beekeeping in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, USA, using top bar hives. This is a blog of my experience starting up a top bar hive in my backyard in Independence, Oregon. Hopefully it will help others who are just beginning beekeeping in our local area with some of their basic questions about backyard beekeeping with top bar hives. Why GrandmaB...not related to bees as you might think; I've been GrandmaB since 1999 when the first of our wonderful grandchildren arrived.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

New top entrance August 16, 2019

Friend George and I constructed a new top for the hive to provide a top entrance. Using shims and a 1/2" exterior plywood, we glued and stapled and set the new roof in place. Removed the queen excluder and the inner cover.

There is still no comb drawn in the medium super although bees quite busy returning with pollen and nectar. The frames in the second box appear full so I'm hoping they will begin drawing comb in the super now that there is an entrance at the top. However, they were not using it this afternoon. It may be that I'll close the bottom entrance after a few days if there is no traffic at the top.

New flat top with top entrance

Close up of top entrance

Saturday, August 10, 2019

Check of Medium Super

August 9, 2019 Looked into the top medium super and found no comb being drawn yet so no worries about swarming now. I believe I will remove the queen extruder when the top opening cover is installed. Not sure when that will be--need to research Michael Bush's site for more information.