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Top-Bar Hive Management

Top-Bar Hive Management. A year on the buzz. SPRING!. Expansion – spacers Swarm season. Swarming. Colony reproduction Signs: queen cells, drone brood, bees outside hive What does it mean for the beekeeper?. Find queen, move her to new hive Shake heaps of bees in

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Top-Bar Hive Management

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  1. Top-Bar Hive Management A year on the buzz

  2. SPRING! • Expansion – spacers • Swarm season

  3. Swarming • Colony reproduction • Signs: queen cells, drone brood, bees outside hive • What does it mean for the beekeeper? • Find queen, move her to new hive • Shake heaps of bees in • Add plenty of capped brood + honey. • Try to give new hive at least 6-8 combs

  4. Summer • Beginning of honey harvest! • Keep adding spacers, evaluating queens, monitoring for disease, refining wax, bottling honey… • Might observe ‘bearding,’ bees hanging out in cluster at entrance – not adding their heat and humidity to interior. • Avoid cross-combing by reversing newly built combs at back – saves headaches

  5. Harvesting

  6. Bee products: Honey, beeswax, mead, pollen, royal jelly, venom…

  7. Autumn + Winter • Time of contraction • Propolising entrance & cracks for insulation and protection • Organic control of varroa more effective while weather is still warm • Robbing can get full on • Inspect hives to ensure bees have enough food for winter! • Can combine hives if two look weak

  8. Nectar and pollen sources in NZ • Main ‘nectar flow’ mid-Nov – mid-Dec in most places • Notice when bees go crazy on a plant – how long does it flower for? Can you plant more of it? How does the honey look/taste? • When are there dearths in nectar & pollen, how can you remedy? • Plant polycultural paradises!! Gorse: excellent pollen source White clover: NZ’s premier honey source Manuka: unrivalled for antibacterial actiity

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