Journey of a Bench Hive 2 months on:
I called in to see how my young friend was doing with his bench hive on Saturday. Wow! He has been busy, AND so have the bees. He has done two splits and shifted one to another location as there is not a lot of room in his back yard.
There is no excluder in the bench hive as he decided not to take any honey off this year. Next season, he will make a queen excluder.
The bees are doing well but he has had problems with attempted robbing. He seems to have successfully prevented this by reducing the entrances and making up robber guards. After seeing some deformed wing virus, he inserted Bayvarol treatment.
One thing I noticed was the large amount of propolis over the frames and the hive mat.