[beef]

I take all the honey supers off and feed them sugar syrup in the winter. Seems to work well for me, but then again I only have a couple of hives. My theory is that beekeeping is a lot like socialism. I provide free food, housing, and health care, but if they manage to make any honey it belongs to ME.

I am not convinced about the cell size argument. Those sizes were worked out a long, long time ago and apparently they were not a problem before. I think it’s the mites or maybe some other pathogen.

Have any of you beekeepers tried a top bar hive?

http://www2.gsu.edu/~biojdsx/main.htm

I want to put in a third hive next year, and I’m thinking about trying this.

[B4Ranch]

I have seen commercial beekeepers using wooden benches to set the hives on out in the fields over in Kalifornia. Very similar to this system.

[B4Ranch]

How would you feed a wild hive that’s up in a tree in the winter if you didn’t know exactly how big it was? Not something you’ve got in the shed out back where you can check on them every couple of weeks.