I was so excited to see the progress in one of my top bar hives when I checked them on June 26. This particular TBH seemed to be doing amazingly well. It was full of bees, they were making new comb and everything seemed to be going great.
This is where the major disappointment takes place; on July 3 I went back to check the TBH again and found that the strongest hive had absconded.
Where had they gone? Why did they leave?
I had more questions than answers at this point. Back at the house, I studied and studied the beekeeping books I have and searched the internet for answers. From what I learned it appears that the bees got tired of the ants that had a hill a mere 5′ from the TBH. Apparently, if bees are being tormented by ants they will abscond (leave.) Hindsight is always 20/20 and I could have probably prevented this had I simply put bowls of oil at the base of each leg so they ants couldn’t have crawled into the TBH.
Sometimes life’s lessons are learned the hard way! I now only have one hive left and it appears to have laying workers. My next post will go into more detail about this hive. In the meantime, I am hoping to have the opportunity to go on another cutout armed with the knowledge of how to keep the ants away from the bees in my top bar hive.
Hopefully if you are new to beekeeping like I am you can learn from some of my mistakes! For the more experienced beekeepers, do you have other words of wisdom to share?
Until next time have a Bee-utiful day!
Jennifer
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I, too, lost my queen this year and have laying workers. I’m finding that beekeeping has a HUGE learning curve.
Did you try to requeen the hive? If so did it work? I agree on the huge learning curve!
oh that is a bummer! doncha get tired of life lessons? I sure do. but then I get up, dust off, and start off – again! hang in there – I know you will, but just trying to be encouragement here. 🙂
Thanks for the encouragement. 🙂