How Many Bees

[tefer2]

Blue, when I first tried the 1/2 frames I made divided full size growing-building boxes to get them drawn out. At the end of the season I just put them back in those to overwinter.
 I fooled around with stacking 4 wide 1/2 frames two boxes high with limited results. Froze
 Now I'm just using 5 frame full size medium nucs for mating my queens. At seasons end I just leave the last queen in them and add a second story. Being able to restock them in the spring and winter them with one size frame makes less work. I bunch them together, make sure they have a wind block, and cross my fingers.  
In the spring I use them to cover my dead outs and sell the rest. Through out the year, they are great comb and brood factories to make more nucs. I had some that had two supers on them.

[tefer2]

 1,023 bees

[BlueBee]

Well, surely you could make some bottomless boxes to go on top faster than you can count dead bees.

 Now I know you're joking!   You've built foam hives before.....they take forever and a day to build  

I solved the problem of gluing wood to foam in my latest generation of nucs..... I skipped the wood!  They're pure foam, sans the frame rails.  Of coarse this creates some new interesting problems to be solved .......  Built about 40 of them.

Thanks for the tip on the glue.  I have not tried wood glue.  I plan to make some more of my jumbo hives this winter since I have just about all the bugs worked out of that design (I think ).  That design does require facing the bee side of the foam with wood and I will need glue for that.  Does wood glue really bond to foam as well as Gorilla glue?  I do hate using Gorilla glue, but the stuff has bonded like a weld so far in my foam building adventures.      

[BlueBee]

:roll:1,023

We have a winner!  

You're close enough.  The exact count of dead bees was 1013.  No drones, 1 queen, no mites.  

I have to confess I didn't think there was that many in there when I started to count.  There were a lot of bees head first into the comb cells and those numbers added up pretty fast.  

I think I'm going to follow your lead with the queens next year.  These half frames are just an awkward fit in the ole bee yard.    

[windfall]

Well, it is interesting to have a hard number. It almost makes me wish I had counted the dead in my failed nucs last winter......almost....well not really. It makes me wish the kids were old enough to make them count for me!
The wood glue seems to bond very well. Half of the sandwich needs to be able to adsorb water from the glue and allow it dry, so no plastic. Some friends who used to build Model RR suggested it, evidently quite common in that hobby. It has only been a few months so I can't give it my complete endorsement but something you may want to try/consider.

What are you lining the all foam hives with to stop the bees from chewing?

[T Beek]

What a great post this has been.

I do think dry sugar 'may' have saved them 

[BlueBee]

The wood glue seems to bond very well. Half of the sandwich needs to be able to adsorb water from the glue and allow it dry, so no plastic.

What are you lining the all foam hives with to stop the bees from chewing?

I tried the wood glue a couple days ago to glue hardboard to foam.  It seemed to bond as strong as the gorilla glue.   That is GREAT news since using the polyurethane glue is SO messy.  When I tried to pulled the hardboard from the foam, it eventually pulled apart (as all glues do) but it took the top layer of foam with it.  Can't ask for much more than that.  I will plan to use the wood glue when making my next set of jumbo hives this winter.

On my forth generation of foam nucs, I decided to experiment a bit and see how cheaply I could make foam nucs.  As you know, facing the foam with hardboard (or whatever) adds labor, cost, and time.  I experimented with foil faced polyurethane foam available at Menards (a regional big box store).  Didn't really care for that too much since I got a whole bunch of little metal slivers in my hands!  I have also found the foil delaminates after about 4 years in my climate.  Absent any good ideas for facing the foam, I just left it au natural to see what the bees would do.   

[tefer2]

BlueBee, have you tried using the other side with the plastic coating on it. I think we are talking about the same stuff. Wow! did you really get slivers from the tin foil backing. You must have been cutting up a bunch of it.