Natural Beekeeping International Forum

[westMI]

Greetings! Brand new beekeeper here using a top bar hive built on the chandler plans with minor modifications (of course)
I ordered a package during winter and picked it up May 12. After driving all over MI with it in my car (a long story) I got home that early evening and the weather was quite nice so I put the bees in the hive. I did the partial boring of the candy plug in the queen cage and pinned it to the top bar. The next three days the weather took a turn for the chilly and didn't get much above 40 and in the 30s at night (frost 2 mornings). Needless to say I was a little worried about the bees as they were unable to break their cluster to take any food.. They seemed to come through it ok and the first semi nice afternoon after that I checked the queen cage and she had been released. got the cage out and let them get to their business. In the next few days the consumption of the sugar water seemed to increase and I noticed several bees coming back to the hive with pollen. Very encouraging. Currently I am away on a business trip that I left on weds. tuesday evening I checked thte progress of the comb building as I was concerned that a cross comb issue would be bad if I was away for 2 weeks. The comb that they are building is straight so no worries so far. there is a good bit of comb on the first three bars and a tiny bit on the forth. Anyhow The weather forecast looks good fro the next week so I am hoping that the bees continue on as they are doing. One thing I will do when I get back is verify that the queen is doing her thing in there somewhere which I wasn't able to do before I left. Can't wait to see whats going on when I get back. I left 2 quart sized feeders filled for them for while I'm away. I hope they are finding plenty out and about by the time I get back... here are some pics and a short video-->
Ok no pics and video I need to post 4 more times before i am allowed...

[westMI]

One thing I was wondering about is how you decide when to open up more access holes? I originally had one open, but before I left I opened a second one as there seemed to be a lot of traffic jams with just the one open..

[Dexter's shed]