# Colony update here in Pa



## Allen

It was in the 70's today so we decided to go into the remaining two hives.
Winds and dark clouds started rolling through the area and we didn't go too far.

We added a medium honey super to the colony that is booming for a total of 5 supers. Within seconds of adding it they were up in it already.
Supposed to be in the 70's again next week so we're planning to go down into the brood chamber to see how things are doing. 
Thought I had read that bees were supposed to be reduced in population this time of year but this one already looks like the other two colonies did at the end of Summer.

Also thought they would be getting low on honey stores but there appears to be an excess of honey.
A local beekeeper is advising us that we can do splits between the dates of 4/15 to 6/1 in our area.

Should we be concerned with swarming earlier than that?
These bees are bringing in a lot of pollen too.

How many splits can you make from the same colony in the Spring?

thanks,
Allen


----------



## Dragonfly130

Normal swarm season around here starts in May. Will probably start early this year if the warm weather continues. Watch for drones. I'm looking for everything to be two weeks early. Only my opinion but I'm planning on being early rather than late. Depends on the weather of course. An extended cold snap could change everything. They've been brooding all winter I believe as I've got larger than normal cluster's. 



> How many splits can you make from the same colony in the Spring?


Depends on how large a colony you have, what your goal's are ,available drawn comb and your management style. There is really no straight forward answer to that. To build each to a double deep I would say four split's of five comb's and a queen cell could easily build back to a double deep by fall with good flows. Poor flow + syrup same deal.

My Bee's were working silver Maple today. Could be the pollen you saw coming in.


----------



## Allen

Thanks Dragonfly130.
What we saw was one giant cluster with two of the top supers (10 frame) having the majority of frames covered in bees.
Even saw a few cells with reddish pollen which looked like red food coloring.
A few days earlier there was lots of activity at the entrance but yesterday with that wind picking up there was hardly anything.

While looking through the dead hive we saw dead bees positioned head first into a number of cells.
They went into Winter with a good population. I wonder if mites could have caused their numbers to dwindle and then not leave enough bees left to stay warm.

Supposed to be another real warm day next week so we're going to try an inspection then.
Will take some photos.
Allen


----------



## DPLONG

Allen,

I'm from the other side of the state but our winter has been about the same. I went into winter with four hives, two that were decent with plenty of stores, one that has been exceptional, and one not so much. I had one hive that never really amounted to much that started from a package. I found those ones dead a week ago, I didn't really expect them to make it. I have two that seem to be okay, they are still alive with plenty of weight in the hive and a decent amount of bees, I put some sugar on the top a few weeks ago just to see if they would take it and because I'm new at this, I get a little nervous. The good hive, which is from a swarm I collected in June from a colony in a house wall that has been there for ten years, is doing great and their numbers are way higher than what I expected. I'm hoping for another swarm from that original colony in the house this spring and then the homeowners want me to try and remove it. I wish I could just leave it there and keep catching the swarms from it.

Two hives have been bringing in pollen, from maples I'm guessing, since February 22nd and one just started, I'm interested to see what the good weather next week brings. I'm going to try and split my strongest hive into four around mid may unless I need to do it sooner. The other ones I'm waiting to see how they take off. I'm interested in hearing your results and looking forward to what you decide to do.


----------



## mjfish1975

Same thing here. After a very rough fall with all the flooding and the hive floating in the water. It was quite a learning curve. I've been able to pop the top many times this year to check stores (alot of 2:1 feeding in the fall and hoping for the best). They have been very active recently. During my last quick look last week it appeared the population doubled and they have taken about half the sugar I placed on the top bars. Hoping to rotate the hive bodies next week and start light feeding but, knowing Pa weather and the way this winter has gone we'll get a foot of snow in April.


----------



## TriJim

Ours are busy - some skunk cabbage and other pollen sources available. I started sugar water feeding (under the top cover) 2 weeks ago and most of the hives have taken a couple quarts. Even our nucs have survived this far. Last year we saw swarming about third week of May if that helps. I'll probably go through boxes on Sunday if the warm weather arrives as predicted and add supers or at least reverse boxes on the stronger hives. Great to be seeing warm weather and pollen. Next thing you know we'll have dandelions. Good luck.


----------



## GLOCK

This is my seconed year as a beekeeper and am happy to say my 3 hives all are doing well and i even seen the queen in one i was adding honey frames to i was pretty happy it was my first time ever finding a queen.
She was easy to see thats for sure she was bright and alittle longer then the workers i'm so happy.
My first year i failed by jan.{2 hives}
I put some BEEPRO out dry and they are taking that in big time and i'm going to put some suryp out this coming week can't wait. I don't think any thing is out yet here. I have sugar on the top of the frames and there taking it plus they still have honey one is light. My garlic is like 3in high thats early up here i hope we have a good year .


----------



## PAHunter62

I got into my 2 hives on thursday when it was about 70 degrees out. Both were started from packages last spring. I had put candy boards on both in the fall for insurance. Both hives had eaten most all of the candy and drew comb from the top of the candy board down and attached to the frames below. When I lifted the board off, I tore the comb, which was stuffed full of early nectar. I pulled some dry comb from below, replaced with foundationless frames and did my best at checkerboarding the hives. I found it interesting that one of the hives was festooning within a couple minutes on the new frame. With all the warm weather coming this next week and the maples kicking in, I wonder if they'll draw any comb into the new foundationless frames.


----------



## DC Bees

Hey there fellow Pa beeks,It's nice to see so many on here.Glock you are only a stones throw away from me,you should be seeing silver maples blooming soon they are in full bloom here and willows are on the way.


----------



## Allen

Awesome to hear from some other Pa beekeepers! :banana:

That flood from Tropical Storm Lee was awful. 
Our creek jumped the banks and two feet of water was flowing against my Smithy.

I live next door to where I grew up and the last time I saw so much water was when Hurricane Agnes hit here (twice).
Would have hated to see hives in those floodwaters.

I've read that feeding syrup to an established hive in Spring may cause them to think about swarming.
Is that a concern?
We have dry suger on top of the inner cover which is slightly moistened from the moisture in the hive.
With all the capped honey that is left they are still chewing on the sugar.

The colony which has the big population was like that since December. 
Weather is looking good for the next two weeks. Going to be in the 60's most days.

Am going to be placing an order for foundationless frames soon. I've got a package of bees coming to Keeney and Ziegler early next month and three nucs in May.

Pahunter: did you just start with foundationless frames? I'd like to know how that works for you.

Oh yeah, gotta start thinking about what to plant in the veggie garden too. 

Allen


----------



## virginiawolf

Alright! ... PA Beekeepers Hi Allen, Dragonfly130, TriJim, Glock, DCBees, PAHunter, MJFish1975, DPLONG, I am somewhere in between wanting to do something and wanting to leave them alone for another week or two. Last year I reversed a hive about this same time and then it froze for a month so it was too soon. I guess this year may stay more consistent. I put out an open feeder of 1 to 1 sugar syrup about 20 feet from the hive of and they are enjoying it. Last year I had one established colony and 3 packages. I split them into ten hives using queens I bought and or reared in nucs. It was a bit late before some of the queens I bought arrived and the fall flow effect wasnt very beneficial so I made candy and bought some sugar bricks for above the hives. I tried but I still lost 3 of them to starving. I don't know what I could have aside from given them more syrup in the fall. I will do that this fall if they are light. One had a bad mite problem and it didn't make it either. The remaining 6 are doing well. In a few days I will dig around a bit and see what is going on. Part of me is in twilight zone from this warm weather. To prevent swarming .... When I am a bit more certain it will stay warm I am going to get them back into a single deep give them some empty combs and let them begin to work up again but I don't want to jump the gun. Pollen seems abundant enough but I will probably put some pollen in soon. Guess they won't eat it if they can get the fresh stuff. If one of the colonies swarms I will hopefully be on top of that and take a few swarm cells to make splits with. I wouldn't expect swarming normally until May but I was told by some more experienced beekeepers it may come a few weeks early depending on your colony. Something I learned from bee class was that it is better to get a super on earlier rather than later so if the flow starts they have room. Apparently here close to Hagerstown Maryland Chambersburg P.A. that will be April /May. Until then I'll feed them. This open feeding seems O.K. but apparently it promotes robbing and I have seen some of the bees fighting at the feeder. I am Looking forward to hearing more from The Pennsylvanian's Best Wishes to you all VW


----------



## balhanapi

Hello everybody! 
Another PA beek here. so nice to see everybody is doing well. 
Mine are doing well too 10 out of 11 made it so far. Now if only these maples/crocus start blooming...:waiting:


----------



## delber

Well I'm also a fellow Pa beekeeper. I was just in all 3 of my hives on Thursday afternoon and all are doing well. I put dry sugar on top of all of them just as "insurance" because they're all small. One has only taken / used about half of it, but the other 2 have mostly used it up. While I was out I was surprised to see a red bee coming in. I had to do a double take. I think it's the maple. I think it's on. The one hive that I could get to had 3 solid brood frames, and still 2-1/2 of stores in a 10 frame deep. The other one is a 5 frame deep and the other had sugar on top so I couldn't get in and see. Bottom line I think the maples are on. Every time I've been to see them this winter I've been shocked to see them bringing in polen. Even the first week of January!!! Seeing that, I'm not even thinking of putting any polen sub in there because even Thursday there were plenty of "buckets full". Also another thought is if you start w/ syrup then you can't stop until the flow starts. I'm going to wait on that until I see they're light on stores. (AKA in my small hives under a frame capped) I am thankfull to report that I have not had a hive die out this year.


----------



## libhart

The red pollen coming in is deadnettle. Maple pollen is yellow, but that's coming in too. Pollen def. available, but I don't think there's really any nectar yet. They're going to be using a lot of stores to raise brood now, if the warm days last week didn't kick them into high gear, this week will. Make sure you stay on top of your stores and feed if they're light. Many hives die in this part of spring when they need to feed brood and then keep them warm at night.


----------



## delber

Thanks for the info Libhart. I thought maple would be red simply because the flowers that I've seen were red.


----------



## DPLONG

Checked on the hives yesterday, sunny and high 60s here in western PA. Everything is looking good, all were bringing in pollen. I had do get into my one top bar hive and do a little work, a rat chewed through the side and took out a lot of comb and honey but didn't touch the sugar on top. I cleaned it all up in there and it was a mess. The bees were taking honey from all the destroyed comb back into the hive and they still have some stores left. The numbers still look good and I found the queen, laying away. I've got workers hatching out but no drones yet. I got to watch a few chew their way out, always cool to watch. The top bar hive was definitely finding some nectar somewhere, not sure where. I did see a lot of bees on the crocuses in the flower bed and they weren't taking pollen. It was rainy here all day today but it looks like they should get some flight time the next three days. I'm going to try and get out for a walk tomorrow and see what's blooming. There's a lot of things starting to turn green here.


----------



## wildbeekeeper

wow - its a PA beekeeper thread!! glad to hear all the hives are doing well! My hives are much like eveyone elses... bringing in pollen from the crocus, maples, some deadnettle and some willow - all f my hives (30 ) are doing well and in varying degrees of populations - some of my strongest have two frames of brood but most are about 2/3 to a full frame of brood. Only lost 1 out of 9 overwintered nucs to a condensation problem and I saw that one coming. This coming week I expect things to go full force here in Pittsburgh - 3-4 types of pollen coming in and we are just getting started! Will probably start feeding some pollen patties and 1:1 this week to really build up some of my colonies so I can split in another month - Its Bee Time!! Good to see all the Pa folks chiming in!


----------



## Acebird

I am watching you guys because I think you are two weeks maybe three ahead of me. If anybody has a crystal ball they will make big bucks. I am keying in on the pollen intake... it is much more than I have seen in my 2 1/2 years experience.


----------



## DC Bees

Got my first sting of the year yesterday.I got it right between my fingers in the tender area ,ouch that one hurt!Also had one of my very dark queens fly away,not to happy about that.I leaned the frame with the queen against the hive and walked away to grab the queen excluder and when i got back she was gone.All i wanted to do was move her down out of the honey super.One more lesson in beekeeping!


----------



## delber

DC Don't assume that she's "gone" for good. She may have flown into the hive. I have heard of this happening with others also. The chance (from what Michael Bush has said) is about 50/50 that she'll fly back. He leaves the hive open and allows them to fan for about 20 minutes or so.


----------



## Grandpa Jim

DC give the hive a few days. Then go in and look for eggs. Those dark queens can vanish into a frame of bees even while you are looking at them. My bet is she would not have flown off the frame. I have started to use a queen catcher, to keep track of her while inspecting...easy to catch and release her when ready.

I had to add some frames to 4 of my wintered Nucs today. Two wintered with just 4 frames, 2 nucs in one deep hive body. These were queens mated in early Sept. Another nuc needed to be cut back from 8 to just 4 medium frames, but the queen looked good and there was capped and open brood, so they should come along. 

They are bringing in nectar as it would drip from the frame if tilted. Lots of that red, green and some tan pollen in the frames.....sort of looks like Christmas.


----------



## Acebird

DC Bees said:


> I leaned the frame with the queen against the hive and walked away to grab the queen excluder and when i got back she was gone.All i wanted to do was move her down out of the honey super.


I read somewhere that you should always put your frames in an empty box when you remove them from the hive. Now I know why. Probably a nuc would be good for this unless you are going to pick all the frames out.


----------



## mjfish1975

I was able to get back in the hive today. Saw lots of bees, top box about 6 frames full and the bottom was about about four. Didn't do a complete inspection as it was getting late. Hoping to get in them this weekend for a more complete inspection. They were taking the sugar I put in back in early February out by the truckloads, so I removed the rest and the shallow super that was acting as a spacer and put 2:1 in a feeder in case they needed it. I was hoping to reverse them but didn't want to break them up. It will be time to add supers before you know it. If this weather holds probably by early April.


----------



## Dragonfly130

Anybody seeing any nectar coming in yet? About 10-20% of the bee's coming back into my hives yesterday were bringing in pollen. I'm assuming the other's were bringing in some nectar but maybe not. Lot's of activity. I did see bee's working a tiny purple flower growing in the yard. I'm assuming it's purple dead nettle from an earlier post but can't Id it for sure. Also don't know if it makes nectar. Might check later today. Also a beek friend I talked to last night from eastern WV has syrup on and his bee's are not taking it which might indicate some type of flow there. We are only a week or two behind him. look's like this weather is gonna hold for now.


----------



## Allen

This afternoon we are going to open the hives so I'll look for some.
Will take some photos if possible.
Looks like another great day is shaping up.
Allen


----------



## DPLONG

Dragonfly130 said:


> Anybody seeing any nectar coming in yet?


I saw some nectar coming into my one and only TBH on Sunday, I haven't really gotten into my other hives yet, not till this weekend. I have no idea what it's from, although I did see a lot of bees on the crocuses in the flower bed at the house. Some were after pollen and others were way down in the flower. All my hives were bringing in pollen with about the same percentages that you noted, Dragonfly, but there were a lot of bees flying in and out. They are definitely on to something. I noticed last night that a lot of our fruit trees are starting to bud. I think spring is here, as long as it sticks around.

If there are any western PA people on here, I have found a guy in between Erie and Buffalo that has about 200 nucs, as of Saturday, left. They are from overwintered stock and he rears his own queens. Real nice guy. I will be headed up there to get some around the first of May and wouldn't mind hauling some back if anybody is interested. PM me for more details.


----------



## Denon Carpenter

Hi. Everyone. It's nice to see a thread of Pa beekeepers. I live near Johnstown and we have also had probably the most mild winter I can remember. I had 4 out of 5 hives make it through the winter. I'm not sure who made the comment in an earlier post, but based on the size of the clusters alone it looks like at least 2 of my hives have been laying for sometime b/c they are much larger than anything that I have seen in the past 3 or 4 winters I have been keeping bees. I use all 8 frame medium hive bodies and have two hives that are consistently full of bees through 3 hive bodies and the others have large clusters through 2 bodies. 

My question for this season is how much earlier should I perform splits. Like others I'm afraid of what April has to bring, the 15 day forecast has temperatures up to the end of the most staying consistenly above 50 degrees. Most of them are nearer to 60. When are most of you planning on doing splits if this warm trend continues? Plus when do you estimate that a sufficient drone population will be available for individual who do walk away splits and allow their queens to breed naturally? 

Does anyone think it would be to early to order a mated queen and do a split that way?


----------



## delber

I was in my hives last thursday the 8th and 1 nuc (10 frame deep) had 3 frames of brood and 3 capped and a little dry sugar on top still. I went in again yesterday the 13th and they had only about a 2" wide by 1" patch of capped stores. The rest of those 3 frames were now eggs / larva. I have 7 frames of brood in this hive at this point. WOW!!! Needless to say I put the feed on. What was said earlier was so true. Make sure you keep a close eye on things. Michael Bush or someone else has said it takes about a frame of stores to rear a frame of brood. This was a lesson to me for sure. I thought they'd be fine for a few weeks until nectar started coming in, but man was I wrong!!!


----------



## Dragonfly130

Definitely nectar coming in at some point this week. Not a large amount but they are working something. Little white flower's also in the yard open and the purple deadnettle open everywhere. Also saw the first dandelion flower today. For those looking for nuc's I have an ad in the for sale section. Under 8 frame hives for sale. I didn't run it separate but will. Kinda got em hidden.

It is nice to hear from all the other Pa beek's. Keep it up as we can all do better at managing by knowing what's going on with everyone else. For me I'm working way too much and often have to guess on timing.

Jim


----------



## Allen

We got into both hives this afternoon.
Took photos and got a short video of a bee breaking out of its cell.
Will try to post some tomorrow or the next day.
Lots of brood, pollen and what looked like honey being capped.

Allen


----------



## DC Bees

I decided to take a look at one of my two story nucs today and i was shocked at how much pollen they are bringing in.The nuc is also packed with bees and brood from top to bottom.I also saw some drone cells for the first time this year.If i don't split or move them to a bigger box they will swarm for sure.


----------



## Dragonfly130

> Plus when do you estimate that a sufficient drone population will be available for individual who do walk away splits and allow their queens to breed naturally?


Denon I would probably say walk away's in may or June during the main flow so they have lot's of resources available. Lot's of drones should be available by then also. I'm not a big fan of feeding bee's so love early may split's as they will build on the flow's. 

I really can't recommend walk away's though as you will likely get inferior queen's. Buy some queen's or cell's or better yet raise some. If you don't want to graft or use another method watch for supercedure or swarm cell's and make your split then. These will be great queen's. 

Hope this help's!


----------



## Allen

Here are some images.
I tried to upload clickable thumbnails. It takes you to my photobucket album and the photo that appears can be clicked on to see it even larger.

The first 3 are from the dead hive.
Is that drone comb?

  

Queenie


----------



## Allen




----------



## GLOCK

Well i'm seeing pollen coming in to day and i have a lot of bee's coming and going.
I took my quilts off to day and my mouse gards. I put on entrance reducers to the big hole just to make sure no robbing go's on.
I Have feeders out about 100 yards away and there hitting them hard and they where hitting the dry BEEPRO pretty hard but are starting to not want it quess cuz pollen is now coming in got stung 3 times this trip to the bee yard. Learned a sting to the ear hurts! only for a little while.
This SUNDY i'm going to get into the whole hive on all three and see just what going on can't wait.
I know i have 3 healthy hive yea.!


----------



## delber

Well guys I've been feeding on the top bars and only one hive has taken any of it. So this must mean that they're getting nectar on their own and don't like my sugar syrup.


----------



## DC Bees

Delber,my observation hive is bringing in nectar and loads of pollen and i checked another nuc today after work and they were bringing in nectar also.


----------



## Allen

In some of those photos I posted it looks like they are capping honey.
Is that possible this time of year?


----------



## Dragonfly130

Allen
I agree that they are capping honey. Nectar has been coming in. Light yet, but coming in.

I also noticed some capped drone brood to the right on the medium frame (last pic).
That is drone comb that you questioned.


----------



## DPLONG

It looks like they have plenty of cells filled, I would think it's a bit too early but who knows with this weather. Could it just be left over capped honey from last year still, just surrounded by newly filled cells?

Has anyone noticed and drones yet? I think I had two hanging out at the entrance to my TBH yesterday but it seems early. I will take a better look this weekend.


----------



## mjfish1975

Thinking ahead if this weather holds. Who's thinking about reversing/checkerboarding and supering. I'm going to go in the hive tomorrow to evaluate things. I let you know want I find. So far the entrance is getting very congested (still reduced though) and lots of pollen still coming in. I did notice some of them that weren't carrying pollen were very heavy landing suggesting nectar is coming in also. Hope to see nectar in the hive since they had a terrible time in the fall with floating in the flood waters back in September. They made it this far. Mother Nature still could throw a wrench into it though.


----------



## delber

Update: Well guys they are DEFINITELY bringing in nectar. one hive of mine that I've checked has more stores and more capped then they did a week ago. They were only in a 5 frame nuc, so they're in a 10 frame now. IT'S ON!!! :applause::applause: I'm not just a LITTLE excited!!!!


----------



## Allen

delber don't you mean this :banana: LOL

Dragonfly130, looks like there might be some drone cells on the left side also.


Am painting my new hives yesterday and today and also have to order a bunch of foundationless frames.
Hard to believe my new bees will almost be here.

Allen


----------



## mjfish1975

Went into the hive today. I was hoping to reverse them but when I lifted off the top deep there was about the same amount of bees in both. Lots of new nectar coming in and pollen. There stores have definitely increased and the brood pattern looks good. Their population surprised me I didn't think they would have built up so much. Being said, I didn't reverse them but added two shallow supers on top. FYI, dandelions starting here. My friut trees are really pushing with peaches just starting to bloom.


----------



## virginiawolf

This all sounds really good. I'm glad peoples bees are doing well. I only tried feeding syrup above one hive and they were barely taking it so I figure there is nectar coming in. I guess I'm going to put some shallow supers on to make sure they are there. There is room for the queen to lay but I will double check this weekend to make sure. Upon last check the brood is going through the center of two deeps on all the hives so there should be a good work force ready for the upcoming flow. This is such a nice intro to spring compared to last year when it rained every day all day. :applause:


----------



## wildbranch2007

a friend of mine from Penn. called yesterday and said the owner of the land where he has his largest apiary, he told me the county but I can't remember, its in the center of the state, that they had been sprayiing for two days. he had her call the county/state and they said they were spraying for black flies and mosquitoes but he didn't find out what they were spraying with.


----------



## Allen

Got our hives set up the other day to see how they fit in the spot picked for them.
Poor shots with the camera phone but you get the idea.



















You can see our new cold frame in the background of one of the images.
The bank in front of them will be planted soon with bee friendly wildflowers. 
Due to foot traffic near the hives, the hives are oriented towards the bank to get them flying up.

Allen


----------



## Acebird

"What did you do bury the cold frame?


----------



## MeriB

You are lucky PAHunter, the feeder in one of my hive was full of brood. Boy were they nasy for three days after I went in!
Meridith


----------



## Allen

Acebird, its on a lower level.
Our garden is right next to the hives so we pointed them away from the main traffic area.


----------



## Acebird

Ah, in ground cold frames made with bales. Super.


----------



## Allen

Isn't it though?
Going a little off topic here...
My neighbor changed out their patio doors so I was able to get them for free.
I'll be putting wood chips down on all the walkways and we're hoping the cold frame will be producing veggies into winter.
Btw, the locust logs have a mixture of compost and mushroom soil between the logs and two of them are being set-up for vertical gardening with pole beans, peas, cucumbers and cantaloupe.


----------



## Acebird

LOL a cold frame doesn't cut it when it is 20 below. Maybe it will work for you.


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

Hello everyone in PA. It's nice to hear fellow PA beekeepers talk about their latest happenings. Hey Virginiawolf, your a "neighbor" - I'm from Brookville area.

I'm a "newer" beekeeper - the past 3 years, but did have several years of beekeeping as a teen.

I'm hoping to get several swarm traps up soon and kind of thinking swarming will probably be starting around mid - April due to the warm winter. What do you all think of when swarm season will actually start this year?


----------



## virginiawolf

Someone on our beeclub said they saw swarm cells in one of thier hives last week so I would say swarm season is right when you expect like 2 weeks Northwest PA Beekeeper. I put one trap out but may put out a few others. Do you have honey supers on?


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

Beeclub? Is this something local? I don't think there is a "local" beeclub over here - at least not that I know of. I think regularly swarm season starts around here in May, and just from looking over swarm dates this year on this site - it seems to be about 2 weeks ahead of schedule. I don't really deal with supers - I just put on full hive bodies.
My one hive seems to be up in the 2nd or 3rd hive body instead of the bottom one - they aren't using the lower entrance. I'm waiting for a nice warm day to switch the boxes around so they are in the lower one.
I haven't put any traps out yet, but figured I should get some one in the next week or so.


----------



## Allen

Helped my friend split one of his hives today. 
Turns out we are going to split the second one tomorrow or Tuesday.
And....
He is giving that split to us. :banana:

We saw some interesting things while going through both of them.



















He added some semi-foundationless frames in both hives last Tuesday by knocking out all but a small strip of foundation along the underside of the top bar.

Here is a first look at their progress in a short period of time.
Take notice of the cell size on the foundationless vs. the foundation.
Check out the festooning.
























































We will have 5 colonies of bees. 3 Nucs, a package and a split.
Should be interesting to see how they all build up for Winter.
The plan is that if the split makes it through Winter, I will give a split back to him next Spring.


----------



## Allen

Got some feeder jars placed on the splits but they aren't really interested.
This method is really simple.


----------



## delber

I've had 2 of my 3 hives swarm already. One I was able to catch, one is just "gone". They were all 1 deep through winter, and the one hive was my strongest and about 2 weeks ago they had their second deep put on when they had been using most of the empties. Now there's no brood that's not capped and a small amt. of honey in all of the cells throughout the hive. Very little capped, but nectar is throughout. :scratch: They still had frames to draw on so why????? I have no idea. How fast do you all put new boxes on? I thought doubling their space would give me about 1 brood cycle at least, but they swarmed sooner than that. They were super calm though. Well here's for learning. This at least is one way to combat mites. Interrupt the brood cycle. I just wish I would have seen this coming.


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

delber, it seems that once bees make up their mind to swarm - sometimes you can't stop them. If they were feeling cramped due to only one hive body, they might have already decided "We are running out of room." and even though you "built on", their minds were already made up.

I haven't heard of any swarms in our area yet.

I did put out two swarm traps near my two hives if they decide to swarm. And I'm hoping to get several more swarm traps placed around where I know feral colonies are.


----------



## Allen

We brought home our first colony of bees tonight.
Ratchet strapped the hive together with 1/8" hardware cloth in the entrance, placed it in the Trailblazer and they handled the ride with no problems.
Still looking for queen cells on and am hoping something shows soon.
Getting a package this Sunday.


----------



## PAHunter62

What's new across the state? Looks of uncapped nectar in my hives. Will be checking on my hives on Saturday again.

Had to take a small split off of one, due to swarm cells being present a couple weeks ago.

Anyone catching any swarms in PA lately? I have 6 traps up, nothing yet ...


----------



## DC Bees

Most of my hives are doing good so far,had a monster hive try to swarm.The bees were hanging under the hive. There must of been five pounds of bees under the hive.


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

I caught a swarm on Tuesday May 1 in Worthville, PA - a very small town between Brookville and Punxsutawney. It was a nice size clustered on several pine tree branches about 2' high. I was just able to slide the hive under it. When I jolted the branch, apparently the multiple branches made the bees lose cluster as instead of the whole swarm dropping into the hive, some did but most of the bees took flight. Luckily the queen was in the hive, as once I put on the lid, the cloud of bees slowly got smaller and smaller as they went into the hive.

I brought them home after dark and the following morning put on a 2nd hive body. They have accepted their hive and going about their business.


----------



## Allen

Our split and package bees are drawing comb and some eggs were finally found.
I'm still waiting to hear about our three Nucs from Yule Apiary.
Things must be moving slow for them.

My friends TBH had some issues yesterday. 
He discovered lots of newly drawn comb which started off straight and then ran into the adjoining top bars.
He got them back on track and will keep a daily eye on them for now.


----------



## mjfish1975

Also caught a swarm Tuesday of a decent size. They were in a olive bush about ten feet up. Learned some valuable lessons. One don't under estimate the weight. The cluster doesn't like to drop from that height only ONE sting . Make sure you get the queen. After they regrouped on the branch on the ground I carried it over to my nuc box and tried the white sheet trick. Well, after dumping them on the sheet they simply flew away and regrouped on the front of my hive. Meanwhile, a cluster started forming on the outside of thebucket I tried to place them in earlier. Nuc box moved some sugar water spray and a quick jolt sent most of them into the box. Got the queen this time as the remaining bees entered the box. Moved the nuc next to the spot I want to put another hive after dark (still need to get another one). Its now Friday lots of activity, fanning, foraging, guarding the entrance, even saw some pollen comiing in. Hoping to move them into a full hive soon so I can get that nuc back up to try and catch one without having to climb ladders and cut branches sure don't like heights.


----------



## GLOCK

Well i've never seen a swarm till MAY 1 my wife hived the first swarm she quess's it was around 12 lb it was huge for sure and the bee's are brite orange and big very nice looking bee's .
So she boxed the swarm and set up a hive in my apiary and dump them in and they are still hived the next day we are up at my apiary the next day checking out my new hive when in a little thawhorn tree was a nother swarm but only a third of the size of the first one but still a nice swarm. So i got two swarms in two days just 15 to 20 feet from my hives and i know for sure the monster swarm was not my bee's there biger and much more orange then mine . Swarm 2 is hived and looking good i quess i'll now if we got the queens or not in 12 more days i'll look for eggs then. 
Now the secone swarm kindda looked like my bee's but i see no sign of swarming from my 3 originl hives.
I have queens come this week (i hope so) i don't want to dig into the hive till i do my splits and i know they had room a week ago and one had no brood so i gave them a frame of open brood from a strong hive.
This is my first year of bee's making it througt winter and in to the spring flow and so far it's been crazy the swarms blow my mind.
I all so have Nucs from Yule Apiary orded and have not heard for him yet.
And qweens from White oak and no word for them yet i'm quessing soon.
Will bee's swarm to other apiarys? What a great MAY so far what fun.


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

The neighbor called and left a message on my answering machine today while I was at work. He had a swarm in his back yard (Summerville, PA 15864) and thought I had bees. Told me I wanted them to call him and come get them. The next message was him again that he called the county extention office and they told him a swarm only sticks around for a couple of hours, so he called another beekeeper and so they were collected.

I don't think the swarm was mine. I only have 1 hive that it could have come from - and it seemed to be as busy as usual this evening. I know 2 years ago, a feral swarm flew from the woods across our property and was heading in the direction of this neighbor, so I'm fairly certain this was a feral swarm.

I did have a swarm trap out, but they must not have been interested in it.


----------



## PAHunter62

How much longer do we expect the flow to be on this spring in SE PA?

I took some off two hives this past weekend, extracted and put the wet supers back on.

Anyone one else take any yet?

I did catch a dinky swarm mothers day weekend in my yard.


----------



## delber

I got 3 galons off of one hive on Memorial day (along with almost getting heat stroke. I'm thankful for a GREAT wife!!!) As far as a flow I haven't seen the sumac blooming yet and I know that's one of the later trees to bloom in the "spring flow" at least according to last year.


----------



## Allen

Not sure about the flow.
Honey suckle vine is just starting to flower along with some other kinds of shrubs.
Locust and multiflora rose seem to be over.

Pollen has been a nice orange color today.


----------



## DPLONG

So PA beekeepers, what's the harvest looking like? Mine sucked big time.


----------



## delber

I only was able to harvest from one hive this year. The second swarmed on me and the third had queen issues. My one hive I harvested about 70# or so of honey before they swarmed on me mid / late June and had queen failure and is now dead. Currently I have 6 going into winter that seem to be set for a good spring hopefully.


----------



## Allen

I got to do an inspection this afternoon of my first year bees.
They all have sufficient honey/sugar syrup and pollen for the winter.
Was almost tempted to pull a capped frame from each hive but thought better of it.
May do some more feeding as soon as I can find some sugar on sale at the store.


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

It's been a busy year. Had both hives make it through the winter and did a split on one which got me up to 3 hives. I advertised I would remove swarms and captured at least 11 swarms but I had several abscond. I am up to 12 hives right now and I would say half of them have enough stores. Once we get some decent weather (and I have the time. I think I can steal some honey from the heavy hives to give to the lighter ones. That plus feeding and we will see how they survive this winter.

I was going to get some honey off at least 3 of my heaviest hives, but don't have an extractor nor did I want to spend $300.00 to buy one. I have a local beekeeper who is thinking of getting out of beekeeping, and so will either buy his extractor or next year I will at least borrow it. Some of the swarms I captured just didn't seem to do much while others really went to work.

And I guess if I don't "rob from the rich and give to the poor" or feed, it will be survival of the fittest.


----------



## DPLONG

I'll give a little more information on how my year went. I went into last winter with four hives, came out with two which made an average of 52lbs. of honey each for the spring harvest. I collected some swarms, bought four nucs, two of which came with more mites than bees, did some splits and had 14 hives by mid summer. I'm back down to nine and one nuc heading into winter. I only had two hives make honey this fall, I haven't extracted it yet but I'm guessing about 40 lbs. each. I was really disappointed with how this fall turned out but I've talk to some other beekeepers and it seems like it just wasn't a good fall.


----------



## mulesii

I started two hives this year, one Italian from a package and another from a nuc (Carniolan). I split them into two more hives, which I have in nucs for the winter. The original nuc didn't produce any excess honey and superceded the queen and the Italian package produced seven medium frames of excess honey. I got no excess from the fall flow, even though there was a lot of goldenrod in the area. I smelled the goldenrod nectar in the hives, so I believe they were using it to backfilling the hive bodies. I can't complain as they were both new hives and I didn't expect any honey from them the first year.


----------



## Dragonfly130

Hopefully we aren't hijacking your thread here Allen! 

I got a 25- 30# average for the season just pulled yesterday so not sure of exact weight yet but somewhere in that range. Was really expecting more(always am :s) but don't think the fall flow was too strong or I've got too many colonies for my area lowering averages. They were working the golden rod hard from what I'm told but not much golden rod smell in the hives and certainly not showing up in weight in supers. That's got me stumped!:scratch: Maybe they stored it all below super's. I do believe they've moved some down from the super's also but that ok as I got enough for myself and to sale and the bee's have enough for themselves.


----------



## Allen

You're not hijacking the thread! 
I look forward to hearing how other colonies are doing in the areas around us.
I've been spreading the word around that I'll remove swarms for next year.
Am buying an air stapler and will be shopping this winter for the lowest frame and hive pricing.

Dragonfly130, are you planning to have queens this coming Spring?


----------



## Dragonfly130

Planning on having nucs again Allen if all goes well but unsure on bred queen's. Extra Cells' for sure when I requeen my own colonies but unsure on queen's as of yet. I'm gonna say maybe at this point and not lock myself in but if your willing to take some in a batch of several or work around my schedule I'd be more inclined to do it. Lot of work raising cell's to replace them and not really worth the effort for one or two. I'm just not set up to produce queen's other than for my nuc's and requeening full size colonies with cell's. Not sure on the fate of my last Glenn breeder queen should be checking tomorrow but regardless if she is replaced I'm gonna just pick my best to produce from for early May. Glenn retired so no more breeder's available from them. VP may be where I go next year for breeder's. Also if you can catch cage some it would also be easier on me.

I will say I've gotten a lot of queen requests from nuc buyers this year.


----------



## Allen

Sounds good and will call in Spring.
If we have some over-wintered survivors I'm hoping to split them so several queens may be needed.
Planning on running a dozen or so Nucs for next year.
Going to let some requeen themselves and add mated queens to others.

Almost requeened one of the Nucs.
Like you and I had talked about earlier in summer, they have been grumpy most of the time and gave me most of the stings out of all the colonies.


----------



## delber

I was just out at my yard at lunch time and inspected quickly and started feeding 3 hives. 1 nuc and 2 full hives. The "smell" was great. They are / were getting some goldenrod which is encouraging, but they are still low on stores. I haven't fed either of these hives at all this year. They started out as a 5 frame nuc that once put in a deep swarmed on me, and I split it again with another hive making 1 5 frame nuc overwintered into 3 hives. One I sold in July which has 6 frames of brood at the time. So It's feeding time for me!!! 

On the queen rearing arena. . . I raised 5 queens this year of which 3 made it through well and are still going now. Why is it a big deal to use our best stock and rear our own queens for our splits and nucs. My bees are very calm. I have a friend that bought a nuc that the guy uses breader queens also from glenn and his bees are MUCH hotter. I can pop the top on any of my hives w/o protection and I wouldn't dare this with his. I learned a TON from rearing my own queens this year and God willing I'll be doing it again next year also.


----------



## delber

So I'e been trying to figure out why 2 of my hives just dwindled to nothing then died out and have a thought. I think they may have starved of pollen. So my question is when is it too late for pollen sub? Would it be beneficial to supplement this late in the year? If I would have thought of it I would have done it months ago and perhaps saved the other 2 nucs (Using 5-7 frame deep hives in 10 frame boxes) but hindsight is always 20/20.


----------



## wildbranch2007

delber said:


> So I'e been trying to figure out why 2 of my hives just dwindled to nothing then died out and have a thought. I think they may have starved of pollen.


did you go verify that they had no pollen. I've had this happen to a few hives the last couple of years. In one case the symptons showed up as diarea and the bees just kept leaving the hive. In the other cases they kept raising brood long after they should have and used up all there pollen, then there bodies reserves, then they left the hives(looks like ccd) but isn't. in all the cases when I pulled the frames, there was no pollen left in any frame, and it happened right about this time of year. from your post above you started feeding in oct. did they /had they stoped rearing brood? if they keep rearing brood they will eat up the pollen feeding the brood.


----------



## libhart

Right. New bees and raising brood causes the real need for pollen. From Biology of the Honey Bee by Wintson, '87:

"Pollen is necessary for proper post-emergence glandular development and growth of internal structures during the first 8-10 days of a worker's life, but after that it is not essential unless older workers begin to produce brood food and feed larvae."


----------



## delber

Honestly I hadn't kept an eye on pollen. I figured that the "normal course of life" would have covered things. I have never trapped pollen from them and saw them bringing it in regularly, but I was going to add a frame with some pollen just as they were dwindling down, but found that they had about a 2-3" diameter of polen which I realize isn't enough at this point. They were still rearing brood when I was feeding them. They stopped sometime in November and by that point the 2 hives were already dead. So do you all see a need or a benefit to feeding a pollen sub at this point? On a few hives I am mountain camping on top so there's room to put a patty in the hive if it'd be good and able to be used. 

The "diarea" that you mention is nosema I believe. That could be why they just left the hive.


----------



## virginiawolf

I gave some of the bees, my smaller hives a little to 2 to 1 syrup in a mason jar last night.

They came up for it and seemed happy to see it.

They were flying like last week and it was 50 yesterday so I figure they could use a little syrup.

I'm not sure if they keep open nectar around the brood througout the winter like they do in the warmer months

I fed dry sugar only last year but I lost a couple to starving so I have it in my head to give them a little syrup.

I hope this wasn't a bad decision. Any insights would be appreciated. 

Thanks, VW


----------



## wildbranch2007

delber said:


> The "diarea" that you mention is nosema I believe. That could be why they just left the hive.


not according to the microscopes.


----------



## delber

Mike, So you had them tested? What did they find?


----------



## wildbranch2007

didn't have the bees tested they were gone, scrapped the poop off the hives and looked at it under a microscope, nothing that looked like nosema or protozoa comparing to the pictures that I found. The hive had been treated with fumidil previous. Its one of those cause and effects. they didn't run out of honey, they did run out of pollen, they did run out of bees as I watched them leave even on cold days from my deer stand while hunting. If you popped the top (when they were still in the hive) the decibel level of the hive went way up compared to normal bees. To me they had all the symptoms of nosema, I left the hive sit most of the summer, no wax moth, no robbing, no ants. I originally thought it was nosema c. as they louder bees, flying when cold etc matched. When nothing touched it I assumed ccd. When I toook it apart didn't find any polllen, marked the hives and reused them on two other hives. no follow on problem so not ccd. to me lack of pollen, I had saved one of the deeps from the previous hives that I had a problem with, pulled it out of the cellar and no pollen. so I have two sets of symptoms to remember for lack of pollen, all hive bodies and frames were reused no problem so no ccd. Now its entirely possible that the one hive with diarea on it really did have nosema and I didn't know what the heck I was looking at.


----------



## PAHunter62

Finally broke 45 in the area today. I made it to my two remote hives and checked on them. I have not been into them since the end of October. Neither hive was in the top box yet, and the stores there appeared to be untouched from looking in. I did add a 2 inch shim box to each with a sugar brick and pollen patty while I had them open. Just a precaution in case we fall into a lingering deep freeze. All my hives were flying a little today, which was good to see after the cold spell we have been having. I have a NUC pointing out a shed window that was a late season split, they are still going, not super strong, but a decent sized cluster. The NUC was my most active hive today as it gets a little more direct sun than the others. I'll be looking for a temperature break towards the end of February for my next look. Wednesday, they are calling for 50+ temps, which should get most out for cleansing flights. Hope everyone else is doing well.


----------



## MeriB

I hope to check on my hives later this week with the warmer temps. One my be gone and I think one is strong( it roared at me when I knocked on it) but the other two, I have no idea.


----------



## Allen

Starting tomorrow and for the next 7 days, temps are supposed to be 45 or higher.
Hope they don't burn through their honey stores too quickly.
Was out with the stethoscope today and two hives sound more faint than the others.


----------



## DC Bees

I will be checking on my hives if the temps get into the fifty's, that is if I can get through the mud out on the farm.


----------



## delber

A week or two of warmer weather will be a welcome change for me. They can rearrange their stores as they see fit and I can get some more stuff on top of them if they need it. I'm planning on putting some pollen sub on top in addition to the dry sugar I've already put on some of them that were light. I'll check the others also and see what they may need. Opening them up quickly when it's 55 degrees is Ok. Doing complete inspections obviously isn't, but I'm excited to be a beekeeper again!!!


----------



## GLOCK

Well still have 14 hives a humming .
Going to poke around with them this weekend going to be in the 50s


----------



## wildbranch2007

GLOCK said:


> Well still have 14 hives a humming .
> Going to poke around with them this weekend going to be in the 50s


let us know if they have any brood


----------



## GLOCK

I'm not going to dig in to deep for it's only JAN. and they have awhile to cluster and i don't want to mess any thing up.
I will bee checking how there stores are holding up and see how my nucs are doing they sound strong.
I walked up to my bee yards yesterday when i got home from work right before dusk and the snow around the beeyards had dots of bee poop so they where out yesterday doing cleansing flights and when i got home my wife was like i have something for you and she has a jar with 2 honeybees inside and said i found these in the snow in the front yard {about 400yards from my bee yards} any way she thought i may want to ckeckthem out to see if i wanted to look at them under the scope. Whats funny they came back to life in the warm . 
I sure can't wait till april.
peace.


----------



## oblib

>Whats funny they came back to life in the warm . 


Forget where I read it but. A bee is not to be considered dead until it is warm and dead


----------



## delber

Well I was out at one yard and all 3 hives there look great!!! I added additional sugar to the top of one that was eating some of it. This weekend we'll see how things are at the hives at home.


----------



## coat384

hey dplong,where in slippery rock r u...im close, i live in wampum.


----------



## Allen

Two hives and the Nuc had a few bees flying yesterday. The other two hives had no activity. 
While listening in with the stethoscope today, I could hear bees in all the hives.
Looking forward to 60°F on Sunday!


----------



## GLOCK

Got in to my hives to day and well i had a couple that seem alittle low on bees i only got in the top box and didn't yank any frames just looked and added sugar on top if they felt light i only had two that seemed alittle light and i added some to my nucs . I think some of the hives where still in the bottom box you could hear them buzzing. I had some in the top boxs i'm geussing theres diffrent size clusters this time of the year but all are alive as of today.


----------



## delber

I also was in my hives yesterday and found that one of the three here at home have died. So I'm currently at 5. All of these look great for next year at this point. I added some pollen sub to them and some sugar to one that was light. 2 hives were into the sugar while the others aren't as far as I can see. One I didn't put anything on top of because they seemed to be full enough. They took enough food in the fall so I think they'll be fine for now. We'll see how things are in a month.


----------



## MeriB

Got in mine thursday one is dead, 2 are light and one is booming! that one was bearding on the front of the hive on Sat!


----------



## PAHunter62

All four of my full sized hives were flying on Saturday. I chose to not break the boxes open this weekend. I'm confident they will be ok for another month as far as food goes, colder weather is on the way again. I did not want to break the propolis they worked so hard to add. I gave them all syrup in the fall. I'm worried my late NUC start is not going to make it, time will tell. If they can make it for one more month and get the queen laying again, I'll be happy. I'll be watching for a warm spell around 2/20 for a look at where the girls are with stores/emergency food. 

Best of luck to everyone! No losses here yet.


----------



## Beetrucker74

We had 2 days of high 40's low 50's went out the first day to wrap up the last hives and check the late nucs to see if they needed feed. There was a few I was worried about. We saved back 20 or so frames of honey for this. We put it in the house and built a nice wood fire to bring it all up to temp and we went out and yesterday and put 3 frames in the lite ones and 4 or 5 into the nreeders that got robbed hard. That said they were made late and then we had a feed spill of a few hundred gallons that started some bad robbing. The surviving breeders so far are a SKC, English Buckfast, Carn-Carpathian, Carpathian and a Hybrid 410. We have lost half of our breeders to bear and robbing but with all the survivers went through I have high hopes for their quality and rugedness. All the production hives looked better than I thought they would most are just now starting to use their stores outside the cluster, I am figuring they will start to rear some brood in 2 weeks or less since there was nor brood yet.


----------



## jmgi

PAHunter62, if you are worried about your late nuc start because of a small cluster or lack of food, why not put it somewhere inside where they are more protected and temperature is more consistent (40 or so is best) and you can give them feed if needed until the weather improves. May as well try to help them out, bees are expensive nowadays! John


----------



## Allen

Well the weather folks got it wrong again.
Sat didn't make it to 50 but I saw activity at all the hives.
Had high hopes for Sunday and the fog was supposed to burn off by 10am and hit 60.
Thick fog all day into the evening.

A plus is that I just gained a new bee yard location at a long time friends place.


----------



## PAHunter62

John, it is more due to a late start. The cluster is not real big. I made a 2 inch feed shim box and have a sugar brick and pollen patty on top if they need it. Not worried about food. I have them in my Shed, on a stand at window height. They are out of the weather. I should have started the NUC earlier. Doing all I can for them. Just hope they make it fine until late next month when the queen may start rearing some brood again.


----------



## jmgi

PAHunter62, sounds like you're doing what you can for them, hope they pull through too. John


----------



## MaydayMalone

Greetings All,

I had planned on checking my 4 hives this past weekend, but the weather forecast had changed in NE PA at the last minute. Instead of partly sunny with highs in the mid-50's, we had very dense fog and temps that never reached higher than 45. I have been listening to my hives with the good ole "ear test". Also have been checking my IPM boards for mites. My stand alone hive at the house had 5 mites on the board with very few dead bees around the entrance. The other 3 that are about 10 miles away had about 15-20 mites each and had a heavier dead count. I'm using double deeps for brood and left 2 mediums of honey on each hive. This is my first winter, so I wanted to be sure that they didn't run out since they were calling for a hard winter. I only took 40 pounds of honey for myself in the Fall for gifts. I wrapped my hives in early December before the temps dropped. Most of my bee knowledge has come from books and YouTube videos that I gathered while I was in Iraq in 2011. How many of you are using www.hivetracks.com?

I will be doubling to 8 hives in 2013 by adding 1 more at the house and 3 more at the farm. Dad and I planted 2 acres of Dutch White Clover in the Fall. Looking forward to see how well it comes up. Good luck and a very prosperous harvest to all in 2013.


----------



## Acebird

MaydayMalone said:


> I only took 40 pounds of honey for myself in the Fall for gifts.


Be careful of what you say. Some would consider those pitiful hives, 10 pounds per hives.


----------



## MaydayMalone

Acebird said:


> Be careful of what you say. Some would consider those pitiful hives, 10 pounds per hives.


Yeah...LOL! Considering I left two 40-pound supers on each hive AND whatever they crammed into the deeps...I'd say the girls did pretty darn good for first year hives.


----------



## PAHunter62

My Nuc with the small cluster ... I stapled some 1/8 hardware cloth over their entrance and carried them into the basement until we start hitting the 30's again. I'll probably take them back to the shed on Sunday afternoon. Until then, at least they will not freeze. Been getting down to around 10 degrees here the last couple days. A few more to come.


----------



## delber

PAHunter Some thoughts for you. . . if your basement is as warm as mine is you may be starting a problem. If it's too warm you could stress them out causing them to die for not being able to get out to relieve themselves. If your basement temp is around 40 then you'll be fine. Perhaps instead of having them in doors as you do, you may be able to wrap them w/ some insulation and / or blankets to give them the edge?


----------



## PAHunter62

Good points, maybe moving them into the garage is a better idea for now. It will be warmer than the shed until this weather breaks. I plan on putting them back Sat/Sun. Just wanted them out of the 11/12 degree temps.

My garage is about 15 degrees warmer than the outside temps. I moved them there for now and had some old blankets laying around that I wrapped them in. Should keep them a little warmer, but still in a cluster. My basement was in the low 50's.


----------



## delber

I totally understand your concern!!! I wrapped a blanket over 2 of my hives also to try to "help them out" also. I do think the garage is a better option.


----------



## soupcan

Not a good idea to bee a moving bees in this cold of weather!!!


----------



## jmgi

soupcan, you're right about not moving them in really cold weather, however, if the alternative is that they die because their cluster is too small, I would take my chances with bringing them into a little warmer area. What PAHunter could do is bring them into the basement for a couple hours to let them reorganize themselves after the move, keep them in the dark if possible. Then move them the short distance into the garage and again keep them in a dark place. Anything you can do to keep the hive around 40 or low 40's is best for them to not be too active, and yet they can still get to food. John


----------



## delber

One more thought. . . Make sure you still have ventilation. When I put the blanket over my 2 hives (the hives are pushed together currently) I left the entrance side of the hive open. (I'm using upper entrances and I have a hole on the bottom boardd w/ 1/16" hardware cloth over it so they have plenty of ventilation.)


----------



## GLOCK

Well this cold snap took out two of my hives  but the rest sound strong the two that died out had a weak hum to them the last time i did the hum check and i figured they may not make it till spring . My nucs are fine so that make me happy so now i have 12 thats fine by me if i have 10 come spring that was my goal .


----------



## Beetrucker74

Moving bees in cold weather will not hurt them unless you drop them. Infact the cold will help because they are clustered tight and will not fly unless you bang them around so you don't need to worry about orientation flights and can put them back before they fly again. Cold doesn't kill bees moisture in the hive does.


----------



## PAHunter62

OK, an update.

What happened was pretty much what jmgi/john outlined above. I did not read his post until now, but yesterday after work I moved the Nuc to the basement for a couple hours (if that) ... then to the garage.

I have been worried about them for a couple weeks, so I had placed a inside/outside thermometer at the top of the hive so I could check the temperature and know they were ok. I had done this on my two larger hives last winter and they ran around 90 degrees inside even when the outside temps where 10.

This NUC on Wed morning was 26 degrees at the top of the hive and it was about 11 degrees outside. That got me thinking, a couple more days of that and it may be too much. The coldest I had seen since I put the thermometer on them was about 36.

When I put them into the garage, it was definitely about 12 degrees warmer than the outside temps. I also wrapped some blankets around the hive and made sure my lower and upper vents were open. This morning, the temp at the top of the hive was 43.5 degrees. I felt much better about that, and the temp in the garage was about 25 (outside temp about 13).

My plan is to put them back to their stand on Sunday afternoon (in the shed). I don't really like moving them, but did not want to find them frozen either. If I end up losing them, so be it, but at least I tried to protect them. When I put them back, I will provide some extra wrap/protection. I'll post back in March the outcome of this hive.

Thanks for the discussion. I'll be checking on my other hives next week when it gets a little warmer

I hope everyone's bees make it through this cold snap. Glock, sorry for your loss, good to see you have some strong Nucs to replace them.


----------



## Allen

This freezing weather is supposed to break on Tuesday. 
Temps in the 40's and on Wed it'll be in the 50's.
Two of our colonies seemed small and I'm expecting them to not make it.
Wish I didn't have to wait to see how things turn out.


----------



## GLOCK

It's been so cold that it's 15 now and it seems nice compaired to whats been lately.
I think what evers left{hives} after this cold snap will make it to spring .


----------



## Acebird

GLOCK said:


> I think what evers left{hives} after this cold snap will make it to spring .


I wouldn't make that bet. Spring is a major killer as far as my experience goes.


----------



## MaydayMalone

GLOCK...Could you give some tips on wintering nucs? I don't have any this year, but I plan on having at least two next winter. How are you feeding them? Are they just five frames?


----------



## GLOCK

Acebird said:


> I wouldn't make that bet. Spring is a major killer as far as my experience goes.


Whys that ACE? if they have plenty of stores and the queen is alive what can happen in reason?


----------



## MaydayMalone

Should be out flying on Wednesday.


----------



## GLOCK

MaydayMalone said:


> GLOCK...Could you give some tips on wintering nucs? I don't have any this year, but I plan on having at least two next winter. How are you feeding them? Are they just five frames?


 This is my first year at wintering nuc so i know nothing but mine are alive and strong right now. One thing i used 3 deeps{15 frames} and theres sugar one the top 5 frames i wraped them allso as of 2 weeks ago they where not up at the sugar yet but they are a humming . This year i want 15 nucs going into winter. .


----------



## Barry

Actually, Ace lost his hive well before spring.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?264084-Yesterday-was-a-bad-day&p=753368#post753368


----------



## Rader Sidetrack

Barry said:


> Actually, Ace lost his hive well before spring.


Ehhh, whats a few months here or there ....



Acebird said:


> Most / many people are not detailed oriented.


:lpf:


----------



## Allen

Now inaccurate weather is saying 50 on Tues and 61 on Wed.
Some rollercoaster of a temperature swing and then it goes back below freezing.


----------



## Allen

We lost another colony.
Since it warmed up I decided to pop the top covers and look for activity.

This colony appears to have frozen to death and/or starved trying to keep the brood warm.
Looks like a small cluster.





















As disappointing as this is, the upside is I now have a total of 6 deep supers of drawn comb to start splits onto in Spring. 
Two other colonies are weak and if we get another extended freeze they are probably going to die out.

Now to the good part...
Was wearing Carhartt bibs while doing all this with no problems.
Until I checked the Nuc... 

Lifted the top cover halfway off and those girls let loose a ROAR that I had not heard from them before!
I couldn't drop the lid back on them cause it would have killed a bunch and had to finish taking it off.
Glad I had safety glasses on. A cloud of them went for my face and I ran. LOL
They were mad!

Had to suit up to put things back together. 
They came at me again and ended up with two stings on the leg but had no other problems with them.
Can't blame them for protecting their food stores.


----------



## PAHunter62

I put my NUC back to the shed Monday evening, I wanted them to be able to fly during this warm spell. They were still alive, although I really did open them up for a look. I wish I was going to be home tomorrow and make a sweep of all my hives to check on them. I know my 2 hives at home are still fine, would like to get to my brothers to check on my other two. Have not been around them since before the cold snap. I guess I'll text my nephew around noon and have him check for activity. Hoping for the best. Gearing up to get into equipment building mode in February. Plan to take a few days off and build some NUCs (6 frame) and some combo bottom board/slatted racks.


----------



## DC Bees

Allen said:


> We lost another colony.
> Since it warmed up I decided to pop the top covers and look for activity.
> 
> This colony appears to have frozen to death and/or starved trying to keep the brood warm.
> Looks like a small cluster.
> 
> View attachment 4173
> View attachment 4172
> View attachment 4171
> 
> 
> As disappointing as this is, the upside is I now have a total of 6 deep supers of drawn comb to start splits onto in Spring.
> Two other colonies are weak and if we get another extended freeze they are probably going to die out.
> 
> Now to the good part...
> Was wearing Carhartt bibs while doing all this with no problems.
> Until I checked the Nuc...
> 
> Lifted the top cover halfway off and those girls let loose a ROAR that I had not heard from them before!
> I couldn't drop the lid back on them cause it would have killed a bunch and had to finish taking it off.
> Glad I had safety glasses on. A cloud of them went for my face and I ran. LOL
> They were mad!
> 
> Had to suit up to put things back together.
> They came at me again and ended up with two stings on the leg but had no other problems with them.
> Can't blame them for protecting their food stores.


Allen,I had done the same thing the other day while trying to take a peak at one of my nucs.The bees were all up top and I was not able to put the top back down without smashing bees,I guess I got lucky they are very easy to work with.


----------



## papar

I always thought the largest number of colonies that die is in March for PA?

In my experience, some starve out because there isn't enough feed to support brood rearing. Some die out because overwintered bees life expectancy has been shortened due to varroa.The queen can't replace the dying fast enough to keep the hive functioning properly.


----------



## Allen

It's great to be working the bees again if only for a short moment.
Bees are flying at all the hives and decided to give some 2-1 sugar syrup to the 3 main hives. They all started on it right away.
Am leaving the syrup on till tomorrow, it's supposed to be in the mid-40's all night.

In the photo, the Nuc is closest to the camera and the tall stack with strap is the drawn comb storage waiting for Spring.
Did some re-allocating of resources.
Took capped honey frames from the storage stack and gave it to one of the weaker hives.


----------



## delber

Allen, Your "nuc" is a 2 deep box? I wouldn't consider that a nuc. It appears you have deep 10 frame boxes correct? Looks like you have some NICE swarm lures there also in your comb storage. 

I was also out and 2 of the 3 hives at one yard look GREAT. (I just popped the tops) The third I'm not sure of. I tapped the boxes and some bees came to the top, but not that many. It could be that they're all in the lower box, but I'd think that they'd be coming out and at least a good amt. of them would be on top. I didn't take them apart because I didn't have my suit and there's sugar on top. Also If the main cluster is in the middle of the boxes I don't want to kill a queen this time of year taking the boxes apart.


----------



## Allen

Hi Delber, the Nuc is in three divided 10 frame Deep supers. 
4 frames per Super for a total of 12 frames in their half.
There is sawdust in the other half.
I'm in the Smithy working on a project and can see lotsa bees out the window doing orientation flights.


----------



## virginiawolf

Even though this isn't a colony update I thought I would share this info since it is specific to Pennsylvania.
There were some stricter rules passed in 2011 regarding selling honey that were new in P.A. 
apparently they are easing up on that soon. I don't know if my apiary is technically a farm or not I'm not sure. I am registered with the department of agriculture. Maybe someone could explain that to me. I need to read more on it, but anyway they are going back to the 1974 law referred to as the Honey Sale and Labeling act. So I take that to mean a more live and let live approach to selling honey. Here is what I received from the Penn state extension office.

Honey Sale Legislation 

(from the PA State Beekeepers website: http://www.pastatebeekeepers.org/index.htm)



HB 2565 has passed both the House and the Senate ... unanimously. HB 2565 exempts on-the-farm honey producers from food license and registration, provided they produce 100% of the honey offered for sale. The honey offered for sale must comply with the 1974 law referred to as the Honey Sale and Labeling Act.



However...anyone is still subject to inspection. An inspection would most likely be prompted by someone getting sick on the product or complaint. Otherwise, an on- farm producer will likely never see an inspector.



The governor signed this legislation Oct 25th. It will take effect in 60 days. So... in January 2013, every honey producer that became a criminal over-night with Act 106 on Jan 1, 2011, will no longer be criminals again. How cool is that ! We will await any clarifications.



This amendment was initiated by the Susquehanna Beekeepers Association, through their local representative (Sandra Major). Hats off to SBA ! Pa State Beekeepers Association fully supported and actively participated in hearings and communications regarding this amendment.



House Bill 2565: http://www.pastatebeekeepers.org/pdf/HB2565.pdf

1974 law referred to as the Honey Sale and Labeling Act.: http://www.pastatebeekeepers.org/pdf/HoneySaleAndLabelingAct.pdf


----------



## virginiawolf

I am interepreting this as if you sell pure honey that you don't have to worry about jumping any major hoops to sell it legally because it is considered a safe food. Good news for the honey producers. Last year they were pulling some honey off the shelves that had not had an inspection of the honey house where it was produced. From what I heard.


----------



## Grandpa Jim

You are exempt only if you are selling your own honey produced by your bees and are selling it from your property. There may be a few exceptions for a few days, where you are selling it at say a farmer's market...have not seen this in writing yet. As soon as you put it on a market's shelf (corner store, farm or super market) you must be registered and have your bottling area registered and inspected, if your are not registered and inspected they will still pull the product from the shelves. It is the area used for the final bottling process that must meet registration requirements. The extracting is considered a raw process and is not as restricted as the bottling process.
Our club went through this last summer and registered my business kitchen for members to bottle their honey. We had a small sticker to add to anyone's label who used the kitchen to bottle their honey, making them legal and able to sell their honey in any store.


----------



## Allen

Have you folks noticed condensation on your inner or outer covers?
I have not seen any so far this winter. It sort of worried me at first.
There is a bottom entrance reducer and I'm using the notch on the inner cover.
The inner cover is upside down with sugar on it and doesn't appear to be absorbing moisture like I expected.


----------



## delber

I'm using upper entrances so it's not as big of an issue, but I am seeing mold on the opposite side of the top. I'm also using insulated lids to cut down on the condensation on the lid. It may be on the sides, but that's fine with me. I have about a 2" wide entrance cut in my custom made lids for an entrance. The only thing I saw this year was "frost" just about sealing the entrance one night during that cold snap last week. That was cool to see. I figured that the bees would be fine w/o the ventilation due to the fact that the lid is insulated. What I've made is a 3/4" piece of plywood on top, w/ 3/4" foam insulation, then another piece of plywood under that. I use a piece of pine to go around the sides, front and back and I have aluminum flashing on top and around the sides to keep moisture off the plywood. I can post pictures sometime if anyone is interested.


----------



## DC Bees

Some of my nucs have water dripping out the bottom entrances, I'm glad the hives are tilted forward to let the water run out if it gets too bad.


----------



## virginiawolf

Thanks Jim, So if legislation is passed I can sell it from my yard with out a hastle? How much did the registration of your extracting area cost?

Allen, Last year I was seeing a bunch of moisture dead center above the inner covers so I got homasote board at home depot and cut it so it would fit above each inner cover to absorb moisture. It worked. I also liked having the pieces of homasote to use for this and that when I was opening hives and stuff. I have it on some hives this year not on others. I think the bees drink that mositure to an extent and use the mositure to mix in with the capped honey. I read that. The sugar is supposed to absorb the mositure. I haven't seen water coming out the entrances but I haven't really looked for it. Like DC I keep mine angled forward slightly.


Delber I would like to see your flashing install. That sounds like a good idea


----------



## libhart

The home kitchen registration was $35. But if you have a private well then you need to pay for water testing. For most of the members of my club, the money wasn't really the issue, although that was a burn. The issue I and most of my friends had was the pet restriction. In order to register a home kitchen, you cannot have a pet in your home, period, ever, end of story. You can't just keep the cat upstairs or the dog outside and sterilize the kitchen on the day you bottle. And what if the pet never goes into the kitchen. Does the goldfish count? The hamster? My son's hissing ****roach? It's a pet, it's in the home. I'll stop ranting now.

With Act 180, you don't need to register anymore if you produce (meaning bottle) at your house and sell from your house. Your kitchen still needs to be "inspectable". The dept. of ag is allowed to inspect your kitchen if they want to. So Act 180 doesn't get rid of the pet prohibition. If you have a pet and bottle in your kitchen, you still technically can't sell your honey anywhere because your kitchen wouldn't pass an inspection. That's the way I read it. What Act 180 really served to do was to save very small home sellers the time and cost of the registration as well as keeping them off the radar.


----------



## virginiawolf

Thank You libhart, I have a place to do the extracting that I thing will be acceptable that has city water and no pets. I will investigate it furthur and hopefully we can have hastle free honey distribution in the near future. I extracted last year with friends for the first time and it was fun. I'm looking forward to some steady warm weather


----------



## Allen

I have two options open to me for extracting and bottling.

One of the guys in our bee club opened up a state inspected honey house for folks who don't have extracting equipment. That's a good deal for someone like me who isn't going to buy an extractor for awhile.
You pay a small fee and get to use his equipment. Not sure of all the details though.

Hi name is Jim Griesemer at Griesemer Beekeeping 
Cell: 610-301-5833 
http://www.facebook.com/GriesemerBeekeeping

I'm going to try out those facilities when we have honey this season.

The fire co where I volunteer has a commercial kitchen. I'm sending in an app to the state in the next month or so to get that approved also.
The only problem I might run into (where the state of pa is concerned) is where you store the honey.
If it is seperate from the facilities where you are approved to extract and bottle, then that location has to be inspected also. That was from a conversation last summer with someone from the dept of food safety.


----------



## delber

Allen do you think Jim would mind others contacting him? This may be the ticket that I've been looking for. 

That last statement just doesn't make sense. If the honey is bottled already what difference does it make where it's stored? I understand that I wouldn't want to have the food stored in a rat infested warehouse, however most of the food that is on the shelves in the store is stored in a warehouse. (rats and all I'd imagine which is why we wash lids before we open a can of whatever)The honey often has a seal and a lid so . . . ??? I'm not saying you are wrong I'm just looking for some clarification. Could it have been that this was under the previous laws? How about transporting it? Would you have to have a certified vehicle also?


----------



## libhart

Also understand that they only really care about the bottling. Extracting can be done in any reasonably clean place with a roof. They think of it like milking a cow. You milk a cow in a barn and the barn isn't exactly clean. But when they bottle the milk, the bottling has to be clean as a whistle. So you can extract in your garage, get the honey in buckets, and then take the buckets to the inspected kitchen and bottle.

If you're a member of a bee club, you can register a kitchen under the name of the club. Then any member of the club can use the kitchen. This is a little tricky as the club's name has to then be on the bottle somewhere. It doesn't mean everyone needs the same label or that the real beekeepers name can't be on the label, but whatever the registered name is has to be there too (on the back even). Also if someone using the club's kitchen has honey that gets a complaint, the dept of ag can make everyone who used the kitchen pull their honey, it's a shared registration basically. But it's a good option I think.

The part about storing the honey....that's interesting, because then anyone with a pet can't do anything with their honey from their home regardless of bottling in a fully registered and inspected kitchen. Can't sell your already-bottled-in-a-super-clean-kitchen honey from a home with a goldfish...nice.


----------



## Allen

Jim would love to hear from others. He is starting this as part of his honey business.
In addition to state approval, he is also insured.


You and I are on the same page and was just as surprised when this was verbally said to me. 
I asked "why does it matter"? And I'm sorry I don't recall the exact answer. 
The person I talked to was most helpful and very nice.

Intially, the discussion centered around the commercial kitchen.
If I pay the $35 fee to have the commercial kitchen inspected and want to store elsewhere, then I have to pay another $35 fee to have the off-premises storage inspected also.
I was asked if there was a locked storage closet in the fire co and I said "why yes, there is".
So she says, "now you have a storage area that doesn't need an extra inspection fee".


----------



## Allen

libhart, is there a back label requirement in Pa?
I thought it was only the front.


----------



## libhart

Yep, only the front required. But for a bee club registered kitchen, my preference as a member is that only my name, address, and phone be on the front. I want my name front and center, that's repeat business. The fact that the club's name has to be on the bottle is just a formality from the fact that it was bottled in the kitchen registered to the club. So for me, that name and town goes on a very small label on the back.

Allen, that's just awful. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir.  So you're expected to meet customers at the firehall to sell them honey? That's nuts. Before our bee club registration, I also had given thought to doing my bottling in a firehall kitchen. Of course I was going to have to pay to use that kitchen. My feeling is that if I pay to use the kitchen, then part of the reason I'm paying money to the firehall is in fact because their kitchen is registered and inspected. I shouldn't then have to re-register that same kitchen in my name with the state and have them re-inspect something they've already inspected. But that's what they want to require. That's like asking me to pay the full state registration fee on a rental car. I'm renting the car, the owner of the car pays the fees.

Ok, enough soap box for now.


----------



## Allen

I understand on the labels.

Also got the sense that the person who was giving me the info about storage didn't agree with the info either. 
Yeah, that facilites registration is just one more tax you have to add into a growing list of them.

Wait, shouldn't our tax dollars already be paying for those inspectors to come out and inspect?

Oops, lets not go there.
I just hijacked another of my own threads for a second time in one day.


----------



## Acebird

OMG why would you want to go through all that BS? Extract it in PA and bottle it in NY and pay the taxes (customer pays) and everybody is happy.


----------



## libhart

Tell me about it....If I lived anywhere near the border I might do just that!

:lpf:


----------



## wildbranch2007

Acebird said:


> Extract it in PA and bottle it in NY and pay the taxes (customer pays) and everybody is happy.


what taxes?


----------



## Allen

Was able to peak in on three of the hives today and they are still alive.
Didn't bother the Nuc because of how strong they have been.
If in-Accurateweather's predictions are close, the multiple days in a row of freezing temps are almost over.


----------



## MaydayMalone

I am in envy, Allen. We hit 40 today with rain and fog. Based on how loud the humming is coming from the hives I would say they are doing well.


----------



## DC Bees

Today temps got into the 50's and the girls were out flying, it sure felt good.


----------



## Acebird

I know the nice temps in February are welcomed but we will pay for it in the end.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Acebird said:


> I know the nice temps in February are welcomed but we will pay for it in the end.


Why's that?


----------



## DC Bees

I have a large silver maple out back and the buds at the top are starting to open. Looks like the top buds are three times the size of the buds toward the bottom. Seems a little early to me ,still waiting for the robins to show up.:waiting:


----------



## tsmullins

Allen said:


> This has been one of the strangest Winters in quite awhile.


We had a winter as well. Despite not being very cold, a lot of beeks, including our area's experienced beeks, lost a lot of hives. Last year was a bad honey year. Periods of drought and then periods of heavy rain during our main flows. 

We noticed a lot of hives the populations dwindled to the point it appears they could not generate enough numbers to keep warm, and then could not move to stores. Don't know if the queens could not get mated properly or they shut down brood very early and just didn't have enough young bees going into winter.

We also had problems with robbing in the fall. I will say this, my nucs with Carniolan queens from Tim Service, made it through the winter, despite being robbed heavy at times. 

Shane


----------



## mulesii

Checked my last surviving hive today and it I'd dead. I lost all four of my hives this winter. I had 2 full size hives and 2 nucs. On the bright side, I now have lots of drawn comb.


----------



## PAHunter62

My neighborhood has tons of silver maples. Last winter, my first winter with bees, they really benefitted from the maples. I’m hoping for a nice boost again this year. Looking forward to a warm day when I’m off work to check stores and get an idea how my NUC is doing. It still has a pulse.


----------



## virginiawolf

I hope it warms up soon. Not just for the bees but for me too. I'm ready for a spring. I lost few so far 4 or 5 out o f twenty. No sign of nosema according to my microscope samples. I think they just must not have been strong enough. As of yesterday they were looking good buzzing around. Now new losses. I am excited for the upcoming year.


----------



## MaydayMalone

I stopped in at my friend's house yesterday afternoon. He has 5 hives in Northampton County, PA and another 10 in New Jersey right where I-78 crosses the Delaware River. He was telling me that his bees were out flying this past Saturday. I live only about 15 miles from him. He is on the southern side of the Blue Mountain and I'm on the Northern side. The difference in temperature in those 15 miles was 12 degrees. While his bees enjoyed a nice 50 degree day, mine were all snuggled up inside. 

The weather outlook for the next 10 days does not look good for the Pocono Mts. area. Two of those days are calling for highs of 42 and the rest are in the 20's and 30's. I checked on my 4 hives yesterday....some loud humming going on.


----------



## delber

I did a quick check Friday afternoon of 2 hives at home and one is looking GREAT (cluster was about 10-12" diameter in a single, 7 frame deep box with some capped stores on top of the frames) while the other seems to have a smaller cluster than I'd like to see. There were a ton of bees dead on the bottom board which I didn't like to see. I think ventilation was an issue. I didn't know that the hole on the bottom was clogged leaving next to no air coming in other than the reduced entrance on top. So we'll see how things are in a month or so.


----------



## MaydayMalone

delber....are you using IPM bottoms? I'm using them with the mite tray in all the way and popsicle sticks below and above the inner cover. The popsicle sticks give a 1/8th gap for perfect ventilation. I've had very few dead bees this winter.


----------



## delber

I'm actually using solid bottoms that I drilled a hole in and put 1/8" hardware cloth over to give ventilation. I'm using upper entrances so if I don't have a hole in the bottom water can build up and drown the bees. The hole was blocked with a couple dead (moldy) bees. I hadn't checked this hive really except popping the top since about October or so. I think the mountain camp method may be messing up things. I am seeing now that the sugar is awfully wet on top. Last year I wrapped the hives so once I put the sugar on I never went in until I was unwrapping them. It may be that the moisture is coming in from the sides, but if the cluster is putting off this much moisture I'm amazed!!! I did spray the sugar slightly near the entrance so that it didn't roll and close the hive off, but I'm still surprised that it's SOOO wet. I think this may be the reason for all of the dead bees. It may be that the sugar dripped back into the hive on top of the bees. That could be what did all of them in. For now there's a cluster there still, but it is small. So we'll see how they pull through.


----------



## MaydayMalone

Always remember that it's not the cold that will kill your bees, it's the moisture. That is, no doubt, why your bees are dying. You may want to consider converting to the IPM bottoms.  You can even convert your existing bottoms to a screened bottom by cutting out the center and adding #5 hardware cloth. Your hives need to breath and if the dead bees are clogging your vent holes, it is defeating the purpose. If the holes are clogged, you won't have any air flow through the hives and will have a dead air space which is a prime factor for mold. Plus, as you stated, you are using top entrances rather than a bottom entrance which also limits any air intake on the bottom. 

I haven't been able to look inside my hives since early December because of the cold, but I am seeing very few dead bees around the entrances. Before December, I started to notice some mold forming on the underside of the inner covers. That is when I inserted the popsicle sticks. We have had some very cold temps here with whole weeks in the single digits to teens as highs for the day, but the bees are doing well. 

Recommend that on the very next day that you can get into your hives that you slightly raise your inner and outer covers. If you can't change your bottoms, add a popsicle stick between the rear corners of your bottom board and lower brood chamber. This will raise it slightly enough to generate air flow. See if this rectifies your problem.

Spring is in sight. You'd hate to lose your colonies so close to the finish line.


----------



## libhart

MaydayMalone said:


> Always remember that it's not the cold that will kill your bees, it's the moisture.


This is one of those loaded issues where if you ask a dozen beekeepers about it, you'll get 13 opinions. Cold can kill bees, just in a different way than moisture.


----------



## delber

Thanks for your thoughts Mayday. I will seek to do something like this soon. It may be next year also that I won't use the mountain camp method as it seems that this has been the issue for me. (at least not until late in the winter when I know they're low on stores) I do have to agree with you about your conclusion though. I do think it was moisture that did them in. There was another hive that died early fall and I think this was the same reason. Man that's a stinky way to learn!!! I hate to loose good hives!!!


----------



## PAHunter62

Well, my NUC with the small cluster finally gave up the ghost this week. I checked on them today. I made up the NUC much too late in the season and knew I would be lucky to get them through. This year all NUCs I plan to overwinter will be made in the Summer, no later than early July to give them time to strengthen up.

My two hives at home are still alive, will check on my other two at my brother's place tomorrow.


----------



## Allen

Another sad discovery.
The Nuc is dead. 
While going through the supers I noticed there appeared to be two clusters. One in the third (top) deep and one in the middle deep.
It looked strong earlier this month and had food. They even had some sugar left on top of the inner cover.
This is a four frame Nuc with three deeps and now have 12 additional frames of comb and capped honey for Spring.
50% loss so far.


----------



## MeriB

Checked my hives yesterday and all three were flying, even the two weaker ones. I will be VERY glad when it warms up enought to check on those two and see if they have queens.


----------



## delber

I wanted to update you all on something from the weekend. . . I took pictures, but they're on the computer at home. I was walking around the house and saw deadnettle blooms!!! Spring is upon us!!! Hopefully this weekend will pan out. I heard in the 60's on Sunday? WOW!!! I'll attach a picture of the "flower" Scrolling down, it's the second picture that I have in my yard. Last year I had one bee come in that was working these, and I thought it was a different kind of bee entering the hive but no one else but me was concerned. The pollen is red and I guess because the flowers are so small they get the red pollen on their heads and it looks crazy.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&sour...trCGQofPAsQU2xPQCLli2Y9A&ust=1362763911509240


----------



## GLOCK

My bee's have been cooped up for quite awhile and i'm sure come sunday there will be some happy bee's with the temps. getting in the mid fiftys here i can't wait i need to add a few frames of honey to a couple hives and maybe some sugar and some bee pro .
Soon it will be april and things will kick in . I know since i became a beekeeper spring sure is slow to come.


----------



## PAHunter62

Nice warm day in these parts with heavy flying activity. I decided to check on both my hives at the house to see how their stores were doing. I also wanted to see where the cluster has been hanging out and get a pollen patty close by. 

I first checked on the hive from a captured swarm from the other side of the state. They looked good. Plenty of stores. I checkerboarded the stores with emtpy comb above the brood nest. I did not see much capped brood, or larve here, but it looked like there were lots of eggs starting. I did catch the queen as she strolled across a frame. I painted her last summer and the mark was still intact.









I then checked my second hive. It was a bit stronger than the swarm hive, it too still had plenty of stored. I did the same procedure ... checkerboarding stores and empty comb above the bees, and a pollen patty near the brood nest. I did not see any larve in this hive yet either, but it also looked to have eggs. I also was lucky enough to spy this queen as she strolled across a frame.









I expect the hives to build up fast once this warmer weather finds us.


I will be checking my other two full sized hives at my brothers house tomorrow.


----------



## DC Bees

Happy days are here again. Well, I went through a few hives on Saturday, one hive had mice in it and was queenless with laying workers. I also have a nuc that is very weak and was thinking of moving them into a three frame queen castle to help keep them warm.I had thought about combining them but the laying workers would probably kill the queen! I checked one other nuc and it was packed with bees and food. Good luck to everybody, spring is in the air.:banana:


----------



## DPLONG

I had two hives that I checked yesterday and they were clearly bringing in loads of pollen here in Western PA. Some of the bees were completely covered in pollen. I'm not exactly sure where it's coming from but I'm excited.


----------



## Greg_L

2nd year beek up here in the armpit of the snowbelt of NW Pa. I had 2 hives side-by-side, almost identical strength. Went out yesterday, and found one flourishing and the other was dead. Lots of bees face first in the comb looking for honey. Sad thing is, after we cleaned out the box yesterday we took almost 7 frames of honey stores into the house that were right above them. They just never moved up for some reason..Bummer


----------



## MeriB

No time to go through the hives this wekend but I decided to take a peek into the weakest one. It seemed to be dead. They were hiding in the middle box. When I tipped the box to look under, they shouted "Surprise!" and came out. First sting of the season. Spring is here!


----------



## MaydayMalone

Checked all 4 hives on Saturday. All very strong. Bringing in the Maple pollen. Bees coming back completely covered in pollen. Left the tar paper on the hives since we are expecting some colder weather on Wednesday all through the weekend. Plenty of stores left.


----------



## Allen

We still have 3 colonies left and they were all flying.

Not sure if I did the right thing but I added a pollen patty to each.
Picked them up from Ike at Forest Hill Woodworking. He gets them from Mann Lake.
Ike also lost quite a few colonies this winter.

Since it had warmed up I noticed them tearing into the moist sugar on the inner cover like that was all they had to eat.
But, they walk across numerous frames of honey and sugar syrup to get there.
Would have thought they'd eat the sugar last.

And saw some bees with dark orange pollen going in the hive.


----------



## GLOCK

Still cold and lots of snow up here in SNOW SHOE but all 12 of my hives are doing well and growing i seen new brood in one of my hives last time i checked them {around 2 weeks ago} man i can't wait till this s--- gos away i hate FEB and MARCH seems alls i do is worry about them dam bee's.
This winter has been looooooong.


----------



## Allen

Same here with being tired of winter.
We were promised an early Spring and it didn't happen. 
I'm looking for Punxsutawney Phil with my 222 so that sod poodle won't be spreading any more lies.

Next few days are supposed to be in the mid-40's and with a few inches of snow Sunday night. Then the temps should start inching up.


----------



## libhart

P-Phil doesn't know what he's talking about. I go with the wooly bear.


----------



## Allen

Last Saturday the bees were flying. Great to see!
One cluster is at the top of their hive and I added another super above them with deep frames of honey and pollen.

All three colonies are chowing down on the granulated sugar.
Does anyone know why they would pass up capped honey on their way up to the inner cover for the sugar?


----------



## wildbranch2007

Allen said:


> Does anyone know why they would pass up capped honey on their way up to the inner cover for the sugar?


they consider the capped honey as emergency stores. don't use up the emergency stores when we have free carbs sitting around.


----------



## Tenbears

I was in the sporting good store the other day when I happened to see a news paper clipping. It read

Punxsutawney Phil found dead of a self inflicted gunshot would. Apparently the shame of his gross misjudgment, coupled with the feelings of responsibility for the countless hardships his actions caused he could no longer live with himself. 

Guess old Phil got what he deserved.


----------



## GLOCK

What a great day here in NORTHEN PA. temps up over 50 :banana: So i topped off my nucs with sugar and looked for brood in one hive and i found some brood and the queen on the 2nd frame pulled so i put her back right away that was good enough for me made me happe to know things are going the right way so far . 12 hive made it trought winter and it was a bi--h of a winter thats a for sure .
So a question for all the NORTHEN beekeepers. When is a good time to put some pollen substitute out for the bees?
I have 2 swarms i took in late SEPT. and am worryed they don't have any pollen in the hives . What do you all think?
Thank you.


----------



## MaydayMalone

Did you observe your bees bringing Maple pollen back to the hives? They're calling for 60's and possibly 70's next week, you might not have to offer a substitute. I would have had the pollen substitute in the hives/nucs back in mid-March. I have seen them bringing back pollen on every day over 45 since early March. I only gave them fondant and left over grease patties. They're doing great. 

Just ordered 3 new queens from Lehigh Valley Beekeepers Assoc last week. Should have them on 21 April. A friend of mine works for Ehrlich pest control. He put me on their swarm list at their office. Free bees.


----------



## Acebird

GLOCK said:


> When is a good time to put some pollen substitute out for the bees?
> .


Never, seriously.


----------



## delber

Ace, Last fall was tough in this area. There was low polen stores in all of my hives. I put sub in after I had already lost 2 hives due to this in January. One hive blew through it while the others only took about 1/2 of the patty I put in. Now they're bringing in pollen again and storing it so they don't need it. As a general rule of thumb if you want to encourage early build up and as long as they have enough stores start about 1 month before maple bloom to give them a bit of a jump. Check it as you can depending upon weather, but I like to check it every 2 weeks so they don't run out until they bring it in.


----------



## Allen

Tenbears, thanks for sharing that.

The bees are bringing in a bright orange and an off-white colored pollen. 
Now to find a pollen chart to see what they are bringing in.


----------



## delber

This past Monday I checked one hive at an outyard and I was surprised at what clr. they were bringing in. I saw them mostly bringing in light yellow color pollen and a whitish, but I also saw black (like tar black) and royal blue pollen. They were storing it so I know that they're doing just fine in the pollen arena at this point. this is a 7 frame hive and they had brood in 5 of the 7 about 1/4 of the deep frame. It's great to see this nuc starting to boom.


----------



## GLOCK

I still don't see any pollen coming in yet and thats with 12 hives. I'm guessing any day now we are 1800 ft ASL so we are usually about 2 weeks behide the people in the valleys. I'm glad to see the bees coming and going .
My wife was out hanging clothes out to day and a couple bees head butted her and the hives are 2 football feilds away so i quess there looking for anything they can use.


----------



## DPBsbees

Got into the hives today and found all of the action in the top boxes with the bottom boxes empty. Did a mite test and found the levels to be about 3%. Swapped boxes and treated with a single MAQ. Pollen coming in now, but nectar seems lite at best. At least it was sunny in the 60's. Looks like things will pick up this week with the highs in the low 70's. They seem like their ready to go once the flow starts. Needed the jacket today because smoke was not very helpful. Too windy. Hang in there GLOCK. It looks like the worst is over for now in PA.


----------



## GLOCK

We have pollen yay! I figured it would be any day and i was right .all my hives where bing it in.
The bees are out and flying today .


----------



## Allen

What a nice day to crack the hives for the first time of the year.
79 degrees!
Went all the way to the bottom and cleaned out the dead bees.
No mouse damage fortunately.
Found eggs and brood in all three, only saw one queen but that doesn't matter.
The colony in the 8 framer with four mediums is a bit small and in the top box. Plenty of honey left.
Placed a deep on the bottom of the stack with a combination of empty and capped honey comb frames.

The other 2 hives are set up with 3 deeps each.
Lots of honey left over and some frames with partial syrup.
Am leaving those alone for now and will pull some later for the packages and splits that are coming.
Have got a bunch of shallows sitting around so I'll add them along with mediums for honey when needed on both.

They were all bringing in yellow pollen that could be maple or willow.
Also saw some other colors and had not seen the olive green variety before that was stuffed in there.


Now to hope the weather cooperates and gives us a good nectar flow.


----------



## WWW

Allen,
Here is a link to a pollen source chart, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollen_source


----------



## Allen

Thanks, just found that one. :thumbsup:


----------



## TrvVn5

GLOCK said:


> We have pollen yay! I figured it would be any day and i was right .all my hives where bing it in.
> The bees are out and flying today .


My eyes always let me know as soon as there is pollen. When I start scratching the inside corners of my eyes, I can tell that the pollen has started.


----------



## Allen

We received a good drenching this evening after a long dry spell and looks like more to come later tonight.
Should give a jump start to the nectar flow. 

Once they build up, I'm planning to split the three survivor hives and let them make their own queens.
Haven't done that before and should be interesting to see.


----------



## GLOCK

Swarm time is coming Hope i do better this year with my SPM last year i did nothing and had bees hang from tree's all summer don't get me wrong i wanted more hives and i got them but this year i don't need 12 hives swarming. So glad spring is finally here seems this winter took for ever .


----------



## GLOCK

Well learned two things to day in the beeyard today.
First never grab the smoker by the middle not a smart thing to do i'd rather been stung.
Two never think your out of the woods when it comes to your hives making it to spring i had one that had a queen for sure less then a week ago with a small amount of workers that made it throught this past hard winter but are gone today:scratch:. Then i had a hive that seems theres no queen and no drones in the air it's dwindling{ more comb and honey}. Then i had a hive i think may have a supersedure cell {geuss we'll see} 

And i had two nucs {3deeps} i switched over to deep hive bodys and those where swarms i took in mid sept and there 2 of my best hives so far .
I have others {hives } that are just booming with bees and they still have alot of honey in the hive the flow is not started yet should i take some of the honey out of the hives that have alot be fore the flow ?
The queens have room to lay in the bottom box but the tops have alot of honey will she move down? And when the flow starts should i ad another super between the brood and the honey it's coming soon.


----------



## libhart

GLOCK said:


> The queens have room to lay in the bottom box but the tops have alot of honey will she move down? And when the flow starts should i ad another super between the brood and the honey it's coming soon.


Post pictures of those...happy pictures  Lots of opinions on this one, and conventional wisdom is she'd rather move up. Might be time to reverse. I don't know how I'm gonna keep this one from swarmin'.


----------



## PAHunter62

OK, Question for the longer-term SE PA beekeepers.

This is just my third year, 2012 was the first year I was able to harvest honey. Traditionally, when does the Spring Honey Flow begin and end in the SE part of the state (Chester County)?

Last year was anything but normal, so I don't have anything really to guage things on from personal experience.

I have not really seen much, if any, good hive scale data.

The PA Backyard Beekeepers have about 6 hive scales scattered in the state this year to try and build up some data.

I was in my hives this weekend and see they are storing some early nectar and have started to draw out some foundationless frames I added.


----------



## Allen

Yesterday I set up concrete blocks in a new beeyard for some splits I'm making from the survivor colonies.
Today I observed bees orienting in front of all three hives.
Spent a few hours this afternoon going through all the deep supers of drawn comb from last season and cleaning off propolis from the boxes and frames.

One colony is real strong compared to the other two and will be checking them out on Tues or Wed depending on the coming rain.
When its time to split them, not sure if I want to move the queen and some brood to the new yard or leave her in the home yard and move 5 frames of brood and some honey instead.

If I move the queen, does anyone think a super of shallow foundationless frames on the original hive might get filled quicker for comb honey till they raise a new queen?


----------



## PAHunter62

Allen -

That is one theory - Taking the queen and a couple frames of brood from the parent hive and moving them can increase honey production if done at the start of the flow. See Mel's website (mdasplitter.com). He contends that you accomplish a couple things - bread the brood cycle (which can help with mites), converts nurse bees into field bees since there is no brood to care for.

I think it is the better way to split also because the parent colony will have more resources for producing a new queen - just make sure you leave young larve behind.

Tom


----------



## Acebird

libhart said:


> I don't know how I'm gonna keep this one from swarmin'.
> 
> View attachment 5257


Split or pile on supers. It doesn't look like there are more than two boxes there.


----------



## Allen

Thanks Tom. I just have these feelings of not wanting to let go. 
But I know they are big girls now and can take care of themselves away from home. 

Dandelions are blooming. :thumbsup:


----------



## MaydayMalone

A check of the hives on Sunday revealed a very busy queen and lots of new brood. I am implementing foundationless frames into my brood this year. This frame was put into the hive on 7 Apr 13 and just a week later, you can see how far they've come. The Queen has already visited this frame and laid her eggs. I will be picking up my new Queens on the 28th of this month. I'll be doing a double split on this hive alone. Two brood boxes and one honey super completely filled with brood.


----------



## GLOCK

Well the hives are stating to brood up fast there some kind of necter come in .
And theres drone cells in some of my hives so i quess drone will be flying soon

I may do some splits come flow time going to make some queens to.
I reversed two hives to see if that helps with swarming. Plus i took some honey and put blank frams so far so good hoping for 0 swarms this year .


----------



## Acebird

GLOCK said:


> Well the hives are stating to brood up fast there some kind of necter come in .


Yeah, that is a lot of brood but where is the honey? Is there a box of honey on top of these bees or are you feeding?


----------



## PAHunter62

I think I may do my spring splits around the weekend of May 4th (or the following weekend). I would like to pull the queens and a couple frames of brood from my 4 hives just as some good nectar starts coming in. Anyone else in SEPA planning on doing splits? And when?

I checked mid week and there was lots of capped drones im my hives. They all had lots of room, I've given each a handful of foundationless frames to work on, which they have been drawing out nicely.


----------



## delber

I checked one hive today that I wasn't thinking was going to make it. 2 weeks ago they had brood in all stages on one deep frame about 5" diameter. Today 2 weeks later they have filled that frame 1/2 and are working on their second that's about 1/3 or so with brood on both sides. So they are also it seems going to be Ok!!! I checked the hive right next to it and they have 1/2 of a deep frame capped drone both sides. I think when the weather gets up to 70 watch out!!! Swarms are going to be on. I just saw one in MD, so it's coming soon!!!


----------



## PAHunter62

Yep, been watching the progress coming up the east coast on swarms too delber. I want to keep my girls happy (with room) until I can get my splits made. I need to get a couple swarm traps up around both my yards soon. I was able to put seven traps out a week or so ago the other side of the state. Pretty early there, but it will give foragers a chance to discover them ahead of swarming season.


----------



## GLOCK

Acebird said:


> Yeah, that is a lot of brood but where is the honey? Is there a box of honey on top of these bees or are you feeding?


 No i'm not feeding and yes there is honey on all of my hives.


----------



## MaydayMalone

I checked on the hives yesterday. The one hive was super strong. As soon as I removed the inner cover, I was being bombarded with angry bees. I smoked them down and within 15-20 seconds I was getting nailed again. They found a small hole in my veil where the zippers from the suit and veil all come together and about 5 got inside. I'm sure it was a funny site to see if you were watching from a distance. I will be picking up my 5 new queens this coming Sunday and plan to do 2 splits on this particular hive. The queen in this hive is unbelieveably strong and has 2 complete deeps and one med completely full of brood. I will be re-queening two hives and putting those existing queens into the nuc boxes that I made over the weekend. They're laying, just not quick enough to strengthen those hives for upcoming flow. The foundationless frames that I installed on April 7th are completely drawn and filled with brood. I added some more foundationless frames yesterday.

I did see drones in one of the hives and capped drones in the others.


----------



## delber

WOW Mayday!!!! That sounds like a incredible queen and great genetics. All of my current hives were / are nucs that I overwintered so they max out at about 7-8 frames of brood at this point and building up very nicely.


----------



## bubbabee

I'm 3 weeks in to my first year of bee keeping. I started with 1 package and a marked queen. 10 large frames with wired foundation. at the advice of Craig, I used an empty super on top as a spacer for the quail feeder kept inside the hive on top of the frames. I got a chance to pull a couple frames this evening and have a look. the majority of the center 2 frames are capped. the center of the next frame over had larvae in them. I did notice walking up to the hive there were very few bees coming and going. upon opening the hive, the bees were not very active. did i make a mistake by opening the hive? maybe I should wait for the temp to rise before opening again. so far the hive has gone thru 7-8 L of 1:1 syrup and Honey B Healthy supplement. From what i understand, the flow should start soon if it hasnt already. 

So much to learn!


----------



## delber

bubbabee, the nature of a package is similar to a swarm in that there's a good ammt. of activity in the beginning and then it will slow down as there are new bees hatching out and there's a couple weeks time lap for them to draw out comb and get the bees hatched in the new comb. In a month you'll have a much better hive and have good activity at the entrance. May I say. . . Welcome to beekeeping!!! This is a great site to watch and learn from. You'll find there is MUCH info on here you'll find. Some will work well for you and some won't. All of it you and I can learn from so don't discount anything too quick. Welcome abord!!!


----------



## Allen

bubbabee said:


> I'm 3 weeks in to my first year of bee keeping.


:thumbsup:


----------



## MaydayMalone

I received my 5 queens yesterday. I re-queened two weaker hives and put the old queens in two nuc boxes. I did a triple split on my strongest hive started two new hives and one new nuc with 3 of the new queens. The queen in this strong hive will have the population back up by June.

It cost me $26 to make 4 nucs using these plans; http://www.beesource.com/build-it-yourself/5-frame-nuc-d-coates-version/

I'll use the spare nuc as a swarm trap.


----------



## bubbabee

Today, I removed the quail feeder from inside the hive and replaced it with an entrance feeder. They seem to be slowing down on taking the syrup. the most recent 1.75L took 8 days. last couple weeks they were taking 1.75 L every 4-5 days. 
I got a look inside and it looks as though they have 4 frames mostly drawn out and the inside half of 2 outer frames partially drawn. Leaving 2 and a half frames on both ends empty. 

With this said, how is their progress? 

thanks Delber and Allen for the response and welcome


----------



## GLOCK

Is anyone in PA. getting swarms yet?
Well i put 5 deeps{for honey} on my 5 of my strongest hives and they seem happy . I'm going to do a couple splits next week. Plus i'm going to start making queens in JUNE. I love the spring build up


----------



## PAHunter62

Glock - I have about 10 traps out, none yet. I saw a post of a swarm caught near Lancaster in the "post your swarm dates" thread. Last year I caught a small swarm on Mothers day weekend. They built up nicely and were strong coming out of winter.

I made my rounds today and split all 4 of my hives- Queen and a couple frames of bees + a few shakes. Lots of drones and young larva in the donor hives. NUCs are all 6 frame.


----------



## libhart

I can confirm Lancaster, someone in our club sent a note out on Wed. (5/1) that his hive had swarmed and was looking for someone to come collect it (don't think he wanted or is prep'd for more hives).

I had capped cells on multiple frames in at least one of my hives that same day. I pulled two of those frames out and into two new nucs, and I think there's still a cell left for the main hive. That hive was moved to very rural outyard Friday so if they swarm, they swarm. Told the owner of the property (also a small beekeeper) to keep a watch and if he sees them and wants them, they're his.


----------



## Allen

I'm the contact person for our club when swarm calls come in and haven't heard anything yet.
Am hoping to increase our hives with swarms this year.

Two hives have capped drone comb and one has lots of dark fat drones.
Even saw one with milky colored eyes.
None yet in the third hive.
After inspection today, it looks like we are getting our first honey crop and you could say I'm a little bit excited. :banana:
Took a road trip to Forest Hill Woodworking for foundation and frames recently and I've got a bunch of shallows ready to go.
Guess its time to pick out the glass jars we are going to use and get the honey labels designed.


----------



## delber

I actually just read about drones that have whiteish eyes and it said that they are blind. It's a genetic defect in some hives. The first time they fly out will be their last. It's sad, but interesting for sure. 

On another note I haven't seen any swarms yet either, but I know it's ripe. I have drones in all but one of my hives. (this one about a month ago was only about the size of a grapefruit and now as of about 3 days ago is about 3 frames of brood) I checked my swarm boxes and nothing yet, but I'm hopefull. I have 2 other boxes that I haven't checked yet, but hopefully next week I'll get to check what's up with them. Other than that I' definitely excited to be back into the bee arena!!!


----------



## PAHunter62

Got home and finished off another swarm trap to deploy in a big white pine in the back yard tonight. I have two local yards, two swarm traps up in each. I'll add one more in my back yard. Going home to see mom this weekend, I have seven traps deployed in western PA, Indiana County. Will be checking them this weekend. Probably a little early for that area yet, but you never know. I know one has attracted wasps (dad checked them for me last weekend) - so I will evict them before they make too many nests in there. Also Morel season, need to get out and try and find a mess. :banana:


----------



## mulesii

Checked my hives today and one was getting ready to swarm. The bees had slimmed down the queen and there were two sealed queen cells along with about five queen cups that had larvae in on the bottom of the frames. I pull out the queen and put her in a nuc with three frames of sealed and unsealed brood with nurse bees along with a frame of honey/pollen and a frame of drawn comb. The way this queen had been laying, I will probably need to move from the nuc to a ten frame next week.


----------



## delber

I also did a quick (10 minute) inspection today on one hive and it was boiling out w/ bees. I added a box last week because they were using one box and had a second on top that was only 1/2 drawn, but they wern't using it yet. Well today they had that box drawn out full of bees. Next week I'll be moving things around to get them do start drawing / working in the box I added on Monday. VERY COOL!!!


----------



## PAHunter62

Popped a couple tops of the hives I split from last weekend to see if there were any queen cells in there. I saw lots of cells both capped and open. Just tilted the boxes and looked up between the frames, then gently replaced. I'll stay out now till the first week of June other than making sure they don't need another super. Seem to be getting into some decent nectar lately. More rain coming over night hopefully, lets get this flow going!


----------



## GLOCK

Checked all 10 of my hives for queens to day and all have eggs in them. I seem to have a little nector coming in and i add supers to 5 hives{deeps i use all deeps} I have alot of drones hatching but no swarm cells and i have added some blank frames to some of the strong hives brood nest.
Put on my SSBs and am going to fog for the first time this sunday as long as the weather is good. I have some varroa but not alot so maybe if i fog on weekly time table maybe i can keep them at manageable level. Going to do a mite count {sticky boards} the next 24 hours.
This is my 4th year and i didn't have to buy bees and things are going good for now.


----------



## MaydayMalone

The bears got me on Saturday night. I went out to the backyard around midnight to put mesh over the entrances of the 2 hives that I was going to move on Sunday. I came around the corner and saw the hives strewn all down through the woods. For the next 3 hours I was cleaning up. I moved the surviving hives and nucs onto my back deck. There was nothing else I could do until daylight. At 4am, they were back...Momma and her 2 yearling cubs. One of the cubs was on the deck and knocked over a nuc. I stepped out onto the deck, screaming at this 100+ lb cub. It stood up on its hind legs and now we were 6 feet apart looking eye to eye. I'm still screaming like a mad man. The cub left the deck with me in pursuit. I chased them away and didn't see them again. I called and reported the incident to the PA Game Commission. I placed the hives on the roof of my house out of reach. I left one nuc down in the yard for lost bees. The bears came back early Monday morning and got the nuc. A PGC Officer came to the house and did an investigation and took inventory for the damages. A "bear damage claim for compensation" was filed. The PGC is going to compensate me for my loss including bees. 

I had planned on getting an electric fence up but the bears were faster. My plans for this weekend are to put up an 8x12 hog fence with solar charger.

By the way, the Officer told me that the complaint must be reported within 5 days of the incident to be considered for compensation.


----------



## PAHunter62

Bummer Mayday. I have plans to move some hives to Indiana County, PA this year. They would be in bear territory too. I'm preparing for a fence, but have not decided on the site location yet.

Any total losses?

Thanks for the information about the 5 day reporting.


----------



## Allen

Mayday, sorry to hear about the bear problem. I didn't know the PGC pays compensation. 

Finally, the two colonies that were lagging are kicking it into gear. Both had a bunch of new bees orienting in front of the hive this afternoon and more foragers were out flying.

The booming hive seemed agitated yesterday. Like they were frantic to get out and bring in nectar and pollen.
I've got a wooden entrance reducer on it and its set to the larger opening. But there was still a major traffic jam coming and going.
So, while wearing shorts and a t-shirt I attempted to remove the reducer. The were a lot of bees flying and orienting at the time.
Couldn't get it to budge and as I turned away, surprise, one got me right on the nose. 
It felt as bad as the way Marcia Brady's nose looked when she got hit with the football. LOL
I suited up and got it done.

No swarm cells in any of them yet and may be splitting the stronger colony next week.
I plan to move the queen to another yard in a Nuc and let the other half raise their own queen in the same spot That should give them a brood break for a bit.
Hope the other two colonies will build up enough for a split in the next couple of weeks.


----------



## MaydayMalone

PAHunter62.....Total loss was under $500 in materials and possibly another $400-500 in lost honey revenues. It could have been much worse. I am going to order a couple of new queens from Kelley's today.

Allen....I didn't know that the PGC compensated losses either. They have a bear damage fund in their budget. Since it is early in the season, there is still money in the fund. The Officer told me that they compensate losses for livestock, poultry and honey bees.


----------



## MaydayMalone

Allen said:


> No swarm cells in any of them yet and may be splitting the stronger colony next week.


I have already done 4 splits this year off of my strong hive. I come back a week later and it is like I never touched it. This is a supercedure queen from last July. Super genetics. I would really like to breed that queen.


----------



## JR1314

Checked my hives today... Glad I did... Swarm cells! One hive had 6-8 capped queen cells. Split them all up into some new hives... Fingers crossed in a few weeks we should have some new queens laying gangbusters.


----------



## delber

so I checked one hive today that I had to bring into the house to try to save them because they were so small. I took them back outside early April and inspected and they had a 5" patch of brood on one frame. That was the cluster size. My word were they small. Well about 6 weeks later they have the upper box (my own 7 frame deep) with 6 frames full of brood and the 7th with a small patch and the rest w/ nectar. I'm shocked at how fast a almost dead hive sprung back.


----------



## DPBsbees

Anyone else worried about the lovely forecast for rain every day this month during the heat of the flow? The locust is in full bloom in my area and it drizzelled all day here washing the nectar away. I sure hope the forecasters are as incorrect as ever, or it will be long year buying sugar.


----------



## PAHunter62

Looking at the 10-day forecast, looks like the rain will be spotty. It may end up helping the flow, rather than hurt it. It was pretty dry around me before this weekend. I think there will be many hours of dry/flying weather this week.

Mid week will mark the timing for the mating flights for my four split donor hives. I'll be checking the supers and adding where needed in the next couple days. I will also get all my splits into two medium eight frame boxes this week. I'm hoping to get them strong enough to harvest one super each if things go well.

With my splits, I needed to make boxes this weekend, Got eight boxes ready, and will be placing an order for 100 more frames to assemble tomorrow. I'll need some more by the weekend. Need to get some bottom boards put together too.

I did check in on a couple of my splits. Had added some foundationless frames between brood. They drew out full frames of perfect worker comb. I'll try and take a pic next time I'm in them and post.


----------



## DPBsbees

I hope your correct about the weather. I spent some time this week getting my equipment ready to make some nucs this week and am expecting some northern queens this week. Planning to increase my numbers this year and bring in some good queens to overwinter this year. I'm hoping to get a good harvest and double my numbers for next year. Next year it will be queen rearing time from the best performers.


----------



## Acebird

The cold rain hit yesterday morning and by the evening when it warmed up my bees were foraging like crazy. They come out of the hive and go into the hive like a fighter jet on an air craft carrier. When I walk in front of the hives I swear they are going to smack right into me but they miss me every time.


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

Checking in for the first time this year on this thread. Didn't have a good winter - out of 12 hives, 3 were still alive in March. (I figured as much, many of the swarms I caught last year just didn't do anything. I knew several of the boxes didn't have enough honey in them, but figured if they weren't able to produce enough to last through the winter, I didn't need their genetics.) By the end of March, I was down to 1 hive. I couldn't believe I lost the other 2 hives, they were my strongest ones filled with honey.

So far no swarms around here that I've heard of. I have several swarm traps out and have an ad in a freebie paper for swarms, but haven't received a call yet. Seems to be kind of late in the year not to have any swarms yet.

I need swams to get my hive count back up.


----------



## delber

Northwest, one of the lessons I learned last year is pollen. My hives lacked pollen and I lost 3 late summer (September-ish) due to I think a lack of pollen. I was feeding sugar due to the drought but I had no idea what signs to look for in regards to lacking pollen. Now I know that if there are next to no drones and no drone brood then it's a problem. They all had adequate stores, but were dwindling. I added pollen patties on top the first chance I could in January and I believe I saved at least 2 of them if not all 3 that made it. This isn't necessicarily "bad genes" but more of "bad nutrition". For where I am the fall flow was just starting and then we got hit with a couple good frosts that killed most of the goldenrod that I saw. So Now I have a new thing to look for in my hives. I'm going to be looking for not only brood, but also drone qty. Right now they are obviously in great shape as the flow is on, but we'll see what the summer brings. Now I'm ready with some pollen sub if I need to.


----------



## GLOCK

delber said:


> Northwest, one of the lessons I learned last year is pollen. My hives lacked pollen and I lost 3 late summer (September-ish) due to I think a lack of pollen.


So you had no pollen coming in all summer? I used pollen substitute last year but this year I did no feeding or setting out pollen substitute and my hives are booming.
Had eggs in all hives {10} last Thursday and no swarm cells and my 5 production hives have 3 deeps and a lot of bees coming and going.
My mite counts are super low and they seem nicer this year I've only been zapped around 10 times 
I have fogged 1 time this year so far with FGMO and plan on every 7 to 10 days through the year till fall. I have no crawlers but it's still early hopping for the best .
No swarms this year yet my SPM has worked so far I had 4 this time last year.
Hopping for a good year so far so good.


----------



## MaydayMalone

I invested in a pollen trap this spring. I'll harvest pollen and freeze it just in case there is ever a pollen "draught".


----------



## PAHunter62

Been thinking of doing the same Mayday - which trap did you get? How many days do you run it at a time?

Figure I could get one trap and just move it from hive to hive during inspections as to not rob too much from any one hive.


----------



## delber

GLOCK said:


> So you had no pollen coming in all summer? I used pollen substitute last year but this year I did no feeding or setting out pollen substitute and my hives are booming.


This is most likely the reason why your hives are booming now. (well apart from the flow is now on) but If i would have realized the lack of pollen last summer and the problems that it causes and fed pollen sub I think I'd have more hives than I do now. There was some pollen coming in, (perhaps 1 of 6 entering the hive or so) but not nearly enough as I understand. Tell take signs are no drone cells and no drones in the hives really. (they were cutting down on "unnecessicary" bees due to lack of resources) This left the young bees w/o the protein that they need to get "fat" and have the energy to overwinter and rear new brood. Cluster sizes went down fast this winter due to this. Now I have tons of drones in the hives which is actually a good sign that they're getting enough of everything to thrive. I use all foundationless frames so there are drone cells on about 1/2 of the frames in the boxes. I'm going to try to get them to the outside and up / out, but for now they're in there. Perhaps on a frame there may be 1/4 of the frame that has drone cells.


----------



## delber

PAHunter62 said:


> Been thinking of doing the same Mayday - which trap did you get? How many days do you run it at a time?
> 
> Figure I could get one trap and just move it from hive to hive during inspections as to not rob too much from any one hive.


I have thought of trapping also. I've read somewhere that when the bees see that less pollen is coming in that things will shift and more bees will be going to gather pollen rather than just nectar so changing things so that you rotate the hives may not be the best. I'd be interested in what those think of that that have and do trap pollen. I know you have to remove the pollen daily also so it does take a considerable ammt. of time.


----------



## MaydayMalone

Don't know the name off hand, but it is the $37.95 from Brushy Mt. That's what I do, just move it from hive to hive. Only use it if there is absolutely no rain in the forecast. When you attach it to a hive, you have to have the screen open for a day or two for the bees to get used to the new entrance. Must empty trap drawer every day. Place pollen in a ziplok freezer bag and place in freezer. 

Or you can just leave it on one hive and just remove the screen when not in use. Do not over use.


----------



## delber

Mayday if I may ask. . . What is "over use"? Is one week straight over use, or is that Ok?


----------



## MaydayMalone

Using for one week straight would definitely be over use. You have to remember that the bees need that pollen for new brood. You constantly have new brood in all stages. If you are going to keep the trap on one hive, I would only collect pollen for one day and remove the screen for a couple of days. You can then repeat the cycle. Or move the trap to another hive. The trap is very effective. The holes look like little astericks. As the bees crawl through the holes to get into the hive, their legs are stripped of the pollen balls


----------



## Acebird

MaydayMalone said:


> I invested in a pollen trap this spring. I'll harvest pollen and freeze it just in case there is ever a pollen "draught".


Why do you assume stealing pollen from a hive and giving it to them when you feel it is right is a good idea? Do you think freezing it is better than sealing it in wax?


----------



## GLOCK

MaydayMalone said:


> I invested in a pollen trap this spring.


http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?282503-Dumbest-thing-you-ever-bought-for-beekeeping


----------



## MaydayMalone

If you want to make your own pollen patties, you need pollen. You can either buy it or get it from your hives. Freezing is better because it eliminates mold. There is moisture in the pollen. If you plan to sell the harvested pollen, make sure that it is dry before packaging it. You can also use those silica-gel capsules that come in pill bottles.


----------



## delber

thanks for the clarification Mayday!!! I also saw a pollen trap that utilized different size holes so that a bee could go into the hive through the upper hole and take just about all of their pollen with them while if they went in the lower hole they'd lose about all of it. That seemed interesting to me. It would make collecting slower, but would also not hurt the hive in that they'd still have some pollen coming in although it would be less than "normal".


----------



## Allen

Did an inspection this afternoon.
When I walked up to the hives, the two over wintered colonies that had been lagging were doing a large orientation flight.
Was really glad to finally see that.
Over the last few days their traffic had been picking up.
All 3 over wintered colonies are storing honey and hope they start capping soon.
I reversed supers on all three hives.
The clusters had been in the top supers at the end of winter and the bottom supers were just empty comb.
I placed the supers containing the clusters on the bottom and placed the empty comb supers on top.
Seems to be working fine so far.

They all seem a little defensive right now.
I used to be able to walk right up to each hive and watch what was going on.
Not anymore, guard bees start head butting or just outright stinging you with no warning.
I'm reluctant to requeen because they are second year bees. 

In a week or two, I'm going to try making some Nucs from them.


Picked up some glass jars from Gamber Container last week.
Some of those are 8 & 16oz muth jars with corks.
Everyone I showed them to wants to buy honey just for the jars. LOL
$12 for a 1lb muth jar seems fair.

Not sure what to make of the colony with the "laying worker" problem. Thought there were lots of drone brood being capped.
I brought them to the home yard to monitor them closer and there are still no drones in it.
The worker population has been increasing though.
So maybe what I thought was drone brood really isn't. 
Saw quite a few cells with single normal sized eggs in the bottom.
Added an entrance reducer and set it up with the smaller opening for them to use so the stronger hives didn't attack them.
Also placed two twigs in the entrance so it was big enough for just two bees to get through.
They have been storing honey and had been started on drawn comb with capped honey.


----------



## libhart

A little defensive can be just a sign of a large hive, but can also mean queenless, and maybe not in such a bad way. Check the hive for eggs, cause they may have swarmed and may be in between queens right now. I have a hive like that, no eggs, nada. Gave them a frame of eggs, they didn't do anything special, just raised them, so I'm assuming there's a virgin running around in there that will hopefully mate and start laying before too long. But during the time they don't have a mated, laying queen, they're not their friendly queenright selves.


----------



## Allen

I thought the same thing but I did see eggs.


----------



## GLOCK

Is any one in PA getting swarms?
Last year I had 4 by this time and I only had 3 hives last year this year I have 10 that made it through the winter and no swarms yet no QCs and all are queen right.
Mine seem to be nicer this year I can stand 3ft away from all my hives in the bee yard with no stings I think i'm finally learning how to be a beekeeper My SPM is going good my mite counts are low I see no viruses no crawlers and 5 of my hives have 3 brood chambers{deeps} and need another going to add them Wed. the night time temps. are going to be in the 60s. I'm going to make some splits and a cell builder to make some queens next week . My flow is now just starting to kick in thing are going great my best year so far.


----------



## Allen

Here in Berks I've only received one swarm call through the Ag center.
Am hoping to build up my numbers too through some free bees.


----------



## mulesii

Two weeks ago I pulled out 6 frames of brood and the queen from a hive that had exploded and looked like it was ready to swarm. Today I did an inspection. It had six sealed queen cells, which I removed. I also found two queens in the hive and both, by their size, looked like they had mated. To date they have also filled two medium supers with honey. I also found my first small hive beetle of the year in this hive.


----------



## delber

Last week I got a call (my first and only this year) in the Pottstown area. My assumption is that there are several hives that aren't there this year that were there last year. I went into winter with 7 and now have 3. Beekeeper error for at least 3 of them. I now know one more thing to keep an eye on, but I assume that some of the ferral hives that were there aren't now. I think that's why I'm not seeing much. With the weak winter we had here last winter going into a drought last summer without a fall flow due to early and hard frosts that what did in most of my hives. No pollen and the hives slowed down. Now only the ones that took a patty in January are doing great now. I'm also hopping to also add to my numbers, but there must be hives out there to get them from.


----------



## PAHunter62

Glock -

I caught two swarms this weekend. One in each of my yards. Both decent sized ... approx. 3 lbs I would guess. Here is a pic of one that set up shop on the outside of one of my swarm traps. They actually started to build comb on the lid overhang.









That was an easy transfer to a hive, just lifted the trap, tapped it down on the edge of a hive body with bottom board, then setup the box on top of a 6 foot step to get any of the field bees. Was over to check on them today and they were busy foraging. The other one I caught was at my place. I had seen scouts checking out both swarm traps in my yard, so I hurried up and baited my last trap I had sitting in the garage and put it on my back porch roof at 9pm. The next day I returned from work and bees had moved into the porch roof trap.


I have 7 traps set 4 hours from here in western PA too. I got word today that bees were going in and out of a trap in the same location I caught a swarm last year. I'm assuming they are feral bees. It is in a very rural area and I don't know of anyone close enough with hives.

I overwintered 4 hives, and now have 10 (possibly 11 if the western PA trap really has bees). In a couple weeks I'll be starting a couple more NUCs using queens from a group purchase delber arranged.

I'll probably end up making up some NUCs to sell towards the end of June. I've been building equipment and frames in my spare time, need some cash inflow to offset. I'm getting to a spot where I don't have time to manage any more hives anyway, I work full time.


----------



## GLOCK

PAHunter62
I know what you mean there I have 10 right now and want 5 more by fall and 10 nucs and must say it take some time to keep things going right.
Beekeeping has taking a lot of my time everything up to this point has revolved around my bees with building bee yards putting things together reading /working hive /learning what i'm doing the list is endless. Beekeeping has be come a way of life .
Only been at it for going into my 4th year And have 2 bee yards and just made a nuc yard.
Year 1=2 packages died in winter year 2= 3 northern nuc all lived year 3= 19 hives buy end of SEPT {crazy year} year 4 = 10 hives things are calm and nice right now.
All that and I own a restaurant and gardens 5 of them o ya a wife and a daughter.
Life is good and bees made it that much better.

r


----------



## PAHunter62

Took an extra day off to get my garden in and go through a couple of my overwintered hives. I did not know it was going to rain much of the day today. I got going early - I moved two hives from one yard to the other early, then said what the heck, while I'm there lets get the hives adjusted before it really started to rain. I split my four overwintered hives early may, pulling the queen and a couple frames of bees and a frame of honey/pollen. I left them alone until the new queen hatched and had their mating flights. When I finally got to the 3rd brood box I noticed that the girls back filled it with nectar. So, I figured before the newly mated queens get to laying, now was a good time to go through the brood boxes (run 3 mediums for brood) and pull frames with all honey (except for positions 1 and 8) up, and also take any larger cell comb out and move it up. I run foundationless mostly, so sometimes they decide to make all drone comb even in the first box if the flow is on. I inserted 8 frames of brood foundation split between the first 3 boxes, then buttoned them up. I noticed some milky white in the bottoms of some cells, so one hive has a mated and laying queen already, yeah! I'm glad I got this done before the rains really started, if the girls are going to be stuck at home, they might as well work drawing out some new foundation!

My story is similar Glock. This is my third year. First year, two packages. Both overwintered fine. Next year, overwintered 4 hives, they all made it. This spring, split all 4 and got two swarms. I'll end this year with around a dozen. I'm out of free wood, so I need to find some inexpensive material to make up some NUCs.


----------



## delber

I use T1-11 and 1/2" CDX. The T1-11 I use for the outside of the box and the 1/2" CDX I use as Frame rests. It has been working well so far. I don't have long term usage to go by yet, but that's what I'm using now. I know regular painted plywood doesn't work. (it separates when it's out for a while. 1-3 months) OSB is free at work, but that obviously doesn't hold up either. So that's where I am at this point. I think I can get about 7 or so boxes out of one sheet of T1-11 that costs about $35.00 at Home Depot.


----------



## Allen

Not sure when to split the three survivor colonies.
They are storing honey and don't want to screw up production.

Should I wait till I see swarm cells and then split?
Or when there is at least 10 frames of brood, then move the queen and 5 frames of brood and honey to another hive?

Its been real difficult to locate the queens in two of the hives. Maybe I could move the entire brood super to another yard if I can't find them.
Then in three days, wherever I find eggs I'll know where she is.


----------



## delber

Allen, The ammt. of options that you have are about endless. Some will say this over that, but it all depends upon what you want and what your goals are. If you wait until you see q-cells then you may have already missed the swarm. One hive last year I watched swarm and only a week before I was in the hive and no signs of swarm cells. When I opened them up the next day 9 of 10 brood frames had at least 1 queen cell. Most had 2-4. 

You can take a frame of open brood, a frame of capped brood, a frame of pollen and stores and put them in a 5 frame nuc along with the original queen and let them go to town. They'll build up nicely from there and you can get them into a 10 frame definitely before winter if that's your goal. This will enable the original hive to perhaps bring in the most honey, but I'm not positive. Make sure to leave at least one frame with young wax that has worker brood and eggs. The bees will take it from there. (you can even make it smaller if you have drawn comb ready. You can take one frame with open and capped brood, the original queen, 1 frame of stores (honey / pollen) and let it go in that 5 frame nuc box) 

You can do a equal split kind of one for you and one for you kind of approach not really caring where the original queen ends up just realize that the hive that's rearing a queen will dwindle slightly compaired to the other. 

You can take the small hive as mentioned above, and introduce a new queen to the booming hive if you'd like. There are a TON of possibilities and it all depends upon what you have and what you're looking for. As a general rule it's either more bees or honey not both. If you want more hives then plan on not getting as much honey (or any) from the hive / hives.


----------



## Allen

Just got back in from making a division and saw your reply, thanks.

Its supposed to be Spring, not July. Thought I was hydrated enough while working the hives but I'm drinking plenty of Gatorade now.

Here is what I did:

I moved the original hive to a new spot in the home yard and pulled two frames of brood, eggs and honey.
Those frames were placed into a new 10 frame Deep that is sitting in the old spot.
The field bees were coming back to the old spot and populating the new Deep.

Hope it works.


----------



## GLOCK

What a great day in the bee yard I took queens out of two of my hive . 1 was a DBL deep packed with bees found her on frame 12 thought maybe I lost my keen site I have finding the queens but I did not . So I figured i'd try a 3 deep hive and I found that queen on frame number 17 seems like I can find them ever time If really want to. So now I have two hive that are going to make QCs one hive the 3 deep had these 2 cells guessing there supersedure cells .


last year I had a hive do this and I pulled the queen and she did well and the hive made there supersedure queen and I had two hives and the old queen did well so i'm going to do it again .
All my hives are doing well all queen right except for the two I just striped them of the queen
My new nuc yard hoping to make at least 10 to take through winter. 

Great year so far.


----------



## Allen

Nice pics. :thumbsup:


----------



## delber

Allen said:


> Here is what I did:
> 
> I moved the original hive to a new spot in the home yard and pulled two frames of brood, eggs and honey.
> Those frames were placed into a new 10 frame Deep that is sitting in the old spot.
> The field bees were coming back to the old spot and populating the new Deep.
> 
> Hope it works.


My only concern is did those 2 frames have eggs / open and capped? I assume that you left the bees on the 2 frames that were there right? Hopefully there will be enough nurse bees to make the queen, but if you only kept 2 of the frames then It may not be as bang up of a queen as you're hoping. It ought to work though as long as they have eggs. Now you want to check them in about 3 days to make sure they're drawing the cell out well and then let them go for a month. That's a key. YOu want to leave them alone for long enough to have the queen lay and even produce capped brood if possible, but checking when there should be larva is good enough. Consult this calendar to help you get a handle on when to check things out. Once you know that they have a good queen cup going (or 2 or 3) then don't go in again until it's time to check for larva which is about 3-4 weeks later. In this callendar if you enter today's date as the graft day, or tomorrow that should give you a timeline good enough. . . http://www.thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/


----------



## Allen

Yes to the first two questions.
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out.
One of the older beeks in our club suggested I check in 25 days to see eggs.


----------



## Allen

The locust trees are blooming in full force around here. Seems like more than in past years.

I split the third overwintered hive the same way today.
Tomorrow I'll check the first two hives for queen cells.

A number of bees this Spring are just plain ornery. They'll follow you for some distance after inspection is over.
It's gotten to the point where I can't walk next to the hives anymore without being suited up.
Where as last year I could weed whack around the hives in shorts and a t-shirt.
Would rather not requeen because these are overwintered bees. 
But maybe one colony requeened themselves.
That colony is extra grumpy and noticed very dark drones and workers in it that weren't there last Fall.
This is (was) a Pol-line queen if that matters.


----------



## delber

I was in my strongest hive yesterday for about an hour and a half looking for the queen, but couldn't find her. They had about 15-20 queen cells so I figured swarming is coming. This hive is in 4 deeps and just about everything is packed out. I split it to 3 ways so now I have 2 new hives. They all had just about capped queen cells. Hopefully I will manage to stop a swarm, but we'll see.


----------



## Allen

Things have been moving so slow this Spring. The double deep brood supers are getting back filled with honey and seems like the queens can't keep ahead of them.
Had wanted to start some Nucs but I'm not sure if that will happen.

One colony in 3 deeps is capping honey in the top deep. I added two shallows to see what they do with it.
Should I place the shallows between the 2nd and 3rd Deep?

Some frames in the 2nd deep are solid honey and being capped. 
Not sure if I should leave it for them or take it out and replace with foundation.

Checked on the two splits this afternoon from 5/29 & 30.
The one from 5/29 has at least 8 queen cells and a few more that are just getting started.
All on the same frame. Photo down below.

The 5/30 split only has one partial queen cell.
I'm thinking of giving it a day or so and adding another frame of eggs, etc, if no QC's are visible.
Would be nice to have a Nuc as support staff for this split.

Fascinating stuff...


----------



## GLOCK

Allen said:


> . The double deep brood supers are getting back filled with honey and seems like the queens can't keep ahead of them


I have 3 deep that there back filling everything. I put another deep on but I don't think that will help I am going to on Wed. pull some honey and put in some frames of comb and some blank frame the hive was queen right last Wed. and there is no QCs. This is the first real problem I have had this year . I'm sure they'll bee more.
Good luck guys .


----------



## delber

Allen, My only thought for you is it doesn't seem like these will end up being good queens. It seems that the comb you have there is fairly old and hard comb. What it appears that they have done is not cut down the comb, but built the cell out because the comb is too hard. What happens in this situation is the larva is fed less than ideal feed as they use this to kind of float it out and then go down. What you may want to do next time is either use younger comb (with only a brood cycle or two having been run through it) or under the cells with eggs use your hive tool or something else to break the cells below it so that they can start drawing the queen cell down right away. You will get a queen that will lay eggs, but she won't be a "great" queen.


----------



## Allen

Thanks for the info.
I'm not sure what old comb is but that frame is from Fall.
Being in the hobby/experimental stage right now, everything is a learning experience.
The next time I split, I'll try it the way you mentioned and see how that works.


----------



## delber

It is a bit difficult to tell for sure from the picture, but old comb is hard. The bees will draw the q-cell on new comb so that the queen cell is just a little farther out than what the surrounding comb is because they'll draw it almost straight down. What it seems on your picture is that they seem like they're stuck on the outside rather than starting from the bottom of the cell. Young comb will still be very light and when the brood has hatched out you can still see right through the bottom of the cells with the sun behind the frame. I'll post a couple pictures for comparison. . . The first one is young comb (notice how you can see through the back side of the cells?) while the second I was able to find a frame with the queen cell drawn like it seems on your frame also. Can you see that it's on the outside edge of the already drawn comb with the hole in the center? That's where they "float" the larva out of and then draw it down. The food they use from what I've read is lower quality than pure royal jelly and will produce a lesser quality queen. I know this from this instance as I had to replace this queen soon after she "started laying". She never did really start laying well.


----------



## PAHunter62

I too am seeing my larger hives backfilling down into the brood area. I gave them an additional super to see if they would start drawing comb. I'll check over the weekend. It will be the first time looking for larvae after my May 4th splits. The splits all built two 8 frame medium boxes, so I gave them all a super on Tuesday to start working on.

When I returned home Sunday early afternoon, I walked around the house to see a cloud of bees coming down and into one of my swarm traps:

http://youtu.be/PrP0_pTiByc

They were already marching in, not sure if they came from my hives, or not. If they did, it would have been from a newly mated queen. Maybe a couple virgins in one of the hives, not sure. I'll check with the next door neighbor to see if they saw them crossing their yard or not. I can't wait to pull that trap down and see the size of it, they were marching in the front door when I got home and it took me a few minutes to run inside and get my camcorder.

Later Sunday, my dad called from Western PA - He checked my trap line there after church. I captured two swarms there too. One he said was extremely busy working, so it may be a good sized catch. I'll be going home to hive them in 10 days. That puts me at five swarms caught in 2013 so far.

Started the year with 4 hives, now have 13 colonies. Will be making a couple splits early next week to prepare for a couple new carnie queens. I'll make two of the splits I made May 4th queen-less a day ahead by pulling the queen and a couple brood frames, and a couple shakes of bees. I'll re-queen the donor hives with my new black queens. I'll put together a couple queen introduction frames to let the new queens run in for 3-4 days, then release them next weekend.

I'll let the new splits build up to a strong 6 frame medium NUCs and sell those off.

Anybody have hives on a scale in SE PA? If so, what kind of increases have you been seeing lately?


----------



## PAHunter62

Posted to the swarm thread today. Caught 3 more swarms this week in Indiana County, PA. 5 traps out of seven scored. I think these are all feral bees - very rural area and I don't know of anyone close by keeping bees. Total swarms caught 2013 so far = 8.


----------



## Allen

That's great.
How do you set up your swarm traps?


----------



## PAHunter62

I was recently asked to EM a friend of a friend some tips, so I'll just drop the EM as it was written here:



My best advise is to read beesource forums. There is a section specific to catching swarms and doing cut-outs:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?292-Swarms-Trap-outs-and-Cut-outs

Search google, etc.

Another really good source (although I have never picked this up), is the book Honeybee Democracy:

http://www.amazon.com/Honeybee-Democracy-Thomas-D-Seeley/dp/0691147213

Once you read enough, you will see that swarms are attracted to a certain sized cavity, around 40 liters seems to be what most people shoot for. Many older beekeepers repurpose old deep brood boxes and make traps out of them. I run all eight frame medium sized boxes (6 5/8 deep).

one medium box is just not large enough to attract most swarms, so I used a free online volume calculator to see how much more I needed to add on to get to around 40 liters:

http://dmplastics.ca/volume_calculator.htm

I ended up adding a 4 inch tray under a standard medium 8 frame box, this is where I placed the entrance hole. This made a cavity of about 40.866 liters. I taped the joint where I attached the tray from the inside. Scout bees look for openings, all around the box before making a selection.

For lure, I use one old brood comb - I spray it with BT Aizawai spray, from powder I got here. It will keep wax moth from destroying the bait comb. It is totally harmless to humans and bees.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?225796-Agree-WG-Bt-Aizawai-Powder

I fill the remainder of the box with empty frames, I don't really use foundation, just a starter strip made from wood, ripped with my table saw.

For bait, there are lures on the market, but I never bought any. Lemongrass oil is the key. this year, I ended up making a paste using the recipe from Linda Tillman. Pretty simple - olive oil, a hunk of beeswax, lemongrass oil. It will form a paste when cool. I applied it liberally around the entrance, and inside the box.

https://plus.google.com/photos/1167...5172532293879188994&oid=116748370159747164350

I also staple about a 2 inch piece of straw (McDonalds drink straw) stuffed with cotton ball to the back part of the trap (inside), then add about 10+ drops of lemongrass oil to the cotton, it will smell good for a long time.

I hang mine anywhere from 6 - 10 feet, somewhere they will be easy to get to and relocate. I close them in after dark, or early am. Then I can move them to a hive location the next day.

Hope this helps.


----------



## Allen

Thanks.
I wonder if its too late to try this around my area?


----------



## PAHunter62

Probably not too late, but as the weeks go by, less and less chance compared to the last two weeks.

I noticed this week one of my early splits was built up enough into two full boxes - 8 frame mediums ... that even though I added a third box a week ago, there were several queen cells drawn with a couple capped.

I pulled the frames with queen cells and dropped them into two of the donor hives I had not yet seen larvae in yet. I figured if they needed a queen I would deliver a cell, if not they could dispose of them.

I then took the queen from the hive that was in swarm prep last night to prepare for a queen install tonight. Hoping this solved both problems (stopped from swarming and was able to make the hive queenless). As luck would have it, the goverment got us again and shipped the queens through Pittsburgh, so will not be until tomorrow. Oh well, what can you do ...

Here are pictures of the two varients I have out:

Example with the 4 inch tray under a standard sized medium super ... yes it is populated, have not taken it down to move them yet. On these I made a slide block system for enclosing them. Just slide a block in and use a zip tie through eyelet screws to secure the block in place:








Example of some I made from Dumpster dived plywood:








I like to have a couple up around both my apiaries just incase my bees decide to swarm, but I also have 7 of these hung in rural parts unknown in western PA.

If you don't do it this year, make a winter project out of it, that is what I did. Hung mine mid to late March.


----------



## PAHunter62

What is everyone seeing as far as the flow and nectar coming in lately? My girls are really slowing down with new wax production over the last couple weeks. Anyone in SE PA have their hives on a scale? How much more time before we dry up this year?


----------



## libhart

Locust over, that's the fast and furious flow. I have a couple hives that are super-big and still drawing a little wax on clover, that's the major thing that's coming in now. Got a couple recent swarms that are making a valiant attempt at drawing but I'll probably have to feed them to get them to continue to draw well. My wife has salvia planted out front and I see a few bees on it, and when they're hitting that I know that things are really slowing down, so even the clover I think is on its way out. I still see a few big areas of it clover so it is out there and I'm sure they're hitting it, but they're also starting to hit the less productive things too. I'm planning to pull my supers around 7/2. By then I think there won't be excess coming in, there will be nectar to raise brood and keep things going, but nothing more to put up until fall goldenrod and asters.


----------



## PAHunter62

My NUCs have been drawing out some new comb yet this week as I checked them without feeding. I caught another swarm this week in Indiana County, PA. Pulled supers Sunday at my second yard. Added escape boards to my two home hives Sunday late afternoon. The first day I have a chance where it is not raining I will pull the supers from them. Plan to extract next weekend. I'll post my per hive averages after I'm done. Anyone else harvest yet?


----------



## delber

As far as harvesting it doesn't seem that I'm going to get much if any this year. I think I'm paying for some beekeeper error last fall / late summer with the drought that we had. 

I do have a question for you all. . . Last night I saw something I haven't seen this early yet. My hives are kicking out the drones. Do you all have any idea why they'd be doing this now? Would there be another reason other than that they're low on stores? There were about 8 or so drones on top of one of my hives and I put one at the entrance of my biggest hive here at home and it was attacked. Two workers balled this drone and took it down to the ground.


----------



## PAHunter62

interesting, I will look for it on the 4th when I make my rounds. My guess would be low on stores too.


----------



## delber

I found this thread after I started a new thread, but haven't gotten any replies yet. We'll see what a day or two will bring as to the thoughts. One from this thread I found interesting is perhaps based on inferior / contaminated pollen the drones are sterral and that's why the girls are kicking them out? I'm not sure, but I'm planning / hopping to do an inspection on this hive soon so I'm interested in seeing if there are drones inside this hive. If so then I can assume that the girls know something's up with the drones and are doing away with them. I'll keep you all posted. If anyone else has thoughts I'd love to hear. Here's the thread that I found. . . 
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?271116-Expelled-Drones


----------



## Ben Franklin

Workers will Kick out drones when there is no need for them. I really am glad to see when they start giving them the butt. Just like some people who over stay their welcome, they eat sleep and never contribute to the family, in this case colony.


----------



## delber

Well I don't understand what's going on, but I saw out of this same hive just a few minutes ago drones coming and going. Why did they kick out the others and ball it when I put it back there? I have no idea. Perhaps the drone's sterril or some other "issue" that we can't see. I also tipped the hive and it seems that there's plenty of weight for me not to be concerned at this point.  I was going to open them up, but there was fighting at the entrance of another hive so I didn't want to encourage robbing further. I had reduced that hive entrance this morning before leaving for work so I think that now they're able to fend them off. It seemed that the robbers wern't getting the upper hand, but we'll have to see how things continue from here. The entrance is now reduced to about 3 bee space which they ought to be able (as a new swarm of 1.5 weeks ago) to keep themselves taken care of.


----------



## Allen

- An update to an earlier post in this thread.
One of the divisions I made from an overwintered colony at the end of May didn't work out.
It had 8 or more queen cells to start with but for some reason ended up with no queen.
But they made a full deep of honey in the meantime.

Tonight I just did a newspaper combine of the queenless colony with another colony that has a local mated queen. Keeping my fingers crossed.

- One colony that overwintered just took forever to take off.
The queen seemed to be taking it slow and tonight I finally saw lots of nice brood patterns for a change.
And the flow is supposed to be over.

- Am seeing the first bearding of the season with these crazy temps. 

- I've got honey ready to be extracted plus some for crush and strain.
Am waiting to hear back from someone who has a honey house and will be using his equipment. Left it on the hives for now.


----------



## delber

Well Allen then you are better than I as far as your hives. My hives started bearding about 3 weeks ago, but about 2 weeks ago there's about 1" thick on the lower entrance covering about 1/2 of the front of the box. Honey is another story. It's not looking good for me this year. If I have any hives that I don't need to feed to get them ready for winter I'll be thankfull. One of my hives that was my largest (4 deeps) had queen cells about a month ago. I split them into 3 hives now all with laying queens. I dont' know if I missed a swarm or not, but you know how it goes. . . You either get more hives or you get more honey, so I checked that one off of the list for this year as far as making a surpluss of honey. They have enough for now and I think they'll be fine for the summer as long as we continue to get some rain. The others??? Well I did get about 20 oz. of honey trying to clean up one hive's drawing blunders, but that's all and I'm not looking at any more this year sadly. I did go from 3 to 9 hives this year though. For that I'm thankfull. Hey how about next year for honey??? Last fall / summer was too bad, and this spring took forever to get here. We'll see what the summer holds. Hey I've read where people have taken fall honey off. Perhaps???


----------



## Allen

When I started the hives last year, they seemed to build up much faster with foundation and foundationless.
They did store a lot more honey in the brood chambers this season and may be why the queen didn't lay so much.
My swarm control consisted of reversing hive bodies, plus making a small split and moving the parent hive to another spot.
Then placing a new hive with the split in the old location so all the field bees would go in the new hive.
An older beekeeper in our group told me once the queen loses her field bees she will be less likely to swarm.
Don't know how factual that is but they didn't swarm and didn't see any cells.
Next year I'm going to remove the queen and make a Nuc, leaving the old hive in the original location.
The field bees should go to town with bringing in nectar and they can try raising their own queen.

Also want to try raising queens.
I wonder if its too late to do that this season?


----------



## delber

It's not too late, (Last year I reared some in July to mate early August) however I'd encourage you to feed the hive that you're going to be using for at least a week before starting. Refer to 2 threads. . . First from Oldtimer. . . "the cut cell method". I believe Barry put it under the main beesource homepage under resources. You can also search here for it. Also check out "going from Ok queens to great queens". There's MUCH info on both of these pages as well as many other places on here.


----------



## Allen

Thanks


----------



## PAHunter62

Some other information I found useful on raising queens:


Here is another good thread I saved off a while back -

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ing-using-the-Joseph-Clemens-Starter-Finisher

This location has mostly the same information, but some additional pics, etc:

http://doorgarden.com/11/simple-honey-bee-queen-rearing-for-beginners

This is a good video tutorial from TheOhioCountryBoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKUH8dFlSaE&feature=share&list=TLrAHteahMWV8


----------



## delber

Well I was out at one yard today and was going through 2 splits I made there. I use upper entrances so I'm feeding them with a 3" rim under the frames and have baggie feeders in there. One seems good, the other is a bit small but doing allright. I did see about 20 or so small SHB's on the bottom board. They were very small. They were skinny, not like the ones from last year that were / are almost round. These had the same length and the shape on their backs were the same, but they were only about 1/16" wide. About the normal 1/8" long, but skinny. Well they're all dead now and the bees seem fine that were above them, but This is something to keep an eye on.


----------



## PAHunter62

Was off today and started extracting. Not quite half done. Extracted honey from my second yard - 2 hives - 78.2 lbs honey - 39.1 per hive.

Still have from my home 2 hives to do. Should get a little more from them. I'll post my averages and a summary when I'm done.


----------



## Allen

Thought I'd try taking honey this afternoon.
First, with this humidity I can't wait to buy an Ultrabreeze suit.
I went through one hive and had to go in for a cool drink and sit in the a/c.

In the first hive what I thought was a full deep of honey turned out to be 3 full frames and 6 frames of half honey and half brood.
There is a 10 frame shallow almost capped. Two of the frames each have one side that isn't finished yet.

Am going out to check the rest shortly.

Started feeding 1-1 syrup to one of the newer hives that is still in a 10 frame deep.


----------



## delber

Allen that has been my lot this year also. Hives that look great and booming in 3 deeps have 2 frames of capped stores. I can't take that and leave them nothing for the summer. I dont' want to have to feed them this early!!! Hopefully the summer won't be too bad and I'm looking forward to a fall flow this year :scratch:.


----------



## Allen

None of the others were any good either.
The over wintered hives just now seem to be taking off. And the main flow is over. Go figure.
At least if they use up their honey during a dry spell, there will be drawn comb ready for Fall.

I've heard from a few beekeepers that this years honey production is way off and queen rearing never seemed to go well.


----------



## PAHunter62

I wrapped up my harvest.

The first two hives came in at just about 80 lbs after the cappings drained and I added that in. My home hives did a little better.

The breakdown:

*Second yard*
80 lbs (40 per hive)

*Home Yard*
114 lbs (57 per hive) - One of the hives far out-produced the other. It had 7 frames to a 8 frame box where the others did not.

*Total - 194 lbs - Overall Average 48.5 per hive *


The hive that produced the most has the most remaining in the hive also - I will likely steal a few frames of stores for other hives if needed.

I feel lucky after hearing from you guys.

My cappings, utensils, etc. are out away from any hives being cleaned up by the girls today.


----------



## GLOCK

Allen said:


> I've heard from a few beekeepers that this years honey production is way off and queen rearing never seemed to go well.


I had a pretty good year I have honey every where and I have made 10 queens so far that are laying and 2 that are not and my queen castle is full {4}.
But i'm just a 4 year hobbyist and I didn't keep track of how much honey I got but I still have 3 deeps full of honey on my hives and 1 deep setting in the shad 
and abut 20 qts setting around a great year in this part of pa. Very nice beekeeping year for me.


----------



## DC Bees

Hey GLOCK, sounds like things are good for you this year.It's looking pretty good here also,so far I pulled 165lb and put the empty supers back on and they are almost full again. I should have close to 16 supers full of honey, some supers will have some brood in the center that will hopefully be filled in after the brood hatches out.I also tried my hand at queen rearing this year.I grafted four different times and improved a little every time,I still have a long way to go before I get good quality queens.Also caught two swarms this year one was on the ground and other moved into one of my swarm traps.


----------



## delber

Well I concur on the fact that the bees are now "ready" to take the flow. That's what we get for a cold spring and fast warm up into the flow. Perhaps next year if I see this I'll try to get into some of the hives to encourage earlier build up. Perhaps give them some pollen sub and some 1-1. I think that may be my lesson for the year. 

On another SAD note. . . I went raspberry picking with my son (he's 5, will be 6 in Nov) and they didn't smell right. As I was picking them I noticed some of them were mushy. I told him not to pick the mushy ones. Well I then saw the small SHB's in the dish. AAAHHHHH!!! They overwintered somewhere near there and are in crazy full force around those bushes. Major bummer. Here I thought that if I hadn't seen them in my hives this spring that they could be gone from the area. Well think again!!! My encouragement guys is keep your hives strong and I'm putting traps in ASAP. 

Also my hives at home (I have 4 singles and 1 that's 3 deeps) all are low on stores. The reason I think that they have been kicking out the drones is because they're low on stores. So I cooked up some sugar tonight and I'll be starting that tomorrow. I gave some pollen sub to one swarm from about 2 weeks ago that seemed to be majorly hurting. They took to it immediately.


----------



## GLOCK

DC that's great hows the mite load ? I have been doing great with that and my SPM is great I only had one nuc swarm . Next year is going to be my grafting year this year was my mite control and honey making year and SPM all are a A+ right now . I have 10 strong hives and 13 strong nucs all at different stages i'm shooting for 100 percent over winter survival rate this year we will see. good luck with your bees.


----------



## PAHunter62

Glock and DC - Nice updates - thanks.

Seems like all I've been doing this year is making equipment. I run all 8-frame mediums and have been making up a bunch of 6 frame medium NUC boxes and screened bottom boards for them. I have to say I really like this size NUC box - I plan to take checkerboard some foundationless frames with some of my extracted frames in these nucs - they are still building comb anytime I give them a new foundationless frame - I have been robbing capped brood to keep the NUCs from thinking of swarming and giving it to weaker hives.

Started year with 4 overwintered hives, caught 8 swarms in my traps. Did some splits, re-queened a couple hives with Carniolan queens from Full Bloom in CT (thanks to Delber for organizing the buy). Made few more splits for swarm control measures. I now have 24 colonies - about 5 are in the process of re-queening.

I'm selling 6 or 8 f my 6 frame medium NUCs in order to recoup operating costs.

In the process of preparing an apiary site in Western PA now (Family Farm) with the intent of getting some bees there before the fall flow kicks in - lots of goldenrod there, so want to be there ahead of that so I don't need to feed them.

I rolled a queen a couple days back - major bummer - it was a dinky swarm I have in ICO - feeding, etc. Lots of bees came to try and rescue her, but I did not see her coming around. I have another hive with queen cells - I'll probably cut one and add it here tomorrow night, or newspaper combine one of my smaller NUCS (which may be the better idea).

I really wanted to do some grafting this year, but I don't think I'm going to have time now. I have a queen castle ready to go for next year.

Next on the agenda is some mite control. I don't seem to have heavy mite loads, will treat the full sized hives with MAQS when I see an extended forecast in the desired temperature range.

Best of luck the remainder of the season everyone.


----------



## delber

How are your queens from full bloom doing? Mine are doing very well. I'm pleased with them so far. I can tell that one is doing noticably better than the other, but that one had a solid frame of stores when I started them while the other that's slightly weaker only had about 1/2 a frame of stores. I was actually concerned because the hive that's now slightly stronger had fewer bees to start. It's interesting how they can build up quickly!!!


----------



## PAHunter62

Similar here - one doing better than the other. I did not get a chance to check on them this weekend - some evening this week. Should be seeing the house bees getting a little darker this inspection. One of the Full Bloom queens I got was all black, the other was a little brown/black. I'll let you know when I get over to look this week.

Was in a hurry making some hive top feeders early this evening and yadda yadda yadda - I have 5 stitches in my right thumb. Use those push sticks kids! :no: - no blade thankfully, just kick-back ... but a reminder that things happen fast. I have 2 6 frame feeders and one 8 frame feeder done except for the ladder. Oh well, live and learn. That job will be finished another day when I have time to think about what I'm doing.


----------



## delber

I'm sorry to hear that PAHunter!!! I have been a woodworker for a while and I totally understand how fast things can happen. 

Looking at the entrance of my hive I can see the dark / black bees. It's neat to see the ones I've started with being Italians next to a black bee at the entrance and everyone's fine with it.


----------



## GLOCK

So whens every body start down sizing down for winter{down to two deeps}?
I have had a great year I have healthy bees and lots of honey hope everyone has also.


----------



## Acebird

My down sizing is a process of stealing honey in October.


----------



## delber

Well Glock that is great to hear for sure. Sounds like you had a great year. I have had a pretty good year, just not in honey production. I went from 3 to 9 hives now. I split 1 hive into three and took another hive to start 2 new nucs that are doing very well now. The third hive I was amazed that they actually made it as small as they were. They had about a softball sized cluster in April. So this hive now is in 3 deeps, but the bottom is mostly empty. I actually had to feed this hive because they had no stores left. So I fed for about a week and a half very hard and hopefully they'll be Ok for a while. Depending upon how the hives do I may leave them in 3 deeps, but mine are 7 frame boxes that I custom make, so it's only one more frame than 2 deeps, but I think they overwinter better in them because it's more vertical, but we'll see how things go this winter. I'm honestly not thinking about winter too much now. Once August is just about behind us then I'll start looking pretty seriously to get their weight on some before the "fall flow" whatever that is. (I haven't seen one yet)


----------



## GLOCK

I posted this in the queen rearing form and no response so I figured I would give this one a shoot.
If I wanted to sell queens one day in PA. what are the laws?
Thank you.


----------



## libhart

You can email Karen Roccasecca, she's the state apiarist. You have to register has a queen breeder. Your hives are then supposed to be inspected I believe it's twice a year, and it's all your hives, not just a sampling. I'm not sure how much it costs, it's not terribly more than regular hive registration. Pretty sure that's it. Those inspections can be tough for the inspectors though. I think once a year is probably what you can expect. Budget cuts mean enormous territories so commercial beeks get first dibs on the inspectors' time but I bet queen breeders are next on the list. They just want to come out and make sure you're not spreading anything nasty around the state by selling your queens.

[email protected] (her last name is Roccasecca, but that last "a" I guess got chopped when they made her email address)


----------



## GLOCK

libhart said:


> You can email Karen Roccasecca, she's the state apiarist. You have to register has a queen breeder. Your hives are then supposed to be inspected I believe it's twice a year, and it's all your hives, not just a sampling. I'm not sure how much it costs, it's not terribly more than regular hive registration. Pretty sure that's it. Those inspections can be tough for the inspectors though. I think once a year is probably what you can expect. Budget cuts mean enormous territories so commercial beeks get first dibs on the inspectors' time but I bet queen breeders are next on the list. They just want to come out and make sure you're not spreading anything nasty around the state by selling your queens.
> 
> [email protected] (her last name is Roccasecca, but that last "a" I guess got chopped when they made her email address)


Thank you.


----------



## Beetrucker74

It is once a year and a sampling of all your yards. Depends on your numbers I think. If it was all hives they would be at mine for an few days,usually it is 10-15 % if they like what they see it is less but if anything is out of wack it will be more.


----------



## delber

This is interesting. I e-mailed her last year I think asking what the inspection requirements were / are. I was selling a hive and wanted to know. She didn't seem concerned and I have yet to see an inspector however I'm not large yet. I was told when I started that I'd see an inspector at least every other year and so this being summer #3 I haven't seen nor heard of one comming yet. When I contacted her she said that it would either be her or Tom I think was his name that would come out to inspect.


----------



## Beetrucker74

You can sell full hives and nucs with no inspection when it is just a few. If you want to ship queens you have to have a permit. I will be having Jim out this week to finally get mine done this year.


----------



## Grandpa Jim

Got registered to sell Queens for the third year now. First year all hives in my one yard (one with the mating hives) were inspected. Last year, because of budget cuts did not see anyone. This year inspector came and we spent about 6 hours inspecting every hive in every yard that was actively raising brood...full hives, nucs and mating hives (40 colonies in 6 different yards all totaled..finished up about 7pm)...if there was brood present he looked at 2 frames from each. It was a cloudy, drizzly day. The inspector (Nathan) was excellent handling the bees and we had no more than 3 stings between us. 

There was no additional fee for the "License to Sell Queens and Nucleus Colonies" within the Commonwealth of PA. If shipping out of PA, there may be a different registration needed??


----------



## MaydayMalone

It's been awhile since I posted an update of my hives here. I came out of winter with 4 hives....a 100% survival. I got 3 splits off of one of the stronger hives in early May. BEAR ATTACK on May 12th that set me back a little. I was able to recover from the attack with more splits and home raised queens. I was only able to harvest 118 pounds of honey and 2 pounds of pollen. I packaged the pollen in 4 oz jars and sold them for $5 each. Couldn't believe how fast the pollen sold. I marketed my honey, pollen and wax by word of mouth, a sign in my yard, and on a Facebook "rummage sale" page. I sold 75 - one pound jars, 16 - one pound blocks of wax, and 7 - 4 oz jars of pollen in 2 weeks. 

When I pulled my honey supers off in late July (delayed because of vacation), I treated for Varroa. Now at the end of the summer, I have 10 strong hives (8 Italian/2 Carniolan) and 2 strong nucs (Italian). 

I inspected half of the hives on Sunday (12 miles away from home) and will check the rest at home tonight. Mixed up 3 gallons of 1:1 sugar water last night to feed the newer hives and nucs.


----------



## GLOCK

Been a crazy year so far was fogging but mite counts are starting to climb fast so i'm going to oxalic acid vaporize got the vaporizer to day now I have to get a battery and the ends for the vaporizer tomorrow .
All my year old hives are strong and queen right and my nucs all have eggs and brood but not much honey [nucs]tried feeding but they get robbed out made some robbing screens and put them on a couple and I think they may be helping . 
My hives have a lot of brood and eggs right now and lots of bees. kinda like a spring build up all hives and nucs have frames like this .
.
I think the GOLDEN ROD is starting to come in but just alittle.
Falls coming.


----------



## delber

I was out at one of my yards and went through 6 of the 7 that are there. All of them looked fabulous. Based upon this I hope to have a great year next year. Goldenrod is indeed just starting here. I saw one lonely flowering plant about 3 weeks ago, but since that time I've only seen a few just starting to pop. There are other fall flowers starting also. Here's hoping for a fall flow this year!!! BTW your frame looks nice GLOCK. 

So everyone. . . how does the pollen and honey qty look in all of your hives? If you are low on honey what time do you plan on starting to feed?


----------



## MaydayMalone

I checked the 5 hives and 2 nucs at the house last night. One of the nucs was queenless. I added a frame of eggs and larvae from another hive. I was surprised to find 2 laying queens in one of my hives.....an Italian and a Carniolan. I caught the carniolan and a few workers and put them in my requeening frame and placed it in the queenless nuc. First time I ever saw that.


----------



## PAHunter62

Fall Sugar Prices in SE PA:

Just made some rounds tonight before I start feeding some light hives:

Exton Aldi's: $1.58 per 4 lb 
Exton Sam's Club: $3.98 per 10 lb
Downingtown Bottom Dollar: $1.69 per 4lb
Exton Walmart: $>2.00 per 4lb

Anyone beat Aldi's/Sam's? Sam's is only a couple cents more and less bags to deal with.

I plan to feed 5:3 Sugar:Water mix early enough they can reduce moisture and cap.


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

The best price I have found on the western side of the state is Bottom Dollar in McKeesport: 1.39 per 4 lb. 
It was 1.34 a couple of weeks ago. 
Wish I had bought more.
Bob


----------



## PAHunter62

I'll be heading to western PA on Thurs Morning for the weekend - Indiana, County. I'll be checking prices there and possibly load up on my way out of town. I wanted to get my best local price before I head west. Thanks for the heads up Bob.


----------



## delber

Hillside market had a 50# bag for 17.00 a week or two ago. That works out to 1.36 for 4 pounds. Hillside market is on Rt. 10 and and Rt. 340. These two roads join for about 1/4 mile and Hillside is a small market on that 1/4 mile section. The owner is Amish or Menonite I'm not sure. When do you plan on starting feeding? It seems that my hives are bringing in stuff now. Perhaps goldenrod or something else?


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

PAHUNTER: “I'll be heading to western PA on Thurs Morning for the weekend - Indiana, County. I'll be checking prices there and possibly load up on my way out of town. I wanted to get my best local price before I head west.”

Yes, don't haul if you don't have to. There are two Bottom Dollars on the east side of Pittsburgh, McKeesport and Penn Hills. Penn Hills is close to the Interstate into the Burgh. Hey, if you are near Irwin, I am about 2 miles from the Turnpike exit. Stop by. 

Delber: “When do you plan on starting feeding? It seems that my hives are bringing in stuff now. Perhaps goldenrod or something else? “

I have started feeding. We have a dearth that started mid-July. I am a first year beek and made a few mistakes with feeding. I have 3 hives. I put Brushy Mtn 2-quart entrance feeders on in mid-July. I added a tablespoon of Honey-B-Heathy to the 1:1 batch of syrup. I won't call it a feeding frenzy, but there were more bees in front if my hives than I had ever seen before. Yea, maybe it was a frenzy. I couldn't get reducers on because the feeder filled ½ of the 8-frame entrances and there were bees EVERYWHERE. I had some cedar shims nearby that I had been using to level the hives. I laid one in front of each entrance at an angle. This created a tunnel with openings at each end. I think it controlled the situation, but all three feeders were empty within 3 hours. OK, scratch entrance feeders. 

Then at our Bee club picnic, one of the old timers showed us his candy boards with 5 lb of sugar mixed with 2 cups of water and heated to 240. He had already put then on and will continue to replace then through winter. OK, easy design, easy recipe, I can do this. Sooo. I knocked out the boards and started cooking. Hard to get it up to 240, but after a ½ hour we hit it. Then I realized I was using 4 lb bags of sugar instead of 5, and the pot was full, so I boiled it some more hoping to reduce the liquid. Should have cooked it some more. They did not set up. 2 days later I got the bright idea to put the slushy candy boards in the oven. Baked them for about an hour at 275. Did you know that glue dissolves at that temp? Now my wife wants a new oven, and the darn boards still didn't set up, and the wife wanted them OUT of the house. Next mistake, I sat them on our porch. Bad idea. This time it was a feeding frenzy. Everybee in the township was on our porch. Wife is very upset and threatening to burn the hives. Got some screened inner covers on the boards and got them moved to the bee yard, then used the shop vac to blow the stragglers away. Took a couple of days and moving one of the boards a little closer to the house as bait, but they have left the porch. (and I finally got the oven clean).

Last Thursday I set up the top feeders and gave each hive 8 lbs of 1:1 syrup. I finally learned how to do that right. I tried to feed a split with the top (tank) feeder in June and ended up with hundreds of drowned bees. The old timer from whom I bought the feeders from straighten me out. NO inner covers on top of the feeders. Who knew, not me. Another rookie mistake. This time no dead bees. 
I checked the hives yesterday and my strongest colony had emptied their feeder, the other two were at least ½ empty. I refilled the empty feeder and will refill the other two today. I am working on a pump system. Got a 640 gallon per hour drill powered pump at Harbor Freight for $14 and hose at Lowes, but can't get to work. I can not lift the 5 gallon bucket of syrup and ladling it out was very messy, attracting yellow jackets. So today I will be troubleshooting the pump or returning it.

As to your bees bringing in pollen, yes mine are too, and yes it is goldenrod, jewel weed and Japanese Knotweed (per our state inspector who posts on the bee club's Facebook page. I am told that goldenrod does not make nectar below 1200 feet elevation and at higher elevations only after the 3rd week of bloom. Ours started about a two weeks ago and I am at 1150 elevation. For 10 years I managed rail to trail projects and fought knotweed with a vengeance. Now I learn that knotweed has the best nectar of any plant, and great pollen too. Bummer, now I have like the stuff. Talking with some of our club's old timers at county fair, they told me knotweed made a red honey and that it will crystallize early. Just hope I get some for the bees to have over winter. I have not taken any honey off and the stores are thin. 

It does get easier, doesn't? I have made a lot of mistakes to learn from, so surely it will get easier, right?

Bob in Westsylania


----------



## DPBsbees

I've been getting my sugar at the Limerick Costco for $17.49 for 50 pounds. That works out to about 35 cents a pound. It's not worth hauling the stuff for a penney, or two, a pound to me. I do expect to use about 750 pounds this late summer, and fall. It does get easier as you learn more, but there is always some work to do, especially with mites, winter preps, and spring swarm prevention.


----------



## delber

I didn't know the name to Japanese Knotweed. Man I hate that stuff once they go to the burr stage!!! If they are good then I'll "allow" them to grow off of my property, but I had some of those around my hives one year and they were a major pain late in the summer / early fall. I had to clean my jeans off every time and often my jacket / vail also. Major pain to work around. But knowing that they are a good source of nectar this may explain why a few years back I had one of the hives that were set up with this around them got robbed out terribly. 

Oh and BTW the "frenzy" that you had at the entrance is due to the entrance feeder. They can work well if you only have one hive and there are no other hives around. Otherwise they'll attract every other bee in the area. Oh and HBH doesn't help either. They will take it better, but also other bees will smell it and seek to get in. I fed a hive that was small some syrup w/ HBH added and they got totally robbed out that day. I put the feed on and went to work. I came home only to find my hives robbing the tar out of that hive. I don't use HBH anymore. They will take the straight sugar syrup when they "need" it. Which is when there's not other stuff that's better coming in. And personally if they're able to get other stuff then that's what I want them to be fattened up on, not the sugar. It's better for their gut.


----------



## PAHunter62

Thanks for the info on Hillside Market Debler. I'll check them out. I plan to give most of the light hives a gallon of 5:3 mixture early Sept, then monitor as they go through the peak of the goldenrod. Later in the month, I will check on them and provide more as needed.


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

DPBsbees,
How many hives does it take to use 750 lbs of sugar?

Delber, I think you are confusing something else with Japanese Knotweed (aka Pennsylvania Bamboo). Knotweed is an invasive plant that grows 8-10 feet high in a single season. It can grow 4 inches a day. No burrs. The stock looks like bamboo and it has large oval leaves. It spreads by both root and seed.

Here is more at our Dept of Conservation and Natural Resources and others.

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/cs/groups/public/documents/document/dcnr_010254.pdf

http://www.naturalheritage.state.pa.us/community.aspx?=30011

http://extension.psu.edu/franklin/news/2013/impact-of-japanese-knotweed-on-our-forests

And yes, you are absolutely right about the Honey-B-heathy. I knew as soon as I filled the entrance feeders, it was a mistake. I only used a tablespoon between all three feeders, but I could smell it just standing near the hives, and so could a lot of neighboring bees. Lesson learned.

I do believe they are finding the good stuff. I just checked the feeders and they have not gone down much from this morning, so hopefully the goldenrod had met its magic moment and the knotweed is living up to its reputation, and I may not have to make a sugar run for a while.

Thanks all for the advice. This newbee appreciates it.

Bob


----------



## DPBsbees

I have 11 hives now and they all are low on stores. I only take from the supers, and I only took from one hive. I began the year with with 4 hives, so that is why they are short on stores. I intend to have 20 next year, and need at least two that I can split from to get there. I've not lost a hive after winter in 4 years. I believe that is due to my mite program (testing, MAQS), winter stores (Dadant winter patties, insulation), and making sure that I have good queens. I no longer buy bees, but I do get queens to ensure that there are good genetics around here. Things are looking pretty good for this time of year. The pollen is coming in, and the bees are well behaved. I'll feed when needed to make sure they have the proper weight, and I'll check again for mites in about two weeks. A low mite load, good stores, and checking in when the weather is good in the winter ( to add a sugar patty , if needed) has worked for me for 4 years in a row. 
I do use Honey B Healthy, but I put robbing screens on any hive that is not strong. It keeps the sugar water from molding, and my screens make it a non issue. If everyone is light, I'll feed them all then there is no need for them to rob.


----------



## delber

Just another thought for you all. . . a tsp. of bleach per gallon will also keep the sugar from molding. Seeing as how they often "prefer" to drink from a pool I figure that's Ok. (I read it on here some time ago, but it was referencing what the oldtimers would put in a 50 gallon drum to keep it from going bad. And it doesn't encourage robbing. I can feed one hive and not the one next to it even if the hive is small. (I'm doing it now and have no problems)


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

Thanks Delber, I have been adding a splash of vinegar. 

Bob


----------



## delber

Bob_in_Westsylvania said:


> Thanks Delber, I have been adding a splash of vinegar.
> 
> Bob


I have read of this also on here. It was and is honestly puzzling to me in that the main ingredient in those YJ home made traps is apple cider vinegar and I remember reading on here that honeybees don't like vinegar. So the thought of putting some in syrup in my mind would make it less attractive to them. Have you ever had an issue with them taking the syrup Bob?


----------



## PAHunter62

Vinegar -

I also put a splash of apple cider vinegar in my syrup. They have no issue taking and storing it away. I made a few top feeders based on the fatbeeman design - I fill the pan at night and within a day it is dry.


----------



## GLOCK

So PA. guys do any of you take nucs through winter? And if so how many boxes are you using? I took 2 nucs through winter last year but they where 3 box high and they where swarms that were hived in mid sept. and both have been strong hives all year.
Any way I have like 15 nucs that are only 2 boxes high and i'm thinking it's getting to late to have them build comb but them again it's only 5 frames. My golden rod is just now starting to come in all my nucs are lite with stores I tried to feed like two weeks ago but they where just getting robbed out but now the golden rod is coming in so im going to try to feed again plus I made robbing screens.
So are 2 boxes good idea for winter ?
thank you.


----------



## delber

The smallest nuc that I overwintered so far was 4.5 deep frames. It was a cut-out from July that only filled 2 deep frames. They overwintered 2 years ago which was a VERY mild winter. This year I'm overwintering 6 total 7 frame nucs, one 10 frame deep. These are all single boxes. I make my own size boxes so I get 7 frames and a 1/4" luan divider / follower board in the box. I have had GREAT success with overwintered nucs. They have kept me going for sure. They have often been my best hives the next year. That's my plan for this year. We'll see what next year brings. I must say however I do make also my own lids that have a 3/4" piece of foam insulation built in and I stack the hives together. I know that has helped in the past. I think my plan this year will be one production hive on the end (3 total 7 frame deeps tall) on the end and 2 nucs stacked on top of each other next to that so there will be 5 perhaps on a stand that way. We'll see how it works out.


----------



## DC Bees

Hey GLOCK, I have been over wintering nucs for 3 or 4 years now.I use 5 frame double deeps mostly .Last year I tried using one of my queen castles with 5 frames on each side and a super of honey on top ended up losing one side over winter.


----------



## PAHunter62

I make my own custom sized NUCs also. Since I run all 8 frame mediums for production hives, I made my NUCs 6 frame medium. I plan to overwinter a few in double 6 frame medium this year.

I checked with Hillside on sugar prices, they were $18.89 per 50 LB bag on Thursday. Was only 3 miles out of my way when heading west. Will probably pick up a few bags Monday upon my return.

I checked two swarms I caught late in the year in western PA. I've decided to trek them back to Downingtown and do a combine of the two sometime this week. One is only a the equivalent of about 3 frames of bees and comb. I'll try build them up as a strong double NUC before winter.

Retrieved all my traps to store until next spring.


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

PAHunter62 said:


> I checked with Hillside on sugar prices, they were $18.89 per 50 LB bag on Thursday. Was only 3 miles out of my way when heading west. Will probably pick up a few bags Monday upon my return.


Hey PAHunter, grab that sugar as quick as you can. Something is happening to sugar prices. I stopped at Aldi's on the way home tonight and paid $1.99 for 4 pounds, Walmart was higher. 

Bob


----------



## GLOCK

Well I got 25 hives with 25 healthy laying queens all my nucs are putting on weight and my mite loads are going down now that i'm in my 2nd treatment with OAV . The golden rod is coming in and all is well hope things go good all winter to.
Been a great year the things I have learned.:thumbsup:


----------



## Allen

The Fall flow is on around these parts.
While in Vermont, Mass, RI and New York it's been hard seeing their goldenrod blooming and ours wasn't ready yet.

It's been a busy summer for me balancing the new part-time job and winding down my portrait business and haven't been able to check on the bees very often.

In the beginning of August I discovered one colony to be starving. Bees were crawling on the ground all around the hive and seemed barely able to move.
This same colony about 10 days prior had honey and seemed in good shape.
I immediately gave them three frames of honey and reduced their entrance down to a small hole.
They bounced back within 36 hours.
Started checking the others and found several that were also out of stores but weren't starving.
Started feeding them 1-1 syrup to hold them over till the fall flow started.

Around the same time, one of the Nucs (which was in 2 deeps) was full of capped supercedure cells. Maybe 15 or so.
I've had more problems with queens this year. None of the queens I tried to get started survived to start laying so I was preparing myself to write this colony off and maybe do a combine with two other hives.
This colony also needed syrup and took about 4 gallons.

Left them alone and didn't do an inspection till today. Much to my surprise I've got a brood pattern with eggs and larvae. Amazing, it worked I guess.

All six colonies in the home yard are doing well and finally look like they are supposed to in Spring.
With the syrup, they started drawing more comb and are filling it with nectar.
Found the marked queen that came with a package that I purchased in Spring of 2012. She looked huge!

Hope winter isn't as bad as what some are trying to predict it will be.


----------



## PAHunter62

How is everyone doing leading into their winter prep?

Two weekends ago I checked on two swarms I had caught in western PA. They were not as strong as I was hoping for, so I brought them back to SEPA for the winter. I did a newspaper combine on Saturday. That gives me 17 hives going into winter. I started the year with 4 overwintered, peaked at 24. I sold a few, combined a few to give them a better chance.

Late August and early this month I gave most of my hives about 1 gal of 5/3 syrup mix to get them started. I will check back on them late in the month and feed 2:1 where needed. I made the rounds through 10 of my hives on Sunday. It was good to see stores and brood being raised. Many hives still have several frames of brood in the top boxes, some recently filled with eggs. Hoping to see these hives work the brood nest down. Several hives have a bunch of new drone brood going. I expect in a couple weeks once we get some real cold nights they will have their wings chewed off and marched out the front door.

I need to get off my tail and make a bunch of proper hive lids before winter sets in. Part of my winter management has also been to use a quilt box. I had 4 of these made for last winter:

http://www.beebehavior.com/THSC_Unit.php

I'll probably cobble a bunch more together, but will probably modify them a little. Probably only use one board in them with the upper vent just below. I'll still drill holes through and lay a piece of #8 hardware cloth on top. I'll leave about 1-1.25 inches under the divider board to provide space for some emergency feeding of sugar/pollen sub candy if needed.

I've been lucky enough to not loose any hives over the winter yet - 2 the first year, 4 the second. I suspect this year I will have some losses with 17 hives going into winter, but would like to keep it to a minimum. I've also been hearing some predictions of a bad winter.

This weekend I'll see if my last combine went well and get through the rest of the hives.

good luck all.


----------



## DPBsbees

Like PAHunter62 I started the season four hives and now have eleven. My mite treatments should be done this week, depending on sample results. I'm feeding several of the newer hives with 1 to 1 to get them to continue to draw out comb, and will be feeding with 2 to 1 shortly. I can smell the smell of goldenrod honey at times, so I hope they bring a decent amount in so I can minimize the sugar I go through. I like to use the beemax hive top covers (good insulating properties, and cheap), and I use bee cozy's as winter wraps with an upper entrance. They are easy, re-usable, and they work. Haven't lost a hive in winter yet. I am also using the Dadant Megabee winter patties. I find them to be very convenient and believe them to be better than fondant since they have 3 % Megabee for a little protein. I place four of these patties in the hives when I think it's getting close to being to late to open them. I take a peak on nice winter days, and if they're gone, I slide another one in. So far things look good. Got to get the hives up to fighting weight, and hope for a reasonable winter. Best of luck to all.


----------



## GLOCK

Well it's starting to feel like fall and the G.ROD is whining down and all hives are getting heavy and all are about done with mite treatment{OAV} I have had a great year I started with 10 dbl.deeps and now have 12 dbl.deeps and 13 nucs{dbl.deeps} and all seem healthy . I lost no hives his year yet and I got 90 qts honey and had no PMS or any virus . All hives have 2013 queens {my own} . This has been the best year I have had yet . All my hives have brood frames like this right now and by what I can tell i'm going to have some healthy winter bees. 
All I have to do now is wait and wrap my hives in DEC.


----------



## MaydayMalone

That's great news. I checked on half of my hives yesterday and can't believe how much g-rod honey that they have made. Lots of new brood. Installed the entrance mouse guards. I came out of winter with 4 hives and now have 10 hives (dbl deeps) and 2 nucs (dbl deeps). I bottled 118 lbs and would have had much more if I didn't have the bear incident back in May. Been calling around local bakerys looking for a 50 lb block of fondant. Will also wait until Dec to wrap.


----------



## PAHunter62

Also checked on half my hives today. I run all 8 frame mediums. For Nucs I run custom 6 frame medium boxes. My hives that are three 8 frame mediums high are looking nice, top box pretty much full of honey and the brood nest pushed down. Also the 2 box 6 frame Nucs are looking pretty good, a frame or two with some brood up top, but the rest stores. The remaining hives that are two eight frame medium have not really pushed down much yet, lots of brood up top, so I will probably need to do some late 2:1 feeding on them.

I plan to insulate/wrap in December too, may to a Oxalic dribble around Christmas week, weather depending.

Lots of people talking about bad winter predictions.


----------



## GLOCK

Ok guy I have a question I was in my dbl. deeps today some had just capped brood and one had no capped brood and no eggs some had day old eggs and open brood and capped brood. but 3 weeks ago things look normal capped brood /open brood / and eggs in all hives.
So is this normal to have the queens shutting down{stop laying} around now and to have the bottom boxes with out honey they have some pollen in the bottom box but all the honey and pollen is mostly in the top boxes.? Remember here in snow shoe thing are about 2 weeks ahead on people down off the mountain.
So what do you all think? Are what's hatching now my winter bees?


----------



## delber

Most likely that's what's going on. My hives here have slowed down in the brood rearing arena also. In about 2 or 3 weeks it'll be time to stuff them with whatever they need to get them through.


----------



## laketrout

The GR in my field is turning more brown and doesn't have that bright yellow look anymore , how much longer should I wait to take my honey supers off , not sure if there still getting nectar from the brown GR but I do see pollen on them and they are working the small white asters also , we still haven't had a hard frost . I'm in Northeast PA north of Bloomsburg and south of Wilkes-Barre .


----------



## MaydayMalone

I had one of the state inspectors come out last Friday. We found a couple of hives with capped brood, but no new eggs. She declared them queen-less. She didn't pull every frame in the hive. Not sure how you can determine this without a very thorough inspection. I'm going to inspect (and feed) tomorrow. About 2 weeks ago, we had low temps in the high 30's. But this week, the lows are in the low to mid 50's. I'm hoping to have a more definitive answer tomorrow. 

We did find a high mite count in my two nucs. Not sure what happened since I treated with MAQS in late July. One nuc was queen-less so I combined them (now 3 deeps high). I'll put a MAQS in tomorrow. I also added a frame of eggs from a neighboring hive. Also found starved bees that never made it out of the comb. Their tongues were completey extended.....but there was plenty of honey in the frames next to them. Why did the house bees not feed them? I can't say that I had much luck this year with the nucs. One thing that I did notice in my nucs was mold. Need more ventiliation.


----------



## delber

It's interesting that your inspector said that. I am surprised to be honest. However there were issues with the inspection process last year (no funding for some reason) and I'd imagine that the inspectors that they had for Pa may have gotten another job or something. I have also been surprised with the inspector that's for my area. He set up a time to come by and inspect my hives with me (which I wanted to be there and still do). He told me to call him when I got home and he'll come over. I left work at lunch time planning on spending some time with him only to find out that he didn't bring the addresses with him and he was in another township alltogether. There was no way he'd make it in time for these inspections. Then he called the other day about a week or two ago and talked with my wife only to say that he's going to be in the area "I'm going to be in such and such a town" which is not near ours. I kind of chalk it up to inexperienced or just non beekeepers and them being young folks. 
When queenrearing I wait a minimum of a month from the time I see or plant a queen cell to go and check things out. I realize that things could be in a bad situation, but it's better for a young queen for her not to be interrupted. If you check before the queen has started to lay you could be hurting her and miss judge things. A frame of open brood won't hurt anything that's for sure. Oh and some breeds will slow brood rearing sooner than others. One line that I have I can tell if there's a dearth on because of the ammt. of brood frames. The queen just won't lay if stuff isn't coming in. Once things start they explode. (2.5 deeps (7 framers) full of mostly brood)


----------



## laketrout

How is the goldenrod holding up in your areas .


----------



## MaydayMalone

The bees are still hitting it as we haven't had our first frost yet. Lots of Aster alongside the road also. Just took 55 pounds of GR honey last Saturday. All hives still have a full box of honey for winter.


----------



## johnbeejohn

laketrout are you north of bloomsburg with yellow hives that sit off the road


----------



## laketrout

No , there not mine , can't see mine from the road .


----------



## DC Bees

Hi all, I was hoping to pull some GR honey but I think the hives may need it. My honey has been selling like crazy this year and it is getting low. Anybody Know where I can buy honey by the bucket? I tried calling Alum Bank Farms but there numbers have been changed or disconnected they were located in the Bedford area, thanks and Happy Beekeeping.


----------



## PAHunter62

Finally got some time to try and catch up on building some needed equipment before the cold weather gets here. I expanded at a rate I could not keep up this year with having proper covers. I had collected a bunch of 3/4 inch plywood from jobsite dumpsters over the course of the summer and put it to good use this weekend. I run all eight frame medium equipment, and have some custom 6 frame medium NUCs (two boxes) going into winter. 

Just need to prime and paint the side rails, and then wrap the tops with some aluminum. I got a bunch of aluminum print sheets from my hometown newspaper to use for the hive tops.

The 3/4 plywood top sits down into a 3/8 rabbet, all the way around the top, so I had more gluing surface.

These turned out better than any I have purchased, and were a lot cheaper.


----------



## PAHunter62

Hive Update:

I had combined a couple late swarms I captured late summer a few weeks ago. One of the queens must have been rolled when I was prepping the swarm for moving. I took the emergency cells out and did a newspaper combine with the queen right (smaller) swarm. Well, thy must have had every intent of raising their own because a week later, there were queen cells throughout the smaller colony hive body after the combine.

I checked them on Friday and did not see a laying queen yet. The neighboring hive had some fresh eggs/larvae on the bottom of a frame under a honey dome. Probably only 1/5 eggs/larvae and the rest honey. I decided I would swap this frame into the swarm hive to see if they start to build queen cells off the larvae. I carefully pulled that frame this evening and there are about 6 queen cells going on it.

Hopefully there are enough drones left to get the queen properly mated, then enough warm weather for her to make enough winter bees. I don't have a good feeling about this hive, keeping my fingers crossed.


----------



## delber

I was just out at a yard this weekend and the drones are thick out the front of the hives. I don't think there are many if any drones left at this point. Unless they are in the hive that they're raising a queen I'd say it's probably too late to rear them. But hey there's always a "slim chance" if you've got nothing to loose, but Personally I'd catch a queen from the smaller hive in a week or so and combine them. Not newspaper combine, just do it and smoke them a bunch then introduce the queen as you would installing a package. Give them a couple days then release her again. If I were in this situation this is what I'd do. As long as they're rearing queen cells they should accept a queen once you tear them down. If you don't decide to tear them down please let us know how things go. I successfully reared a queen Mid September last year that I know didn't get mated well, but she got them through the winter and they replaced her in April of this year.


----------



## PAHunter62

Been busy this week with work, hit a deer with my truck, and life in general, so I have not done anything with the hive yet. The next time I have the chance to get into that hive I'll decide what to do. 

Here is something of interest for Eastern PA beekeepers. Just got a Mann Lake shipment in today, and this flyer was in the box:


----------



## laketrout

Can't believe they picked Wilkes-Barre , I'm only 35 mins from there , could come in handy . Just hope it doesn't hurt the little guy selling nucs to make a few bucks .


----------



## wildbranch2007

looks good to me only 142 miles and 2 hrs 15 min.


----------



## johnbeejohn

cool that's not to far brushy is closer to me I think tho


----------



## PAHunter62

I, personally, was fine not paying PA Sales tax though. Just far enough I would not go there unless in the area. Everything will be getting 6% more expensive.


----------



## DPBsbees

At EAS i signed a sales tax exemption form and Dadant kept the form so I didn't have to pay sales tax on the stuff they brought to the convention for me. I wonder if this is possible to do with Brushy, and Mann Lake?


----------



## PAHunter62

Not much talk in here lately. Nice to see the bees more active this weekend with the warmer temps.

Now is a good time to check your PA Apiary Registration/License. I looked at mine, it expires 12/31/13 and does not represent my 2014 expansions.

In the my last local club meeting, the Department of Health had their Chester county representatives there to discuss the Mosquito Spray program. They could not stress enough to register your hives. Should they ever need to spray, they do look at where all the hives are located and try contact the beekeepers ahead of time by phone. They only spray late evening when the bees are back to the hive.

Following is the link to the registry form. I completed my update this evening to mail in tomorrow.

Hope everyone has their hives ready for the winter months. The next few months will be for reflection on 2013 and making plans and preparing new equipment for 2014.

Happy Holidays to all!

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/porta...ebsite/Files/Forms/2009ApiaryRegistration.pdf


*For 2014, I plan to:*

Establish a new apiary in Western PA on a family Farm - We already prepared the site for a 25x25-ish fenced in area (bear country)

Move many of my local hives to the new site. I have 17 hives going into winter. Hives making it to the spring flow will be split once the flow gets going to get the new apiary up and running.

Get more swarm traps built and deployed. I was lucky enough to capture 9 swarms using traps in 2013. 

Sell more 6 frame medium NUCs with good laying queens. (I make my own custom NUC boxes).

Venture into queen rearing. I have done spring splits basically using the mdasplitter.com OTS methods, but want to give grafting a try.

Put the queen castle I built this year to use. I built a four bay castle (medium frame size), but have not cut the entranced yet. I will get this ready to go over winter and give it a go in the summer.

Find a new Apiary site in the West Bradford Township area of Chester county (small farm preference) where I can establish some hives and NUCs.

Take many more hives into honey production, but leave more honey behind.

Focus on making more robust hives late in the year. Pay more attention to my queens and replace my weak ones with daughters from my booming hives.

Bring in a couple new high quality queens to extend my genetics. Was part of a group buy this summer and got a couple FULL Bloom Carniolan queens (http://www.fullbloomapiaries.com/). I would be up to do something again in 2014 and maybe get a couple VSH queens.

Have a couple queens on reserve in mating NUCs for the end of season if I find a hive has gone queenless in September. It would be nice to know I have a couple on reserve. I needed one this year.

Do better record keeping.

Creep closer to going into the black. Seems I can always find something to spend money on to support the hobby.


----------



## GLOCK

Well got things wrapped up and put away for the winter .

I didn't wrap two DBL. DEEPS and 1 DBL. nuc. just see how they do this winter. People in these parts are say cool winter .


----------



## Michael Palmer

420, eh?


----------



## GLOCK

Michael Palmer said:


> 420, eh?


You need to ask?


----------



## chr157y

Hey Everyone, 1st year beek in SE PA. My top bar hive has a split cluster. I suspect they are queenless. We are supposed to get some warm weather (67 but rainy) this weekend. Would you recommend opening the hive and putting the cluster together as one. The bees are at the back of the hive and the front. Should I move them all to the front??


----------



## delber

I don't have experience with top bar hives but my understanding is that this is the problem with them. YOu need to make sure that the cluster is on one side while the stores are on the other. In a Lang you want the stores above the cluster which isn't very hard because that's how they typically put it anyway. With the warmer weather coming up they'll probably be able to break those clusters and rejoin as they are able. It does seem that they are lite on stores. You may want to consider putting some dry sugar in there somewhere. From what the video looked like the cluster on the back side was next to a follower board and the front side was at the entrance. It seemed that the combs in the middle were empty. What you can do is remove one frame and simply pour dry sugar in it's place. I'd remove one that's as close to the back of the front cluster as possible but make sure it's empty. You don't want to hinder them from getting on either side of any frame that has brood or you run a risk of that brood dying. Perhaps post a new thread in the top bar forum. (I think there's one) Or post in the general beekeeping thread. Hopefully you can get others with experience w/ top bar hives to chime in. I personally wouldn't assume that they're queenless. It seems that if the cluster was in the middle and stores on either side then that just created a natural break in the cluster as the bees went outside of the cluster to get to the stores and that shifted things a bit.


----------



## chr157y

Thanks for your insight. I'll wait to see if they rejoin this weekend. The combs in between the two clusters are actually fully capped. They are about 17" wide at the top, 10 " wide at the bottom, and 10.5" deep... So they have about 6 or 7 fully capped, heavy bars. I was going to wait until January/February before adding fondant. What do you think?

ETA - I'm adding a lang in the spring.  The TBH is great for learning and the kids love to look in the window, but it has caused nothing but roadblocks.


----------



## delber

My first question would be when did you last check this hive? If it was over a month ago then they may not have that much in capped stores at this point. Second question is do they have a second entrance (or a space they can get in and out of through the back side)? This weekend I hope to do some inspecting / working on one hive particularly. If the weather is above 50 you can quickly open them up. With your hive I don't know of your setup, but I'd try to cover some parts as you look into others so you don't stress them out too much, but it's supposed to be in the 60's on Sunday so that would be the best chance. I'd inspect those center frames. At least on the edges they aren't capped. Perhaps in the center the could be, but in looking at your video that's what I thought. It made sense that the cluster would split in this case. (Well to my logical / sometime illogical mind) If they only have one entrance and this weekend you don't see them flying out of the opposite end then they'll have to recombine. For the bees in the back to get out they'll have to cross over through the front. Hopefully this doesn't cause issues for you because they may have been apart for several days / weeks, but hopefully things will be fine. On another note I am not sure of where you got your bees from, but there are some queens (specifically southern queens) that never really shut down overwinter. They will go through a bunch more resources then a northern queen would. 

On another note. . . What kind of roadblocks has the top bar hive caused for you? I can imagine some things, but I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on this.


----------



## delber

Adding fondant is your call. When to do it is also your thoughts as to when it'd be most beneficial. If you find out that the bees don't have the center frames capped, then I'd add stuff this weekend that hopefully would cary them through the winter. January / February you may not have a chance and if they don't make it until then you'll open them up to a dead hive. In research I've done you want about 3/4 of the hive (whatever size they've been using) to be capped stores to get through our winters. So if you have a 10 frame box you want at least 7 of them solid. Now you'll probably have stores in all 10, but the middle 3 or 4 will only have capped stores in the upper and outer portions. They need cluster space. I hope this helps.


----------



## DPBsbees

13 of 13 alive and well here today. Not bad for approaching Christmas. I made sure they all had at least two winter patties to get through the two flying days I'm likely to have here. Cheap insurance.


----------



## PAHunter62

Good deal DPBsbees. I checked my hives today also. I had 17 going into winter. A few seemed to be in trouble leading into fall (late swarm captures). I had 2 dead outs of the 17. Added some insurance sugar bricks to the lighter hives and buttoned them up. I have four 6 over 6 medium frame Nucs - they were all doing great, so I'll likely have some insurance going into spring to cover some losses. I'll check on them again in early - mid February.

I did have one hive that was queen-less in Mid November. Debler lives close by and contacted me that he had a NUC that was crashing, so he caged the queen for me and I installed her. I'm still holding hope that we may have saved that hive. If it makes it, Debler and I will both have one more hive next year than we would have. I'll make a split and return her once they build up some and their are drones available. Keeping fingers crossed.

Tomorrow I'm going to take 6 frames of capped stores off the dead outs and add a third box to a couple of the strongest NUCS. That will give them more room for rearing brood in the spring. Next year I plan to winter all my 6 frame medium NUCs in 3 boxes rather than 2.

Happy Holidays!


----------



## PAHunter62

Chr157y -

I'm curious what you find in your top bar hive come Christmas day when it gets cold again. I see we are looking at a high of around 31 degrees in SE PA. Did the bees regroup into a single cluster?


----------



## GLOCK

I'm 25 for 25 have not lost any hives this year.
Going to check to see if I need to ad sugar to any tomorrow it's going to be in the 60s .
Hoping for a good turn out come spring but winter has not even started and it's been cold in these parts. 
So guess time will tell.


----------



## PAHunter62

Went though my 2 dead-outs today. They seemed to just dwindled down to very small clusters and froze in that last cold snap. Something must have happened with the queens late in the year. I dug up 3 of my custom 6 frame med NUC boxes, filled each with stores from the dead hives, and added a 3rd box to 3 out of 4 of my NUCS. They should have plenty of food to make it till spring now. I plan to start feeding pollen sub patties late Feb/Early March.


----------



## DPBsbees

DPBsbees said:


> At EAS i signed a sales tax exemption form and Dadant kept the form so I didn't have to pay sales tax on the stuff they brought to the convention for me. I wonder if this is possible to do with Brushy, and Mann Lake?


I forgot to add this a while ago. I emailed Mann Lake and they said they would be keeping sales tax exemption forms, so I'm hopeful that those of us in PA won't be paying an additional 6 % when they open here.


----------



## DC Bees

Hi everybody, I checked some of my hives today. I'm down with the flu so I only checked the hives out back. I have seven hives and six nucs in the back yard and so far I only lost one hive to mites. I had one nuc that was lite so I added some frames from the dead out. It sure was nice to mess with the bees, feels like spring.


----------



## MaydayMalone

I checked on the hives yesterday. We had record high temps in NE Pennsylvania in the low 60s. This was a great opportunity to do an assessment. I added fondant packs. I was able to buy a 50-pound block of fondant and made one-pound individual packs with my vacuum food sealer. Found one dead out and two that were weak out of eleven total hives. Couldn't believe how strong a few of them were. I was able to wrap a few of the hives with tar paper about 2 weeks ago and planned to get the rest yesterday, but with the massive snow melt and imminent rain, I didn't want to trap any moisture between the hive and tar paper, so I'll get them later this week. You learn as you go and I learned that I should have had them all wrapped by Thanksgiving. We had an early cold snap this year. Unlike the delayed Winter of last year. 

2013 was a memorable year for me in beekeeping. I experienced my first bear attack. Thank you to the Pennsylvania Game Commission who came out and assesssed and inventoried my damages and reimbursed me. Took the money and installed an electric fence using cattle mesh. The bears were back all summer and fall trying to get at that sweet honey. I caught them many times on the trail cam trying to find a way in. I wish I would have had it set to video to catch that moment when they got the shock to the nose. A couple of times, I hung strips of raw bacon from the wire as a little enticement. 

I plan to increase to 18 hives in 2014 and a few nucs. 

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of you and your families. I hope you have a very prosperous honey harvest in 2014.


----------



## GLOCK

Well the bees are going to have a cold week I see temps in the -s MON. night -14 guess we will see how they fair this coming 7 days.
Its so cold . All my hives are humming and it's been a cold winter so far . I hate winter the older I get if I had more money and time I'd head south.
Hope every ones bees are doing well and good luck in 2014.:thumbsup:


----------



## Beetrucker74

Did a check up the other week when we had a warm spell. Put 30# of our candy on everyone even if they didn't need it. Good populations in all no duds as of yet out of 50 hives and 30 nucs. We shouldn't see any duds till Feb or March.


----------



## Allen

How are things going?
A few weeks back we had high winds with temps in the upper 50's and found two of our hives knocked over late in the day. Not sure if it was wind or a deer because they are in a protected spot.
The night before I had checked on them and they were all ok.

Didn't expect to find what I found. 
The first hive had 2 deeps and 1 medium and was one of the late Nucs from Spring that didn't get going till the Fall flow.
That hive toppled against a colony that was started as a Nuc and was the only colony to successfully raise their own queen.
They were in 3 deeps and the top super is full of honey.

The first colony population was so, so and the second colony was great.

When the first hive fell into the second one, some of each hives supers came apart and they were all resting on each other. 
Normally I put ratchet straps around the cement blocks and supers but for some reason I didn't do that this time.

Bees in the first hive were exposed to the weather but seemed ok.
There were no bees in the second one.
The population in the first hive was booming so they must be all one big happy family now. 
But I've probably lost that queen in the second colony.

I restacked the first hive and added the full deep super from the second hive.
That put us at 9 colonies.
We had 8 but a friend gifted us a weak colony at the end of Fall that I reduced down for winter.
In late Summer I had started two out yards with a strong and not so strong colony in each.

Just checked on the colonies today.
One strong colony is dead. I took a full deep super of honey from the dead one and placed it on the weaker one next to it. Lotsa bees in there and thought I was gonna get stung. Almost like springtime again. LOL

The two weaker ones are holding their own.
The gifted colony is still alive.
Due to my lack of attention last Fall, one of the weaker ones had a mouse nest in two deeps. It caused the bees to mover to one side of both deeps.
I killed the mice, cleaned out the nest, added a mouse guard and rearranged the honey into one deep due to their population size.
They are still kicking! Amazing.
Mouse guards are going on early from now on.

Tomorrow I'll replenish sugar on the remaining 7 hives with my suit on.


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

Allen said:


> How are things going?
> 
> When the first hive fell into the second one, some of each hives supers came apart and they were all resting on each other.
> 
> .....The gifted colony is still alive..


Gifted Hive is Right! You lost one, but it could have been worst. I checked my 3 hives today when it hit 50 here in the western part of the Commonweath. All 3 were flying. Being a first beek, I worried entirly too much. I tried to open the tops to give them some surgar bricks they wouldn't hear to it, so since the bricks were mushy anywhow, I jamed them into the center vent holes (3 inch) in the candyboards. That should keep then happy for a few days. Wednesday looks like it will be warm enough to go in again.

Bests,
Bob

https://www.facebook.com/WcbaWestmorelandCountyBeekeepersAssociation?ref=hl
co-adminstrator


----------



## PAHunter62

Have not checked my hives in a while. I went into winter with 17 hives (5 at my house, and 12 at my brothers place). In Dec I had 2 dead outs, one from each yard. I checked the 4 remaining ones at home today - just visited each, placed my ear to a box and knocked. All 4 remaining are still alive. Will check on the other yard tomorrow, hopefully the remaining 11 will be ok.

PAHunter62


----------



## mulesii

Opened hives to add Dadant winter patties. Five double deeps and one double nuc. Four of the five deeps have huge clusters that fill up the entire ten frames on the top deep. One deep has smaller cluster (volleyball size) and the nuc has softball sized cluster. All of the hives were flying yesterday and today (47 degrees F).


----------



## delber

chr157y, How are things now? What has that split cluster done? 

I checked all of my hives today. 2 look great, 2 look Ok, and one is small. I had 10 going into winter, now I'm at 5. I think my issue is nosema and mites. I know of at least 2 hives that had nosema, and 2 that are going still now have it. So we'll see how things are in a few weeks. I did add some pollen patties to all of them today. For some of the hives I expect that this patty will be gone within this week. For others I'm not sure of. Here's hoping for spring!!!


----------



## capt44

I'm in Central Arkansas in an Ice Storm right now.
I put fondant candy on all my hives last Sunday when it was 66 degrees.
Now the Ice is so heavy I worry about the power going off, cept I do have a generator.
If I were you I'd put candy on them being a cake of sugar, fondant fudge, or a candy brick.
That small hive is one that will need food close.
All this weather is headed ya'lls way and it's suppose to stick around for a week or two.
It's a tad early for protein patties for it can trick the queen into laying.
I won't put syrup or protein patties on mine until around the end of the 2nd week of Febuary on a warm day.
I just raise the lid and inner cover, add the fudge and close it back up.


----------



## delber

from 66 degrees to now solid ice!!! That's pretty crazy. I know that the patties are slightly early, but I wanted to get it on them now. I want to encourage them to start building up. I figure I'll need to go back into the hives in 2 weeks to add more unless we get a warm up for a week or so. (I don't expect it at this point) but this weekend was the first time that the temps here got anywhere near 50 so I could check and insert them. Hopefully in 2 weeks I'll be able to add more to those that need it. I'm hoping this may help get a good honey crop this year!!!


----------



## PAHunter62

Got to my second yard today. There were 11 hives out of 12 still alive before this latest cold snap. Today, I found one more dead-out, so 10 still alive there. All in all, I have 14 out of 17 still alive. The one today had lots of bees on the bottom board. I suspect mites may have been their downfall- seemed to be lots of stores remaining. In 2-3 weeks, I'll pop the lids and look to add emergency food where needed, and start them on some pollen sub.


----------



## GLOCK

Well it's been a cold crappie winter up here in SNOW SHOE that's for sure the apiary is hanging in there .
Out of 12 DBL. deeps and 13 nucs. I have lost 2 nucs and 1 DBL. deep so far.
As I get older I hate winter in this area I was just telling my wife as I look out the window at the snow falling we need to move south by the time I'm 60 this **** sucks!!!
I have a sustainable apiary and my bees are dealing with theses crazy temps. just find. And if my bees are doing good through this winter I bet spring will be fun . I have 20 new nuc boxes and a enough boxes to make 30 nucs and 20 DBL deeps so I'm ready .
I had 1 dead out I did a post mortem on and there was a little brood so there growing 
 This week looks like another lovely wintery mix we need a break .


----------



## MaydayMalone

I went out and checked on the hives earlier this week before the snow arrived. We got a one-two punch on Monday and Wednesday here in the Poconos with 8 inches of the white stuff on Monday and then another 10 inches with an inch of ice on Wednesday. The groundhog really screwed us. Of the 10 double deep hives and 1 triple deep nuc going into winter, I lost one double deep and my nuc. The double deep was weak going into winter. 

It's been about a month since we had the 60 degree F weekend where I was able to open the hives and give them fondant. Yesterday, it reached 30 degrees with full sun. The next few days are calling for the same. I'm hoping that with the black tar paper wrapped around the hives that the sun will warm the hives enough where the cluster will be able to expand and reach their stores. The next 10 days are not supposed to get about 32F. 

I placed my order for a few 3 lb packages for an expansion project at a neighbors farm. They are organic farmers and were happy when I approached them about placing some hives on their property. With working a full-time job, I'm only looking to reach 20 total hives and 5 nucs. My travel time with work has dropped to zero. No more trips to Iraq or Afghanistan.


----------



## MaydayMalone

Lots of weather activity in the past week here in the Poconos. We had 20 inches of snow on Thursday into Friday and then another 6 today. I was able to check the few hives that are located at my house. They seem to be doing well. Loud humming means lots of bees. The end of next week calls for upper 40's possibly 50 degrees. I'll be able to add fondant. Hope everyone is doing well.


----------



## delber

Down here they're calling for possibly 60's on Friday. I'll be checking and adding more pollen sub if that's the case. We also got 13.5" of snow Wednesday and Thursday morning and another 5-6" Thursday night into Friday. I was nervous about the girls being totally covered, but Thursday afternoon we had a several hour break in the weather so I went and uncovered them and they had about a 6-10" diameter cavity at their entrance where they've melted the snow and they had a few dead bees out of the entrance. So I figure they're fine. A nice blanket of insulation!!! We'll see what kind of wet weather we have next week.


----------



## GLOCK

Up here we got 10in. Thursday and another 4 last night. Been a crazy cold year . I have lost 2 hives so far that's out of 25 so I'm doing ok . Going to ad sugar next week been a long winter so far .


----------



## MaydayMalone

http://bit.ly/1dLFlb1


----------



## PAHunter62

Made up a batch of protein patties last night in prep to start supplementing today. I took 17 hives into winter - had 3 dead outs before this last set of horrible weather. Was anxious to get in and take a look today and add some sugar and patty.

Was glad to find all hives thriving. This was one of the better ones, but the remaining 14 seemed to be strong and doing well.









You can see I have a quilt box on top the hive with the cluster clinging to the hardware cloth. I like this option - as you can see I made inserts that slide inside a standard box. I put legs on the front of the insert to keep the upper entrance/vent open. On top of the hardware cloth is a double layer of burlap, then cedar chips, topped off with a piece of 1.5 inch rigid insulation (the green stuff).

The benefit of making the insert so it will slide up - I can add sugar bricks, mountain camp with granulated sugar and just push the box down on top of the food and it will auto adjust for the feed added.

Turned out to be a winning solution for me.


PAHunter62


----------



## RJI_1968

I seen some decent activity out of my hive today here in western Pa. They were using the top entrance into the candy board I made for them.


----------



## MeriB

Checked them today thinking they might need candy. Found one dead, that was my strongest one last year( second time that has happened), The one with the worst hive beetles was plugging along, and the last two looked fine. The nuc was doing the best, None needed food, So, how do you store candy blocks for next year?


----------



## DC Bees

You can store the sugar blocks in freezer bags in the freezer. I checked my hives today, no more losses since the first cold snap in early January. I have one nuc that has some dysentery problems hopefully It will clear up on Its own.


MeriB said:


> Checked them today thinking they might need candy. Found one dead, that was my strongest one last year( second time that has happened), The one with the worst hive beetles was plugging along, and the last two looked fine. The nuc was doing the best, None needed food, So, how do you store candy blocks for next year?


----------



## DPBsbees

Found two dead today. Suspect queen issues as they were weak going into winter. Re-queened one late because it was queenless, and the the other had an old queen I should have replaced in the summer. Can't wait for spring.


----------



## Ennui

Did my first full inspection Sunday. Both hives alive and doing well. One still hive still had over 50lbs of honey from the fall flow and I stole a frame since I've never had excess fall honey before. I liked the stronger flavor, but I'm the only one in the house who did.

Edit: 3/11 - Bees started pulling in a very pale yellow pollen.


----------



## PAHunter62

A couple weeks ago I started providing pollen sub/protein patty mix to my survivors. Full size hives got 2 ice cream scoops, NUCs got one scoop. I was back to check on all the hives this week on the days that crossed 60 degrees. Most all the hives had finished the patty mix added, which is a good sign they are brooding up. I'll keep this up until they reject in favor of real pollen.

Was excited when I got to one of my strong NUCs - I found a dead marked queen just outside the entrance right after my christmas travels. When I was checking the hives today, I saw this hive consumed the entire protein patty. I decided to carefully pull a frame from the middle of the hive and found capped and open larvae. They must have taken two queens into winter and replaced the marked queen. I don't think it is a laying worker because the brood pattern is well defined and circular with all stages of larvae surrounding the capped brood. That made my day. 14 out of 17 fall hives alive and doing well.


----------



## mjfish1975

Went down to the hives yesterday and saw alot of activity at the entrance. Some of them were bringing back pollen. I cannot imagine were they were getting it from. Went in today to see if they needed any candy since they were already on it a month ago. There was about 4 pounds left out of the original 10. Guess I need to make some more very soon. After this next storm the temps are supposed to get back in the upper 40s to low 50s. Its nice to see more grass than snow finally. On a side note. Heard the first woodcock of the season and that smart/lucky pheasant from the fall is in full spring wattles and making eyes at my chickens. Hopefully spring is on the way.


----------



## delber

WEll I wish this winter was as favorable for me!!! I've lost about 3/4 of my hives this year. I have 2 that look good, and one that I just checked that is VERY small. I think the pollen sub that I gave has nosema or something in it because hives that I gave it to had no signs of it, and now kaboom!!! I'm going to trap my own pollen this year to feed next winter. This year I'm not taking any production hives into winter. I'm going to split them all up into nucs. I'm making double nucs (Like Michael Palmer only 5, 1-1/4" wide frames on each side) and going to try this. I hope to have 20 -30 to take into next winter. We'll see how things go.


----------



## wildbranch2007

delber said:


> I think the pollen sub that I gave has nosema or something in it because hives that I gave it to had no signs of it, and now kaboom!!!.


more than likely you feeding the pollen sub and the bees eating it and raising more brood caused them to need to go to the bathroom more frequently, if they couldn't get out,
kaboom, they may be kabooming more after the next cold spell if the pollen sub is still available. just one thought


----------



## dochom

I made up 8 nucs last July and August and overwintered them on 2 mediums with 6 frames each. All are doing well although I had to begin feeding them fondant in mid January.


Brian 
Enola, PA


----------



## MaydayMalone

I was able to check on the hives last Tuesday (61 degrees F) and Friday (49 degree F). They had devoured the fondant that I put in back February. Of the 10 hives and 1 nuc that I went into Winter with, I have 1 dead out and I lost the nuc. The 9 remaining hives are looking really good and strong. I pulled a frame to see if they had any stores left over and I just happened to pull the frame with the queen. She had just laid 2 frames of eggs. 

Monroe County had their first beekeepers association meeting last Wednesday evening. I couldn't believe the losses that members were reporting. Many lost most, some lost all. I felt very fortunate. 

We took a ride out to the new Mann Lake location in Wilkes-Barre on Saturday afternoon. I spoke with Frank Licata (Master Beekeeper and General Manager of Mann Lake Wilkes-Barre) and he suggested BeePro patties to get them to start building brood. He said to only place a half patty in each hive since we are so close to the Maple bloom. 

Spring is right around the corner. I'm hoping that we will be seeing 50's and 60's in the next few weeks as normal high temps.


----------



## Allen

Mayday Malone, that was a nice article!

Much as I love winter it's time for a change.

We are down to 5 colonies.
It's 63 degrees here and each hive had orientation flights going on.
The bees are bringing in a bright yellow and also orange pollen. 

Since the temps were so nice today, I went into the hives to check on honey stores and discovered eggs, larvae and capped brood.
It was great to finally be working the bees again. 

The gifted colony mentioned in my previous post is still going. Gave them 2 deep capped frames of honey and their entrance is still reduced to its smallest size.
All colonies have plenty of honey in contact with the cluster.

If Keeney has any extra packages later this Spring I'm going to buy a few and use them as Nucs. Have got so many frames of drawn comb that they should take off fairly fast.
Btw, his mom Ruth told me that packages probably won't be available till May.

Two of the colonies have a large enough population that I might be able to get 2 splits from them.
I have a goal of 15 colonies this summer. Would like to reach 20 but that may be pushing it for 2014.


----------



## PAHunter62

Need to build a bunch of boxes this spring/summer. In the SE PA region, where is a good place for good quality 1x8 kiln dried pine lumber? I would like to beat the price of the big box stores (Lowes and Home Depot) if possible. Just as a point of reference, the local Lowes lists 1x8x10 pine at $12.91 ea.

Thanks

PAHunter62


----------



## laketrout

PA , I'm paying 7.30 for 1x8x6 at the big box stores , enough for one box and just enough material to square the fist end and run them through, easy to handle and sort through the pile . Let me know if you find any decent boards any cheaper , I'll start looking to .


----------



## delber

The best bet is to find someone that has a saw mill. you can get the lumber and dry it yourself and use it after that, however it also would require a shop so that may not work too well. I think there was a lumber shop north of us Pa Hunter. Somewhere just north of Morgantown. I'll see if I can find it and I'll post it. If I remember right they seemed to have descent prices. (That was some time ago though) Personally I use T1-11 for my boxes. (perhaps I shouldn't say all this to you all here on the forum,but oh well. My boxes are all custom sizes!!) I can make a standard 8 frame box for about $5.00 and some change. I can get 5 of my boxes out of a sheet of T1-11 and have a little left over that I think would work for a medium box, but I'm not positive.

I'm sorry I looked but I can't find it. They may not be in business any more. I'll keep an eye out and let you know if I find anything.


----------



## laketrout

When you guys talk about finding sawmills are you using it as ruff cut or planning it down to 3/4 lumber .


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

Hunter,

Here on the western side of the Commonwealth, Busy Beaver (a local small box store) is featuring 1x8x8 pine boards in their sales flyer for $4.99. If you can not local a sawmill, check out small lumber yards.


----------



## Bob_in_Westsylvania

PennApic Spring Workshop in Dover

Is anyone attending the PennApic Spring Workshop in Dover this Saturday? Has anyone attended previous workshops? I am considering attending, but is it worth a 3 hour drive, each way?

Bob


----------



## delber

laketrout said:


> When you guys talk about finding sawmills are you using it as ruff cut or planning it down to 3/4 lumber .


Laketrout, If I were buying rough lumber I'd plane it down only enough to get the inside smooth. I'd leave the outside rough. If the material was 4/4 (Four quarter or one inch) then I'd try to get 7/8" thick. The more "insulating" / AKA thicker wood the better. I have recently read a archived book where the author said that it was best to have a 1-1/2" outside wall to the hives. IMHO that's WAY too heavy to even think about taking off of a hive. I didn't get far enough in the book to see if he was talking about the horizonal / slightly angled "log" hives that I've seen pictures of or not, but it seems to me that although this would be nice in the insulating factor, is WAY too thick for a lang hive. 

If you have "standard" hive parts (that you bought from somewhere) then it would be difficult for me to think about not making the material standard so that it fits over the current boxes. But at least if you make the inside cavity the same you can put the thicker ones on top and that should work fine.


----------



## Allen

One colony seems to be lagging behind the others in activity at the front entrance so I did an inspection last Saturday.
Didn't find any sign of brood or eggs. 
Not sure if the queen stopped laying or something happened to her so I gave them a frame of eggs, larvae and capped brood.
This is the first day I can check for queen cells but it's too cold. Won't get back up to the 60's till the weekend.

Keeney will have bees on 5/11 and have got three packages ordered. 

www.musselmanlumber.com in Ephrata has 3/4" Advantech plywood. Will be trying some of that to make Nucs from.

There may be close to 20 frames of honey left in the hives from Fall and not sure if it's granulated in the comb.
Should I harvest it or wait till the outside temps warm up a little more?


----------



## PAHunter62

Anyone seeing much nectar being brought in yet? I've had supers on for a week or so and as of last weekend they were not working the foundation yet. I'm sure that will change soon. I wonder how far behind we are this spring with the cooler weather? Before I had the supers on, I did see a couple days they were into something.


----------



## DC Bees

Very little nectar here. I usually add supers when the dandelions bloom but not this year. My hives are way behind so far. I'm thinking about using some of my nucs to help build up some of my main colony's.Things could be better.


----------



## delber

Well all I can say is mine aren't using any stores and are building up very nicely. I just checked the other day. There's a small ammt. of nectar stored in a couple frames and I don't think it's just been moved around. So they're on the dandilion flow (or something else) it seems!!!


----------



## Kampusa

delber said:


> Well all I can say is mine aren't using any stores and are building up very nicely. I just checked the other day. There's a small ammt. of nectar stored in a couple frames and I don't think it's just been moved around. So they're on the dandilion flow (or something else) it seems!!!


Full Inspection today- Erie Pa 65F 3 new package hive Queen right pollen RED coming in- all drawing comb. 
Other 3 hives busting with pollen/ nectar/ dandelions in bloom cherries blooming- Fruit trees all ready to blossom. Some Queen cells not laid in one hive--Many drones and drone cell filled
Checkerboarded today- May have to split- added more supers today also' FLOW IS A COMING WITH FINALLY WARM WEATHER.


----------



## delber

The red pollen is most likely dead nettle. We have a TON of that around here. I have been surprised to see dark navy blue pollen come in for 2 or 3 years now and I have no idea what that would be. It honestly looks discusting.


----------



## timduvall

im in the Pittsburgh area and only a second year keeper so i really don't have much to go on but I feel my bees are doing well considering the harsh winter..the italian hive i have is really going crazy lots of necter and pollen coming in and lots of brood in all 3 hive bodies (i run all 8 frame mediums). i added a comb honey super couple weeks ago but no activity in it yet. The carniolan hive started off slow but is catching up in a hurry...i'm going to try my first cut down splits this week. The two other package bees are doing ok. I got them April 9th and we've had a couple chilly weeks so that might have set them back a little but they both have about 4 frames of brood last time i checked last week. Another local bee keeper told me this has been the best early build up year that he's seen in a while. he was making splits end of March/ beginning of April.

we have lots of blooming trees in my area...apple, flowering trees, dandelions, etc...ive been told we are about 2 weeks from the start of our big flow...fingers crossed


----------



## laketrout

I'm in the northeast pa area , did a full inspection of one hive last weekend as I was afraid they were planing to swarm, very busy . Found a full deep of capped brood , no queen cells and no drones flying yet but some inside and a little more drone brood also some uncapped nector and they have been bring pollen in for about a month now , started out yellow ( maple ) and now more of a orange , could that be dandelion . Are you guys seeing many queen cells and when is prime swarming going to hit this year in are area .I want to split this hive but waiting on queens . I'm bummed my nucs were postponed for this Sat. hopefully next Sat .


----------



## clyderoad

DC Bees said:


> Very little nectar here. I usually add supers when the dandelions bloom but not this year. My hives are way behind so far. I'm thinking about using some of my nucs to help build up some of my main colony's.Things could be better.


Agree.
Nectar just getting going good here but I'm thinking the same thing because of slow spring build-up. Production colonies don't have the bees right now to take advantage of the flow that looks like it's finally on it's way.
Excuse my post to your PA thread as I am out of your area.
Thanks, Clyde


----------



## GLOCK

Things are starting to kick in in these parts . I was feeding up till last week so I have some nice brood.
And some hives are real strong. A look from the top 
And some baby pics
If you never saw eggs before  The queen 
then I have some that are just now starting to kick in . I love spring build up


----------



## PAHunter62

I'm seeing my stronger production hives building out queen cups. Nothing in them yet, but they are starting preparations. I'm going to be traveling next weekend, so I'm probably going to do cut-down splits this weekend on the ones showing preparation signs.


----------



## laketrout

And I thought my hive was crowed !!!!!!!! I've heard so much about spring of second year being so susceptible of swarming I have swarming fever , Glock does that hive have any queen cells , are you going to split to prevent swarming .Just wondering how much time I have before mine swarms .


----------



## GLOCK

laketrout said:


> And I thought my hive was crowed !!!!!!!! I've heard so much about spring of second year being so susceptible of swarming I have swarming fever , Glock does that hive have any queen cells , are you going to split to prevent swarming .Just wondering how much time I have before mine swarms .


I plan on taking the queens out of all my DBL. deeps as soon as the flow is in full swing . This worked for last year and I had no swarms out of my DBL deeps last year so it worked for me. I also reverse the brood boxes and put blank frames in between the brood as soon as you have enough bees to cover all brood. SPM is some thing all new beekeepers need to learn if you want honey.
And no I have no QCs yet but I do have lots of drones. I have one hive that has supersedure cells and no queen so I took some cells from that hive and made a split just to see how well a early split does .
Remember I am on top a mountain and I am about 2 weeks behind the low lands .
I do find feeding pollen sub. and syrup early on helps build up the brood. I am hoping for a good year so far things are going good.
good luck or is it skill?


----------



## delber

Glock, What's "SPM"? Swarm prevention management? if so are you refferring to a specific aspect or the general concept that may be relative to the area?


----------



## GLOCK

delber said:


> Glock, What's "SPM"? Swarm prevention management? if so are you refferring to a specific aspect or the general concept that may be relative to the area?


Yes Swarm prevention management . I do agree but you better learn it if you want good honey crops. If I can figure it out any one can.


----------



## johnbeejohn

just in my hives and i seen some cells of pollen they had capped over pesticide or somthing bad they were working i was told anyone have any input do have farming fields near me


----------



## delber

My first cut-out had comb that was like that. The comb was the "normal" size, but there wasn't enough room for the queen to lay in it for the brood to be full length. This hive had been there for several years. If it were me I'd work that / those frames out and replace them with new ones. If the frames aren't that old you could just cut out the cells that have the "bad spots" and allow them to redraw them. I cut a section of drone comb out of a corner of one of my frames about 2 weeks ago and they filled it all back up perfectly worker. I was very pleased.


----------



## laketrout

The pollen coming in has slowed down some now but I think there might be the beginning of a flow . There working the flowers on my Hawthorne trees like crazy and I'm getting that nice sweet smell at the hives , anyone else experiencing a flow .


----------



## PAHunter62

Russian Olive is just starting to bloom the last couple days. Bees should be all over it. I'm in the process of doing cut-down splits on all my production hives. One I was in today probably would have swarmed tomorrow if I did not get to it. I left one nice queen cell, and tore down all others. I have three more hives to get through, then I can take a breather for a bit. Also focusing on getting the rest of my swarm traps out.


----------



## waynesgarden

Just moved to Northeast PA. Started over w/ 5 new packages and spread bait hives all around. 4 out of the 5 packages installed on the 19th of April are booming. The 5th is still acceptable. Put them all in boxes filled w/drawn comb. They each got a medium of leftover honey and 2 gallons of syrup. They sucked down the syrup by the time the dandelions bloomed, feeding stopped and the population boomed. The girls are all over the dandelions and whatever the trees are that are blooming across the creek.

I have no idea yet what to expect re: flows during a typical year here but I'm hoping it is longer and more reliable than what I was used to in Maine. 

Wayne.


----------



## funwithbees

Hi Wayne, Better get your honey supers on. We usually travel through NE PA to ohio to visit relatives on Memorial day weekend and there is usually a huge black locust bloom about then. Its worth a try, even with packages. As Pooh said, "you never can tell about bees "
Nick


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

Just wondering if anyone here in PA has heard of any swarms yet? I've seen where there have been reports of swarms down near Lancaster, but here in NorthWest, PA, I haven't heard of any swarms yet.


----------



## PAHunter62

I've heard of a few on the SE side of the state. If I would not have done splits on my production hives, I think all nine would have swarmed this past week. I have about a dozen traps up in Western PA(Indiana County), I'll be checking them this weekend for the first time - I think it is still a little early, but it's getting close there too.


----------



## DPBsbees

Northwest PA Beekeeper said:


> Just wondering if anyone here in PA has heard of any swarms yet? I've seen where there have been reports of swarms down near Lancaster, but here in NorthWest, PA, I haven't heard of any swarms yet.


I've had two hives that I absolutely know swarmed, and another two I suspect. The swarm season is in full gear in the southeast portion of the state. I have three friends that have been fighting them for a couple of weeks.


----------



## DC Bees

I had a call for a large swarm in Howard Pa last evening but the call came too late. Called the guy after work today and he said most of the bees where gone. I was out walking around today checking out the locust trees and they are loaded with large buds. Looks like It will be close to a week before they are ready here.


----------



## delber

Last Thursday there was a swarm in Oxford. I only was told about it yesterday because the home owner wants them removed.


----------



## waynesgarden

Northwest PA Beekeeper said:


> Just wondering if anyone here in PA has heard of any swarms yet? .


A co-worker told me of a swarm spotted at a hotel in Clarks Summit. Unfortunately, they dealt with it themselves with pesticide.

Wayne


----------



## PAHunter62

I got word from my family that I captured 3 swarms back home on a family farm this week in Western PA. I was home for Memorial Day and checked the 10 traps I set several weeks before and bees were checking all 10 traps out. I figured they would start moving in this week. Expect a few more before it slows down.

How is everyone doing on Honey this spring? I seem to be having a very good year so far. Most hives are on track to fill 3 supers, a couple may fill 4. Going to need to purchase some extra 5 gallon buckets!


----------



## delber

One of my larger hives had queen cells a few weeks back. I took the queen and split off the cells into mini nucs and left one with the large hive. I still wanted to get honey from this hive. Well I was there today and saw the queen returning from the mating flight. Man is she a beaut!!! She's fat and "clumsy" flying in. That was a first for me. My other hive I was in today and I've given them their fourth box today and I could have given them another if I had it. In a week they filled a deep. Things look great on that end. I also saw and marked the queen in this hive. I was shocked because I only pulled 2 or 3 frames from each box just to see how they're doing. I wasn't expecting to see her at all. But you need to capatalize on what situations God gives you.


----------



## johnbeejohn

locust are blooming all over here


----------



## Kampusa

ERIE County First 5# swarm 28 May-Capture in an 8 Frame Deep- moved them 1/4 mile- Doing well today
Second small swarm 3# Today 3 June Placed in NUC- will see if they will stay. 
Black Locust and Clover full Bloom


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

First swarm of the year for me! Just happened to be driving down the road and saw "something" on a bush. I'm thinking "Was that a swarm or dead stuff in the bush?" I back up - yep, it's a swarm.

The deep hive body and bottom board was just able to be put under the swarm with a couple inches to spare. One shake, and they are in the box and they set up fanning telling any stragglers "Hey, here we are with the queen."

Must be a secondary swarm as it was only 1 1/2 - 2 pounds.

Summerville, PA 15864


----------



## delber

Nice eye!!! Congrats on your first for the year. Any idea where it came from?


----------



## Allen

We ended up with 4 survivor colonies this Spring and one was suspected of going queenless with the population going down. 
Decided to give a frame of brood each week for a few weeks to see what happens. They never did make queen cells that I could find but started seeing eggs after 3 weeks or so. The queen must have just gotten off to a slow start. They are doing well enough now that I was able to make a split last week. 

The donor hive for the brood had been so strong that I made two splits. One was given a mated queen from Keeney and the other was left to make their own queen.

Also installed three packages that I purchased from Keeney.
The other two survivor colonies were split and we are now back to 8 colonies and waiting on 4 splits to raise their own queens.
The splits and packages were installed on mostly drawn comb and some foundation here and there. That comb should give them a head start.
Also put in some foundationless frames between drawn comb frames.
Honey production looks better than last Spring and some of the supers are getting heavy. 
I'm not using a queen excluder so it's interesting to see where the queen lays and then how she is forced down when they backfill with honey.
Am seeing some full frames of capped honey down in the deeps but the queens still have plenty of space to lay eggs.
I'm making splits by pulling three or four frames of eggs, larvae and capped brood along with some capped honey and placing them in a deep. I check to make sure the queen isn't on these frames and do this in the middle of the day.
The parent hive is moved to the other end of the bee yard and the new deep is placed in the parent hive original location.


----------



## MaydayMalone

I started a 3rd yard in Northampton County back on April 13th with 3 packages and 2 splits. The 3 package hives are doing very well. When I checked on them on May 30th, they had their 2nd hive body drawn and full of brood. I added a medium honey super to each. Last night I checked on them and they had it completely drawn and full of honey. I added more honey supers. 

When I asked the land owner about placing bees there back in March, he told me that those fields were full of Orchard grass (Timothy). When I was telling him how well the hives were doing, I happened to notice that the field was also full of white clover. I have heard that you can yield 200 lbs of honey from one acre of white clover. This field is 7 acres. It'll be interesting to see what the newly added supers will look like next week. 

The 2 split hives are doing well, but I think that I will add a couple of frames of brood from the stronger hives when I return next week.


----------



## Allen

Pass out the cigars and light 'em up.
We've got two new daughters added to the family!
Checked on the splits and packages late this afternoon.
Two of them successfully raised their own queens and found eggs and larvae. After only one queen getting raised last year, this is exciting. 

One of the packages and a split have been building up well so I gave each another deep super mixed with some comb, foundationless and foundation. 

The colony that I took two splits from has been so busy they've filled a shallow, med and almost an entire deep with honey. Currently I t has a total of 3 deeps, a med and a shallow with a ratchet strap around it, and the base it's sitting on. Btw, I had also taken 3 frames of brood from it when I thought the one colony went queenless. 
Just made up two more shallows tonight with foundation and foundationless (for cut comb) for that colony. 
Tomorrow I plan to checkerboard a few capped shallow frames up to an empty super and will put some empty frames down in between the existing drawn out honey frames.

And the day wouldn't have been right without an "oh crap" moment.
Whenever I take off the inner cover I'll look it over before setting it down.
While checking one of the packages, and after removing the inner cover, I glanced at it, and laid it on top of the hive next to me and did my inspection. After that, I looked over at the inner cover and there is this worker bee with a blue dot on her... Whoops, that's the queen and she had some attendants hanging out with her. 
I quickly pulled two frames back out of the super, and carefully slipped the end of the inner cover she was on down inside to where she could walk off.


----------



## Allen

Another split (third one), successfully raised their own queen. Hope the fourth one makes out ok.


----------



## johnbeejohn

i scraped some honey that they had put up inbetween inspections of inner cover and it was a lighter yellow and had a very floral taste to it like i was chewing on flowwers any idea what this came from??


----------



## timduvall

I took 4 frames of honey off Saturday and it was very light golden color but very good. Everyone who tasted it liked it. I'm hoping we get a good flow next few weeks when the black raspberries bloom cause I sure want more of this stuff than 4 frames out of 2 hives


----------



## delber

John I have no idea what it comes from, but mine has always tasted that way. I've chalked it up to being "raw" and not pasturized which kills and removes all of that flavor that is actually good for you. I hope to harvest in the next few weeks and start queen rearing on a larger scale. We'll see how things go. I only want to take single boxes into winter this year. I've lost every production hive to date that I've tried to overwinter. The extra frames will serve well to help get them all up to something overwinter. We'll see how things go.


----------



## Allen

I noticed the same thing during Spring and everyone that had a sample proclaimed it as the best honey they ever had.
Was told by another beekeeper that the locust, tulip poplar and maples contribute to the lightness of the honey.
Our Fall honey is a little darker and more pungent.


----------



## laketrout

I'm finding a nice light color honey also , I assumed it might be clover honey which in the past was always light but a little bland I thought but that was store bought, this has something else in it as its very good , the wife likes it just as much as the darker goldenrod honey we get in the fall .

I have been trying to go all medium and finally pulled out my last deep frames I hope I ever see , now to build up the brood nests to three mediums . I have two new nucs in two med. a parent hive split into three med. and the other half of the split in two med . Hope to have them all into three mediums in time for the fall flow , but for now the spring flow is on .


----------



## GLOCK

I took 2 frames a week ago and it was great always is I have the best honey in the world.
It was slow getting going this spring but things are growing now all my nucs are looking great .Selling my first bee's this FRI a dream come true.
I have to check on my production hives to make sure they all have laying queens but every thing looks just great. I'm up to 25 hives and am shooting for 40 by AUG. 
I think it's going to be a good year


----------



## Ennui

I pulled 4 bars (~2 gallons) last week the light honey with no bite is a favorite of the kids in my house. I've always attributed it "mostly" clover, but I'm not so sure now. My white clover really only started flowering well in the last 2 weeks and these bars of honey have been ripening for longer than that.

I've got 2 acres of lawn I'm not mowing because they are covered in white clover (and I'm lazy). I'm hoping the now empty bars will get filled with clover honey and I try out the difference.

The one swarm I captured about a month ago is queenless with a laying worker. On the other hand, my split is doing very well. I was going to do a newspaper combine, but I think I'll give the queen less hive a frame of brood and give it another chance.


----------



## waynesgarden

Ennui said:


> I've got 2 acres of lawn I'm not mowing because they are covered in white clover (and I'm lazy).


I envy you. Terms of my lease require my lawn to be scalped at least weekly. (And I mean scalped; almost shaved.) Clover bloomed last weekend and Sunday morning the bees discovered it. They had about two hours of care-free foraging before the mowing guy arrived to waste it all. Fortunately, some of the pasture around has clover growing in it.

Wayne


----------



## delber

Ennui said:


> The one swarm I captured about a month ago is queenless with a laying worker. On the other hand, my split is doing very well. I was going to do a newspaper combine, but I think I'll give the queen less hive a frame of brood and give it another chance.


I'd at least give them a frame of open brood before combining. It'll go much better. Give them the open brood (including eggs) wait a week or at least 4 or so days, then combine. in my experience this goes much better.


----------



## Allen

Did hive inspections yesterday in the brutal heat. If the weather cooperates I'm harvesting our first honey next week.
Once we sell enough honey I'm thinking about an Ultrabreeze suit. That's gotta be better than this heavy cotton monstrosity I'm wearing.


----------



## DPBsbees

I liked my Ultrabreeze jacket so much I also bought the full suit for the occasional mean hive. I can only imagine what it would be like to be wearing my cotton one when I make a splt this afternoon in the 90 plus degree heat.


----------



## waynesgarden

Looks like early Goldenrod blooming along the road sides here in NEPPA. We had an early goldenrod that bloomed up in Maine but the bees seemed to ignore it. I just came in from checking it up close and found no honeybees working it. There were bees of a smaller variety, a wasp and some flies but none of my bees. Of course, they just might be ignoring it in favor of the Dutch clover that is going strong. Does anyone know if this early goldenrod is of any importance to PA bees?

Hopefully, there is a strong late summer GR flow here.

Wayne


----------



## GLOCK

I say no my bee's don't touch the first golden rod out they seem to like the later stuff .


----------



## Allen

I'm going to start feeding 1 to 1 sugar water to a couple of the colonies. They are building up slow. If they didn't have drawn comb from the start they'd really be behind.

Stopped by Forest Hill Woodworking yesterday to pick up supplies and they have the Mann Lake ventilated suits in stock. Looking forward to selling some honey so I can purchase an ultra breeze.
http://foresthillbeesupply.com


----------



## MaydayMalone

Last Monday, I ventured into a new direction and sold queens for the first time. A friend of a friend was in need, so I was able to provide 3 laying Italians. I charged $20 per marked queen. This past weekend I went into my nucs to graft larvae to replace them and found that all 3 nucs had already built queen cells.

The flow has pretty much ended in NE PA. There's still a little clover out there, but this coming weekend I'll be removing honey supers and extracting. I'll treat for mites and feed 1:1 at the same time. The goldenrod will be blooming in another few weeks.


----------



## waynesgarden

I never did see a big interest in the white clover though I could always find some bees working it. They're bringing in nectar and there is a lot of traffic flying out over the pastures so they are finding something other than clover it seems. Don't know what.

I'll be pulling some supers in a week or so. Got a surprisingly good production considering I started over with packages this spring. Can't beat starting with drawn comb.

Wayne


----------



## MaydayMalone

I agree. There is still something out there getting their attention.


----------



## DC Bees

The summer goldenrod has very little to offer for the bees they will work something better If available. Has anyone tried buying an extractor from Brushy Mountain? I called them and asked for the 9 frame motorized and they said that they are on back order.


----------



## Allen

Goldenrod is already blooming in Cressona. We are about 45 mins south of there and hope it makes an earlier appearance in our area this year. 
I've had to give sugar water to three of our colonies in the last couple weeks.


----------



## waynesgarden

A new crop of a taller goldenrod has been blooming for over a week here. (Susquehanna County.) It's about 100 yards from my apiary. I checked it frequently last weekend to see if my bees were working but didn't see any bees other than bumbles on it. I snapped off a sprig of the blossoms and set it on top of a hive to see the reaction. Within minutes there were bees on it. 

Haven't had a daylight minute to check this week. I hope they've found it by now. While I believe in feeding when necessary, I refuse to serve goldenrod plants to bees to lazy to fly across the yard.

Wayne


----------



## Allen

Just saw goldenrod blooming along 222S in the area of Ephrata Hill near the PennDOT stockpile. 
I'm about 40 mins north of there and nothing is blooming around here.


----------



## AstroZomBEE

The early goldenrods started blooming near Lewistown PA about 2 weeks ago, Really starting to show now though.

Aaron


----------



## Ennui

Last week in July my bees went idle. I could see them bearding up on the hives all day long. Two week later (~ Aug 9) they all became active again.

I have no idea what they are bringing in, but they've started working on something. I took good sniff around the hives last night and they don't have the old gym sock smell I think of with Goldenrod and the fall flow.


----------



## GLOCK

The later stuff is just now heading up in these parts.


----------



## mobees

My friends son wants a couple of hives in SE Pa. Any recommendations expectations? I told him to start with 5 and see how it goes. I heard in Maryland/Delaware
there is only a primary spring flow. Is that correct? Is fall feeding the norm and what should he expect for a typical lb crop per hive per year. 
Cheers.


----------



## delber

I'm in SE Pa. It all depends upon the yard as to the fall flow. Here at my house there's a good flow. At a farm in Malvern just about 20 minutes away there's very little. Perhaps enough to encourage them to rear the winter bees, but that's about all. In everything it depends upon location. When does he want to get the hives?


----------



## mobees

Thanks for info. Next spring we are going to buy him some packages from a local guy and see how it goes where they are. 
I'm going to order the equipment for my buddy and it's going to be a Christmas 
Present. He is going to love it. 

It's amazing how the dandelions and goldenrod seems to help or hurt depending on whether you have them local or not. This year my bees in conn/NH did nothing with first bloom but
Now after a couple of weeks are picking it up nice.


----------



## MuttBee Mama

I'm giddy at finding such an active beek community here in PA. I'm still in the "Bee Haver" stage of things, starting now to gear up for winter, but that isn't relative to my question.

Friday, while taking a break from yard work I looked up and noticed a big swarm hanging from a skinny little branch in one of the black cherry trees. Actually ran for the binoculars because it looked for all the world like a really big dead groundhog hanging by the tip of his tail...but nope, it was bees. Lots and lots of bees with plenty of buzzing in every direction. Alas, it's about 70 feet up the tree.

Thought about shooting it out of the tree the way my southern cousins shoot mistletoe down, but couldn't convince Blue Eyes to stand below with a box.

Then thought about cutting down the tree (which would certainly hit the house) but Blue Eyes was still not interested in box holding.

Offered darned good bribe to get Blue Eyes to climb the tree and give 'em a good shake, but that offer was refused as well. (I could mention that Blue Eyes is extremely allergic....but I won't.)

So having run out of options, I ran up and smeared lemon grass oil on insides of 2 available hives and let it go.

Now here it is, Sunday evening, and that swarm is STILL hanging off of that skinny little branch most of the way up that big cherry tree. They are extremely quiet now; just a few bees coming and going sporadically. They've already been rained on once today and a pig strangler is now rumbling outside with fat drops starting to stain the driveway.

So what the heck? Has anyone ever heard of a swarm doing something like this? (Happily it's from one of my neighbors, not from my tender little broods.)

And if anybody has a thought as to how I can fetch 'em down and safely into a posh new home, please - speak up!

It's a joy to "meet" you all - 

Karen


----------



## delber

If you have access to a bee vac you can use that to get them. You'll need to get some PVC pipe from Home Depot or Lowes or something to get you to the height you need. Then simply vaccume them down. It may be that the queen didn't make it. There's really no way to tell. My experience with swarms like this is they often don't make it. Do you have drawn comb to give them? I have read about shooting the branch down and even watched a video from a guy in Va. I think that did it successfully. He put the box under them and shot the branch down. It was cool to watch for sure. I think he used buck shot to do it. My only concern is obviously consider what's on the other side of where you're shooting. He was out in the middle of nowhere when he did it. If you are able to get them down make sure to feed them right away!!! BTW how high are they up in the tree? 20'? 50'? This makes a big difference.


----------



## MuttBee Mama

Alas a bee vac wouldn't help. They are / were 70' up the tree. No vacuum could suck them through that much PVC! Where I live, shooting them down wouldn't have been a problem. Keeping a box steady on the steep hill below them might have been though.

They weathered all the thunderstorms last night and were still there this morning, but left sometime mid-morning. Bummer. I would have liked to see that!


----------



## PAHunter62

That smell arrived this week at all my hive sites. Goldenrod is coming in. Hoping for a good flow so I don't need to feed much. I did give most all my larger colonies about a gallon of 5:3 syrup the last half of August to make sure they kicked into rearing brood. Also been giving my NUCs some pollen sub in small pieces (1/3 at a time) so I don't end up with beetle problems. I'll be checking all three of my sites this weekend to see how they are doing with bringing in stores.

I had a couple late August swarms caught this year, getting late for that - I hope that is over until next year.

PAHunter62


----------



## laketrout

I'm in northeast PA and wondering what things look like in my surrounding area with other beeks , do you think the goldenrod is here for a good while longer and any idea how much longer your leaving honey supers on . I'ts getting down to 48 degrees tonight , feels like October weather !! I'm hoping for more nice weather for the bee's to work .


----------



## GLOCK

I still have GR coming in but not for long it's starting to die back.
It's raining now so that may help it a little.
We have had a great fall flow in these parts all my hives are heavier then I have ever seen them in the 5 years I have been doing this.
I plan on taking some honey tomorrow. All hives will be 100+ pounds going it to winter so I will not be putting sugar on my top bars this year :applause: makes a mess.
I have had a great year I did not get up to the 40 hives I wanted but I have 31 and all are crazy strong like I have never seen before .
So I have a sustainable bee farm for yet another year 
I sold my first queen this year and my first nuc and all went well I sure do love my bees's.


----------



## laketrout

I'm hoping for the goldenrod to last a little longer , I have two new nucs that need to get up to weight and one hive that wintered over from last year thats in good shape weight wise and a huge swarm that I got this summer that is busier than the rest of my hives . We haven't had a frost yet so I would hope the GR is here for awhile , there working it real good so far.


----------



## laketrout

So how are the PA beeks doing , looks like the GR is turning a little brown here but know frost yet, not sure how much more nectar the bee's are going to get . Have most of you taken off your honey . I think my hives are going to be a little light for winter , should I get the honey supers off now , and keep a little honey and start feeding sugar water while its warm enough for them to take it or can I wait a little longer to see if they can bring in more on there own .


----------



## delber

Laketrout it all depends upon your management strategy. If you know they're going to be light I personally wouldn't take any honey. I'd leave it for them. It's better than sugar for them to overwinter. That being said. . . Knowing where you are I'd start feeding now to start them getting ready. You want them to have enough time to get the extra water off of the hive before they cluster for winter.


----------



## waynesgarden

The bees are all over the asters here and the crop of asters is huge compared to what I was used to seeing in Maine. This weekend I'll pull supers and check the bottom boxes. If they're heavy, I'll keep a super on each until frost.

This has been a good year and I won't need to feed. The late splits each got their top medium topped off with honey from the production hives so all will be going into winter with a good supply of stores.

Wayne


----------



## DPBsbees

Laketrout, I don't like to overwinter with supers on unless the hive is so populous it needs the room. You can wind up with a super full of brood in the spring if you can't get it off in time due to the weather. If you don't want to extract the honey, I like to put the super above the inner cover and scratch the cappings. The bees will then take the honey down into the lower boxes and you can then remove the super.


----------



## delber

DPBsbees said:


> If you don't want to extract the honey, I like to put the super above the inner cover and scratch the cappings. The bees will then take the honey down into the lower boxes and you can then remove the super.


Just keep an eye out for SHB. They can wreck havoc in that box that's unguarded. Then the larva will drop down into the hole on the inner cover and things can go from there. I almost lost a hive this way a few years back.


----------



## delber

I just thought of the other option that I'm aware of regarding the super of honey. . . You can put it under the hive so that if they want to they'll move the honey up and if not you can take it off early next spring when it will be empty. There shouldn't be brood in it at that time because they move up in the stack and the brood should be closer to the top.


----------



## DPBsbees

delber said:


> I just thought of the other option that I'm aware of regarding the super of honey. . . You can put it under the hive so that if they want to they'll move the honey up and if not you can take it off early next spring when it will be empty. There shouldn't be brood in it at that time because they move up in the stack and the brood should be closer to the top.


This requires removing the two deeps on my hives. I'm starting to get too old to be doing that all the time. When I put a super above my inner cover last week, there were so many bees in there in minutes that hive beetles couldn't be an issue. I just leave the box there for less than a week, remove and then freeze the frames for about a week, then store them for spring where the wax moths can't get to them.


----------



## laketrout

Sorry for not being more clear , I don't plan on leaving any honey supers on, was wondering if most of you have done your extracting or are still waiting and taking advantage of the GR and asters . I went to all mediums this year and have all my deeps out and converted over to med . so I will be wintering in three mediums .


----------



## GLOCK

What a great year I have had . I have 32 hives all strong and all but 3 are nice and heavy and all are healthy .
I'm feeding 3 last season swarms I took 3 weeks ago.
My fall flow was just the best I have ever seen and the GR honey is so good.
Hopping for a easy winter . I'm still pulling honey and leaving all my DBL. deep's with 100 lb. plus for winter .
My hives have never been this healthy I all most think I know what I'm doing. 
Year three of sustainable bee keeping And 5 years of learning.
Hopping to sell some nuc's next year.
I have done around 6 or 8 alcohol wash's and have not found any VARROA but I'm still going to treat a hive or 2 to see if I get a drop at all I'm pro OAV and treated last fall and seen no mites this year at all.
Hope everyone is having a good year.
GLOCK :thumbsup:


----------



## johnbeejohn

anyone kno what white wild flowers are blooming now coming to an end now grow about 3 feet tall branch out and have clusters of small white flowers have been seeing bees working them pretty heavily ANYONE KNOW???


----------



## Cloverdale

I also have had a good year for honey. I extract a few times during the season to get seasonal honey. I have 3 big hives now from 4 frame NUCS new this past spring, and they gave us well over 300 pounds of honey. Plus one hive we have about 10 miles away produced a dark honey...definitely knotweed but not sure of the other floral mixes. It is yummy!


----------



## GLOCK

johnbeejohn said:


> anyone kno what white wild flowers are blooming now coming to an end now grow about 3 feet tall branch out and have clusters of small white flowers have been seeing bees working them pretty heavily ANYONE KNOW???


Small white asters I bet.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

i agree, Aster. When the Goldenrod starts to brown out, the Asters come on strong. It's the final flurry for the bees before winter, and Aster seems to be the last plant standing.


----------



## burns375

white snakeroot


----------



## DPBsbees

Eupatorium perfoliatum (Common Boneset) possibly?


----------



## johnbeejohn

i kno asters it was snake root i think


----------



## delber

WEll last year we had a great fall flow. So I thought this year would be the same. Man was I WRONG!!! Last year I had a hive in 3 deeps swarm because they were honeybound. (I fed this hive a month before because they were kicking drones out and had no stores either.) This year there was enough for brood up but they didn't store anything at all. Almost all of my hives were on the brink without any stores in there at all. The worst of them had no brood also. So I started feeding and it's amazing how fast they sprung back. Hopefully they'll be fine, but the feed bag is on for sure!!! Here's hoping that the ones that didn't have brood start up again!!! I need good young bees for winter.


----------



## Allen

This has not been a good Fall. 
The nectar flow was not much and started feeding them syrup. Some took it and some didn't.

Four colonies just disappeared with nothing left in the hive in early October.
Another colony died in a small cluster a couple weeks ago when the cold weather hit.
It hit 71 here today and I'm open feeding thick syrup in the home yard till they stop taking it.

At this rate I won't have to buy more supers and frames in Spring.
I had put off running Nucs this past season and with the availability of all the drawn comb from those 5 colonies this Spring will be a good time to start.


----------



## Allen

An update.
Lost one more colony. Small cluster and looks like they starved.
Tomorrow the temps are going in the 50's.
Will be checking on the remaining colonies and replenishing sugar on the inner covers.


----------



## timduvall

i lost a small colony as well. I have 3 hives right now i'm trying to get through the winter. The one is a split gone bad from last year that i'm hoping makes it but we'll see. I reduced them to a single box and put a big sugar block on so here's hoping. the other two are from packages last spring. The one hive actually had a few frames of honey in the 4th super last fall so i'm hoping they will be fine, the other only had 3 medium boxes so i'm adding a sugar block to that hive today to hopefully get them through the next couple months. fortunately, we have had very mild temps so far...but it is getting single digits later this week..


----------



## delber

I've also lost several so far this year. (well in the fall / early winter actually) Mostly due to robbing resulting in small hive numbers. I still have 7 going now. (I just checked them today) 4 are about average, one is smaller than what I'd like to see while the other 2 are looking great. All of them are in single boxes with candy on top. We'll see how things go in a few months. I wish you all well!!!


----------



## GLOCK

Been lucky so far this year have not lost any so far 32 still a humming. I have 3 nucs that are lite and i topped off the sugar to day .:thumbsup:


----------



## PAHunter62

Looking forward to this weekend if the weather cooperates. 46 degrees Sunday in these parts, but a chance of rain. Time to look in on the girls and add sugar where needed. I lost two early this year, but had some sketchy hives coming into fall. 10 hives and 16 NUCS last time I looked.


----------



## PAHunter62

Checked most hives on Friday afternoon. The weather broke just long enough to allow me to finish up with the hives at home this afternoon. All 26 that were alive at last check are still going. There are a couple with smaller sized clusters, but all-in-all they looked pretty good. Added some sugar where needed. I'll look back in a month.


----------



## laketrout

Checked the hives today , it got up close to 40 and all hives are buzzing , temps have been in the single digits and Friday was -4 so I wasn't sure what to expect . The bee's are spending alot of time up on top of the sugar bricks for some reason when they have honey below , I think they just like hanging around up .On cold days I have been closing most of the vents on the quilt box and then opening them up on warm days , also keeping the upper and lower entrances open from all the snow . It would be great to get these through the winter, some were taking flight but didn't see them come back , but so far so good , how are you guys making out .


----------



## timduvall

Had a hive fall over couple weeks ago. I put it back together and checked it yesterday. They are still alive so hopefully they make it. I'm concerned about the queen. Don't know if she died or not when it fell over


----------



## Sr. Tanya

Temps are in the mid 50's, overcast but my 3 hives are flying- Thank God!! I think this was the last chance for them. There was some mid and some dark "residue" outside the hives. 

I had put more sugar on the top bars (newspaper underneath) a couple of days ago since they had eaten all I put on in the fall.

Sr. Tanya


----------



## Kampusa

Erie PA-Checked Saturday 39F no wind, one dead out Soon far out of 13. Appeared to be on top hanging from inner cover-dead??


----------



## waynesgarden

Lost a few this winter. No chance to examine why. Fed the remaining hives today with full mediums of honey from the fall and some dry sugar.

Wayne


----------



## delber

I checked 5 hives yesterday (3 are dead 2 look great) and 2 others today that are still kicking. One looks better than the other, but for now both are still going. So starting with 7 late fall I now have 4. 

Tim, If your hive fell over and the queen was killed they probably wouldn't have clustered back again. The queen from what I know controls a lot of this clustering and keeping everyone "on task" and in order. I'd consider everything fine with this hive since they're still going now. I've lost hives where a queen didn't make it back from a mating flight. The bees really don't know what to do. There's no eggs in the hive and no open brood and no queen. They don't even go out foraging because I guess there's no point. They're as good as dead.


----------



## PAHunter62

During the recent warm-up I checked the 26 hives that were alive in Mid January. Lost 2 more, 4 total for the winter so far. 24 hives still living. I have 2 or 3 more that could look better, but the majority look pretty good. I know I'll need to keep close tabs on them from the end of the month onward as they begin to brood. Stores will be an issue I'll need to address. Sugar bricks on now.


----------



## timduvall

i lost 2 of my 3 hives...what a bummer. I cracked open the cover of the last hive and there were bees all over my sugar cake so I'm confident that hive is fine. Upside is I have a lot of comb built for new packages and swarm traps but I hate losing hives..sets you back a good bit


----------



## Ennui

2 out of my 3 hives didn't make it, but I was expecting to loose all 3. Last year late summer I had some big mite problems and it took down one hive and caused a large population drop in the other 2. While both hives recovered (on their own), the had low populations and a fall flow which barely existed.

Yesterday I cracked open the remaining hive which had bees out doing orientation flights and running errands. There is still honey there and with the warm days I'm not really concerned about the accessibility of it. I found the queen (easiest ever short of a queen cage), but the population seems to consist of the queen and at most a couple hundred workers. Unless there were a lot of bees out of the hive, the cluster would be about the size of an egg.

The one thing I didn't see was brood stage of brood. If there were any eggs present, I didn't see them. There was certainly no larva/capped brood. I realize the weather has to stay warm enough for the bee biomass to be able to cover the brood and keep it warm. That's my concern. No new bees, I assume the old bees will keep dropping off. What is a critical failure size? Should I let them ride or have a reached the point where I should give a ring to another local beekeeper and bring in say a half pound of workers?


----------



## delber

I've successfully brought back hives that were this size to become full size hives in the summer. You don't want to leave them out if the temperatures are going to drop below about 30. I would close them up and put them in our basement. Our basement is dark and about 40-50 degrees. (Stone foundation) I would take them out when I knew the temps would get above 50 so they could fly or at least close so they could peak out the entrance. Last year I had a hive that was this size and they actually "died" one night and I took about a cup of bees from another hive to give to them and they "revived" them and they've successfully overwintered with the same queen this year. When I did this I used a push in cage to keep the queen and the original workers safe and just bumped some bees that were on the lid of another hive. I then closed them up for about 2 days and then I removed the push in cage. It worked well.


----------



## nwpabeeguy

New beek here. Finally a nice day today! I have thus far managed to get my only colony through the winter! I took the opportunity to put a jar of 2-1 syrup on the hive today since it actually reached 60 degrees. Tons of activity going on! No pollen seen yet though. I'm ready for spring to really get going! I've ordered a second package for this year in th


----------



## nwpabeeguy

In the hope of expanding to a second hive. ( accidentally hit post too early). But also I was nervous about actually managing to get my girls through the winter so I was hedging my bets. 😀 Anything I need to know going into my second spring? I'm hoping to actually get my first honey this spring!


----------



## nwpabeeguy

Update, I went back out just before the rain started and there IS pollen coming in! Also lots of brown wax scrapings an some white on the plywood under the SBB. Which if I'm not mistaken indicates new brood hatching ( brown wax) and still honey being uncapped (white wax) correct? Sorry I'm rambling but I'm still excited with this hobby and my wife is really starting to get annoyed with my bee talk lol. I'm still waiting for my first copy of Bee Culture.


----------



## Ennui

Delber, thanks for the info. I'm going to ride it out. I figure they are probably gathering pollen from somewhere, I'm just hoping for enough biomass to keep brood covered.

I've also sprained an ankle pretty badly and can't even walk out to visit the bees right now. They will have to live or die without me.

And if they don't make it... I'll be back here asking if anyone has package to sell.


----------



## Cyan

We actually have a maple tree across the street that appears to be in bloom, but I can't tell what type it is- isn't silver or sugar maple. Located in SW PA. I may go walking tonight and if I do I'll confirm this and post the bloom date in the bloom date thread.


----------



## Aggravated Farmer

I'm in Ohio, We had it hard too. Mine made it through, my great uncle lost two of four. Almost lost a third cause the ground heaved and knocked a dead hive towards a live hive.


----------



## Allen

On 3/11 I added more capped honey to the remaining three colonies and scratched it open.
It's good to see them flying more and more on the warm days.
Tomorrow I'll be able to access another colony that was snowbound back in the bush on a big farm and haven't seen since early January.


----------



## Allen

Was able to 4-wheel in to check on that hive this morning.
The cluster was too small to make it and they starved/froze.


----------



## johnbeejohn

loads of yellowkinda cream colored pollen coming in for a few days now spring is here for sure


----------



## laketrout

Same thing here alot of pale yellow pollen coming in , still no maple blooms or anything else - yet !!


----------



## Cloverdale

No pollen yet in western catskills but are certainly looking. Still too much snore on the ground. Hopefully these next few rainy days will melt it.


----------



## mattallen

Pollen here has a greenish tint to it. I've seen some with blood red pollen coming in as well.


----------



## Allen

It has been colder than normal around these parts.
They are going gangbusters bringing in a pale yellow, bright yellow and orange pollen.
A few days ago I found some capped brood, larvae and eggs on 3 frames.
Happened to see the queen as I was closing up.


----------



## laketrout

Just starting reversals , skunk cabbage pollen is over by the looks of it and not near the pollen coming in . Maples are slow but starting , still no dandelions , but this weekend looks great in the 70's !!!


----------



## Cyan

Newly hived packages have been building comb at a good pace. I've had feed supplemented with HBH on them from the start and noticed them working dandelions and various trees, probably for pollen. Comb and propolis has an almost florescent green color. It should be warm enough this weekend to actually pull a few frames and get a better picture of where they are at with brood.


----------



## FlowerPlanter

wrong thread


----------



## laketrout

Everything blooming here , honeysuckle just starting to open , bee's are bringing in nectar , adding supers !!! This looks like it could be my best spring flow .


----------



## PAHunter62

Yeah, Black Locust started in SE PA earlier in the week. The main flow is on!


----------



## JR1314

Caught a few of my hives wanting to swarm last week. Glad I caught them when I did otherwise I think another day and they were leaving town. Had 8 swarm cells... Added them to a queen castle and a few nucs. Looking like a good spring.


----------



## Cyan

Caught my first swarm today- Fayette County. I checker boarded my hives to get new comb started and to open up laying space. In the process, I created my first 2 nucs with the Beeweaver queens that finally made it. I'm not seeing mites, but I do have a minor ant problem- just a few small ants getting into the feeder. Everything else seems to be going great- I just wish that I had prior hands on experiences to compare this all with.


----------



## Allen

Well I'm back up to 9 colonies and began feeding five of them last week.
Had started all of them on drawn comb and some were obtained a bit late in May.
They need the supplement since the dearth has arrived here.
Have been putting in a little honey b healthy with each batch of sugar water and they go crazy over it. You really have to be careful in the bee yard so a frenzy doesn't get started.
One was a survivor colony, four are nucs, three were split from two packages and one swarm.


----------



## Allen

The first goldenrod of the season is blooming and it couldn't come soon enough.
Japanese knotweed is also starting to bloom but the bees aren't working it yet.


----------



## MaydayMalone

Very unseasonably warm temps in Northeastern PA. I haven't been on here in quited a while. I lost some hives back in October. I wasn't able to treat for mites this past August/September due to the high temps. I was taking a local television news crew to one of my apiaries when I discovered the loss. I had just been in that yard 2 weeks prior and they seemed very strong. We learn from our mistakes. I've been taking advantage of the warm weather by doing some needed fence repair.


----------



## delber

I believe we broke several records last week and I think we'll be breaking some more this coming week also. It's nice to see the girls flying, but I wonder what effect this will have on them. I wonder if this will cause them to go through more stores thinking that spring is coming? We'll see how things go. I wish you all well for the winter to come!!!


----------



## Mike Gillmore

delber said:


> I wonder if this will cause them to go through more stores ...


Yes, it sure will. Warm winter weather encouraging increased flying activity, and no resources coming back in. This is the kind of weather pattern that leaves a lot of hives starved out in late winter/early spring. Keep an eye on their weight later and make sure they have sufficient stores to successfully reach spring and the early nectar flow.


----------



## Allen

It hasn't been a good winter but it was nice to see some bees flying today.
They were bringing in a dull orange and bright orange pollen today and they've got plenty of honey to make it through March.
Four colonies just disappeared in early winter. There were a few bees in the hives and no brood.
A combine didn't make it either.


----------



## DPBsbees

It's been a tough year around here as well. One friend has lost all six hives, another friend has lost 7 of 10. I've done OK so far. Lost 3 of 25. Two expected due to poor queens and one trying to keep brood warm during a cold spell. Hope we don't get any more tough cold spells. I have one more on the edge. My friends who have been tough on mites are doing OK. One more month to go.


----------



## laketrout

I thought survival was looking much better this year from what another thread on here was saying, alot were saying they haven't loss any yet and it seemed like a totally different story from a couple years ago when loss was very high . Allen any idea on the four colonies that disappeared in early winter , no brood maybe a queen issue but four colonies with a queen issue doesn't sound right .


----------



## johnbeejohn

checked mine saturday started winter with 35 about half double nucs and half a mix between single deeps and double deeps so far have lost 5 2 double nucs 2 singles (witch i will not be attempting to overwinter anymore just cant seem to get them right) and 1 double all starved out which is bittersweet for me just glad that i have the mites under control this year with 1 formic treatment in aug can hardly sit still thinking about what this year has to come just trying to get all my new double nuc boxes made know a guy that has a saw mill and wood shop waiting for him to build me a few and let me know if and how much he can beat better bees price


----------



## Cyan

So far, I'm doing good with the garden hive. Over the weekend, the bees were coming back with pollen and some were taking orientation flights. 

Stores are starting to get light, but they have been working the fondant in the candy board. My guess is that since the last warm spell (roughly 3 weeks ago) they have used a pound or less. I have no idea if that's normal, as I can make no comparison. But I have some sugar bricks on hand when needed. I'm just hoping that we are spared any harsh temperature changes.


----------



## Allen

Laketrout, those four seemed to be doing ok with a decent bee population and I'd like to correct the time frame. It was more like late Fall when they were still active.
They disappeared in about a week between inspections and not all at once.
Two of these were swarms and the other two were package bees.
I know two other beekeepers that have had similar problems.
The previous year I had some similar issues with a bee yard located away from home.
All hives treated with MAQS and had no issues with queens.


----------



## laketrout

Finally some pollen coming in today a pale yellow color , I was contemplating putting some pollen substitute out but I have never done it ,always afraid I'll kick start the brooding and then cold weather will come back , I'd rather they get natural pollen and on there time frame .


----------



## virginiawolf

Laketrout, I'm reluctant to add pollen also but I considered it. I feel like there is still some time yet of cold weather so I'm thinking that the bees will be clustered a good bit for a few more weeks at least. A good thing about adding some pollen here early in the season if you chose to do it is that the beetles probably won't be a problem. The bees were out today looking all around but I didn't get close enough to see if pollen was coming in. I'm glad that you mentioned that. I will look closer next time. The warm days haven't been frequent. Today we could feel warm breezes blowing up the mountain as night started to fall. It felt like heat from a dryer vent would pass us and then it was cool again. It was a beautiful day.


----------



## Allen

The temps hit 64 degrees yesterday so I did a quick hive inspection. 
The girls were orienting and bringing back yellow pollen in addition to the other colors this time. 
Maybe it's just me but I can stand next to the entrance for awhile and watch them come and go doing their thing. Very relaxing. 

The cluster is covering 3 deep frames on all sides and there are two deeps of honey above them. 
They should be fine till the dandelions bloom. 
Found a small batch of eggs and immediately put everything back together. The eggs were low on the frame and there is plenty of honey directly above the brood area.

Am going to be pulling honey off all the dead hives this coming week and may be extracting soon. 
I tried pollen patties a few years ago and they didn't care for it. 
Now that three different kinds of pollen are coming in, they seem to have that covered.

This is a link to a vid of the girls on my instagram page:
[video]https://www.instagram.com/p/BCD29h9nJWG/[/video]


----------



## Zib

Hello! I have not had great success over the past few years with hives always lost them over the winter. But this year has changed. I went into winter with 3 hives from packages in spring and a late swarm that I found (not from my hives). Going in to winter the swarm was the weakest hive. Lost one of the package hives in December for starving since they still had brood? I think the weather changed to quick.

Fast forward to yesterday we were in the 60's and had all 3 brining in pollen! The swarm hive seems to now have the the largest population! The other 2 seem good but not to strong.

I am excited for this year and can't wait to see how a hive reacts that is established!!!


----------



## laketrout

Zip , they can build up really fast and swarm on you , you can just tell from the number of bee's sometimes compared to your other hives. I have one that will definitely need to be split this year its loaded , bee's just flow out over the rim when I add sugar bricks if its fairly warm out and they are always the first to fly in marginal weather . Its good news just keep a eye on it and get your gear ready for a split.


----------



## Allen

Zib, congrats on the three survivor hives so far.
Just to echo what Laketrout said, if the Spring nectar flow is anything like last year you will have to stay on top of them.
If you're not keeping the broodnest clear and adding honey supers, they quickly become honey bound and then swarm.
Last Spring I was rearranging the honey super frames by placing the outside untouched frames in to the middle to give them extra room.

A couple of new beekeepers last season didn't realize how strong the Spring flow was coming in and their brood frames were getting back-filled with nectar.
They were running two deep supers on the bottom.
We added a third deep to each affected hive and checker-boarded fresh frames into the bottom deeps.
Then the honey frames from the bottom deeps were placed into the third deep on the outside edges.

Both newbies harvested honey off of their first year package bees.

I don't know how many people know about http://foresthillbeesupply.com/.
Ike has great prices and a good product.


----------



## Zib

Thanks Laketrout and Allen! Look forward to learning about how the bees are reacting in our area as we go through the season. 

I have never heard of http://foresthillbeesupply.com/ but I am for sure going to look in to them. Always nice to support the closest business to where you live.


----------



## johnbeejohn

are they amish?? prices seem to be very good will be giving them a call very soon and there all but right down the road!!!!!


----------



## Allen

They are Amish and you'll probably get their vx mail.
He has quite the operation there.


----------



## laketrout

Checked the hives this afternoon , temps were probably 55 degrees , they were bring in huge amounts of pollen, alot of the bee's were completely covered in a dull yellow pollen , not sure but I was assuming it was from skunk cabbage for this time of year but now I'm not sure only saw a couple bee's in the little swamp near the hives and the skunk cabbage doesn't seem to be up to much yet .Also noticed some hives taking sugar brick material out of the hive .Very happy to see them all flying again and no loss , but not out of the woods yet temps are all over the place but were in a warming trend right now, suppose to hit 70 on Wes.


----------



## Allen

It is great to see activity in the bee yard and the first dandelion of the year was seen on 3/1 in this area.
The weather folks are saying its going to be a rainy Spring but I hope not.
This afternoon I'm going to help a new beekeeper with some hive inspections.
She was one of several that I mentored last year and I'm anxious to see how those bees are doing.


----------



## nwpabeeguy

Hey all. My hive made it through the winter, such as it were, this year. Hopefully ,unlike last year, a bear won't get them in April. Since this year will be my first time going through swarm season I was looking for some advice on timing. Such as when or if I should swap boxes or open the brood nest or add supers. I'm in Lawrence county, the weather this week looks awesome. Mid 60's all week. The girls have been bringing in tons of pollen whenever they can fly for the last couple of weeks. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!


----------



## nwpabeeguy

I should add, I overwintered in 2 deeps, which feel very heavy still. I'd guesstimate between 30-50 lbs. I have a bunch of empty frames from last year's bear attack. No drawn supers. I use medium. I'd really like to get my supers drawn this spring so I might finally get honey this fall. Also I'm still not sure when the main flow gets going. Is it when the dandelions bloom or the Apple trees?


----------



## timduvall

im in western pa....I have 3 hives that made it through...checked the one Saturday....lots of pollen coming in (white and green). Probably had close to 4 frames of brood but no Drone brood yet. What are you all seeing? The bottom brood boxes were totally empty so I reversed them. The queen and brood are now the bottom box with 2 empty brood boxes above them. They still had a frame of honey and I'm feeding sugar water to get them through. Hope to get in my other 2 hives soon and see how they are doing.


----------



## Cyan

I also see the white and green pollen coming in. Bees still working at the fondant and they appear perhaps stronger now than in the fall. Hoping to do a complete inspection and box swap this weekend. 

I visited an area where a tree was cut down yesterday. A friend had said that a large colony was inside of it and that there were bees and comb everywhere. My hope was to secure some empty comb for swarm traps and to see what else I could save/salvage, but when I arrived it was apparent that there was a bit of exaggeration to the story. The tree was long gone, and only small clumps of honey soaked comb remained. The bees? Just the occasional forager taking advantage of a quick and easy meal. Sad though that such a large and established colony will most likely meet its end. 

Lastly, I hung my first swarm trap today- more or less. I wanted to try the fiber pot design I have been seeing on the net. I made a few modifications and picked a method of waterproofing- so this is basically a test to see how they will hold up in the rain. But, since I went through all the trouble of putting it together and hanging it, it got a few shots of lemongrass oil for good luck.


----------



## Allen

Lots of bright yellow pollen coming in.
Maybe it is the Maple trees starting to bloom.

I've got multiple deeps with syrup/honey in capped and uncapped cells and will use them for splits.
Not sure what else to do with it.

How will you folks do your splits?

I get together another bottom board, deep super with frames (drawn comb or foundation), inner cover and outer cover
Once those are ready, a second spot is prepared about 10' away from the parent hive location.
This is usually done in the middle of the day.
The outer cover is placed on the ground and the supers are stacked on the outer cover as they come off the parent hive.
When I get to the bottom deep, I move the entire bottom board and deep to the new spot.
Then I place the new bottom board and deep with about 4 frames missing in the original parent hive location.
Three frames of brood and eggs plus a frame of honey are removed from one of the parent hive deep supers and placed into the new deep.
I check and double check to make sure the queen is not on those frames before moving them.
The new deep gets closed up and a small entrance reducer is added to minimize robbing.
I finish re-assembling the parent hive in the new location and close it up.
The field bees come back throughout the day to the new hive in the original location and populate it.
Hopefully a new queen will be raised and survive her mating flights.
If I don't see queen cells in about a week, I'll add a frame of eggs to the new hive.


----------



## Scitfrostbite

I thought dead bees face down/butts up in cells meant starvation? Do others go by that?


----------



## Cyan

I found fresh drone comb today, with 3-5 day old larvae. Apparently the old dc was back filled with syrup last fall.


----------



## laketrout

Finally looks like the warm weather is here , April sure has been a roller coaster with windy cold rainy weather , we had warmer days in March !! I was afraid with the warm weather early on that the bee's really started brooding up and then that cold nasty weather came in for quite a few weeks . I haven't been able to get inside my hives yet and we are into the 2nd week in April . I put pollen patties and sugar bricks on to get them through and they were all flying today so things are looking up . How is everybody doing .


----------



## Cyan

laketrout said:


> Finally looks like the warm weather is here , April sure has been a roller coaster with windy cold rainy weather , we had warmer days in March !! I was afraid with the warm weather early on that the bee's really started brooding up and then that cold nasty weather came in for quite a few weeks . I haven't been able to get inside my hives yet and we are into the 2nd week in April . I put pollen patties and sugar bricks on to get them through and they were all flying today so things are looking up . How is everybody doing .


Feeling grateful for the warmer weather, that's for sure. Tomorrow I will check to see if 2 new queens have been released, but I won't disturb them any further than necessary. Things look real good outside the hives though- plenty of pollen going in and a fair amount of activity. :thumbsup:


----------



## Kampusa

Hives were all flying and bringing in Pollen. Will inspect this weekend and probably add supers.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

I'm in Westmoreland county too. Lots of pollen and activity. I had put a hive box on one large hive in March for a split and when the temps dipped into the teens I lost a few larvae. However, with this warm up I will be adding a super to each of the other hives today. They are building up fast.


----------



## Dirtysailor

First Nuc quite busy over the weekend.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

Made two nuc's from my largest hive and still have a third hive box on for a split. So far this has been a productive and busy spring.


----------



## Cyan

Does anyone know of anyone still selling Italian or Carniolan nucs in or around southwest PA?


----------



## Johnnycake

Hey new beek here, but just wanted to say that I went to Ike's place (Forest Hill that you mentioned above) to get my medium 8 frame hive set up and some extras to start this year's bees in mid-April. Great place. Will definitely continue to get my hive equip there.

Anyone know what's happening now in terms of flow? I've got tulip poplars all over and they are making B-lines for the giant one about 200 ft. from my hive and also bringing in loads of pollen - dark orange. Tomorrow is day 24 since Queen release so I am just starting to see orientation flights yesterday and today (new package installed April 30th) They've now moved up into the second medium box that I added a week ago and are drawing comb up there on 2 frames which is good I guess. Just wondering what all to expect with this wacky weather cycle and what is blooming, etc.


----------



## timduvall

Cyan said:


> Does anyone know of anyone still selling Italian or Carniolan nucs in or around southwest PA?


Back to nature store in indiana county called me the other day with swarms and a couple nucs for sale. You might try them


----------



## johnbeejohn

timduvall said:


> Back to nature store in indiana county called me the other day with swarms and a couple nucs for sale. You might try them


Poplar locust black berries right now


----------



## Allen

The ups and downs with the cold weather in April caused some the queens in these parts to stop laying.
Its an odd sight after seeing them kick into gear and then nothing but they picked up again.
I know of several swarms in the area and was able to get two of them.
Was given two splits and a Nuc from some newbies that I mentored last year and had over-wintered hives.
I split my giant colony that had 4 deeps and a medium.
Almost all of the colonies have 3 deeps and a shallow or medium.
Because the nectar flow has been so heavy, I've had to add additional deeps to keep the brood nest open.
Multiple supers of the same size really help with checker boarding.

Honeysuckle is still going strong and the tulip poplars are just starting to bloom.
I've heard that Locust is starting out near Hershey but not around here yet.
Am almost out of equipment and may need to buy more.


----------



## johnbeejohn

I'm in the same situation I have 0 drawn comb left have been r melting and rolling all the frames I can 8m also hoping to extract next weekend to free up some drawn comb trying to keep up with the bees is getti ng to be a part time job for me haha


----------



## delber

Yea I tried about a week ago to put an empty frame or two in the brood nest for them to "open things up" but as they draw it out they are filling it with nectar also. It's quite difficult without empty drawn frames to keep things open this time of year. I just tonight took my queen and a few frames from my strong hive so they don't swarm. She was laying wherever she could find, but it was very spotty because they were filling the cells as fast as they were emerging.


----------



## Allen

Even though we haven't had much rain the girls are still bringing in some nectar.
A couple of the hives re-queened themselves for one reason or other in the last few weeks.

I pulled honey yesterday and only got a full shallow, full medium, and 15 deep frames.

Most of that came from the tall hive.
The others are swarms or splits and are plodding along.

They were grumpy and the humidity caused my bee suit to stick to me.
So they took advantage of it and nailed me on the back, arm and legs. LOL
The hives are about 80 yards from the house and finished around 2pm.
The bees followed me to the back door and hovered around there for the rest of the day.

I stepped out on the porch for a moment around 3:30 and they went right for me. LOL

The big hive is almost 7' tall in the photo.


----------



## Cyan

The bees here just keep building and building- taking full advantage of a great clover bloom. The bloom we had last year doesnt even come close. Regardless, its allowed me to make some strong splits and may allow me to harvest some honey in the fall, if the fall flow is as generous.


----------



## laketrout

Isn't it dry where you guys are , looks like we could move into a early dearth here with very little rain at all , clover is up but not sure if there getting much from it .


----------



## DPBsbees

Looks like the dearth has started here. I need to feed my recent splits to get comb drawn.


----------



## Cyan

No, not at all. We had a fairly wet spring here and up to this point, i think the longest span that we havent had percipitation was 7 days give or take a few days. Along with that heavy clover bloom, we also have Hostas, Rose of Sharon, Echinacea, Oregano, and various wild flowers in bloom. Best year for all in a good while. The best part is that all that spring rain has made the Knotweed (Japanese Bamboo) just explode. As long as it doesnt get too dry, it will be a great fall.


----------



## johnbeejohn

I have 3 yards one in the Lebanon Valley has slowed on the wax drawing other 2 are along Creek bottoms still drawing comb 
Made my last round of splits in middle June assuming I would not be able to with the dearth coming but I could have made another 20 nucs in two yards near the creeks my double nucs that I did not split are up to 3 supers high again 
Really blown away this year by how my bees are expanding this guy might be quitting his day job next year


----------



## johnbeejohn

I have 3 yards one in the Lebanon Valley has slowed on the wax drawing other 2 are along Creek bottoms still drawing comb 
Made my last round of splits in middle June assuming I would not be able to with the dearth coming but I could have made another 20 nucs in two yards near the creeks my double nucs that I did not split are up to 3 supers high again 
Really blown away this year by how my bees are expanding this guy might be quitting his day job next year


----------



## Cyan

Microclimates- thats how a handful of people still do well while the majority in a region do poorly. But in most cases, you cant bank on them from year to year, like here.


----------



## Johnnycake

It's been really dry here but somehow things still going really strong. In addition to what Cyan listed also Mountain Mint, milkweed, and Hyssop. 

Thistle just opening here and believe it or not I just saw some Goldenrod opening across the street in VF park on my run...


----------



## laketrout

We are in finally getting a good rain shower as I type this , rained for maybe 30 mins pretty hard hope its enough to keep the flow going .


----------



## Allen

I extracted approx 120lbs a couple weeks ago and most of it came from two hives.
All of them are still bringing in nectar and may get another deep and some mediums of honey if they can cap it.
They all look good with honey stores and no feeding is needed.


----------



## laketrout

We got 2'' of rain on Sat. much needed , its been hit and miss with t. storms , I have alot of frames 3/4 capped , seems like we are close to a dearth but then some rain comes along . I'm seeing them more down at my lean-to where I keep equipment stored and if I leave a box with the smallest opening I have a couple hundred bee's in no time .


----------



## Cyan

Observations over the last two weeks lead me to believe that we are starting to go into a dearth even though there is a fair amount of clover left. That clover is dwindling though. There isn't a great deal of pollen coming in and brood production is dropping off. I may decide to lightly feed them- keep them drawing comb for the fall flow.

Rumor has it that we should expect an extended and warmer than average fall. Sure hope we can continue to count on this rain to keep everything in bloom at that time.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

I'm in Westmoreland County too but the rains have missed us with one recent exception. Very dry here. I've been putting out my extractor, pails that held honey and the like after extracting and am now down to nothing more to offer.

How do you feed them?


----------



## Cyan

You can mix up a batch of sugar syrup, keeping in mind not to mix frames of it with any of your honey at harvest time. The bees will use it, but it doesn't turn to honey.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

Cyan,

Thank you. I've done this before but thought there might be another way. 

Inside or our of the hive? I have pesty raccoons that knock the jars off the front of the hives.


----------



## Cyan

Tbh, this is about the worst time of year to use entrance feeders because it usually promotes robbing. So, if I were to feed, I'd use an internal feeder and not use any feeding supplimets or any type of essential oils that attract bees.

Recipes for the syrup and what they use to help preserve it in this heat, can be found in the forum and online. Keep in mind, that's how I'd handle it, but I'm sure that you will want to consult someone more experienced.


----------



## Allen

Talk about a nutty winter.
These yo-yo temps where it warms up enough for them to break cluster and then rapidly plunges to freezing and stays there has been hard on the bee yard.
The bees can't cluster back together quick enough and end up in little clusters that starve.
I've lost 5 colonies so far and the remaining two are still hanging in there.

The bees are bringing back yellow and tan pollen.
It's nice to see the bee yard "alive" again.

A friend who used to keep bees but no longer has the time, keeps a hive in his backyard.
He catches a swarm every Summer.
Most of them don't make it and I checked on the latest colony in there.
They were still alive and the population looks huge.
The best part is, is that I get to keep any colony that survives the Winter.
Am also getting a package in March.

Picked up a few 5 frame Nuc boxes at Forest Hill Woodworking yesterday with some extra 5 frame supers for on top.
Am going to experiment with them this season.

With the mild temps starting early, we may see swarms happening earlier this year.
I've got three locations to set out swarm traps and plan to have them ready by the beginning of March.

Our honey harvest last year was approx. 200lbs which included honey from the Fall of 2015 that wasn't used during the following Winter.


----------



## delber

I have lost several this year also perhaps because of the weather issues. I had 7 now I'm at 3 and the 2 that looked the best going into winter are gone. The one that looked the smallest is now the largest. Go figure!!


----------



## Sr. Tanya

I went into winter with 6 colonies. Several were light and I didn't think they'd make it and they didn't. I'm really checking out the various mite options for spring, summer and fall. I have three strong ones left and if all goes well, will try to make a split or two. What did you do with mite control, *delber*?


----------



## delber

I used OA vapor as I was queenless this summer with new queens. I reared my own and just before the queen would have started laying I treated with OA vapor. I also did OA dribble in December but I don't think I'll do that again because this is where I had 2 stronger hives that were dead a month later. The dribble was a recomendation of a friend from my beekeeping club and he did it last year and has done it successfully for many years.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

Thank you! I was wondering if OA vapor was THE answer but since I don't have the equipment, I won't go in that direction.


----------



## birddog

Delber,
It is unlikely the dribble caused your losses
It is more likely your augest treatment wasent effective enough or it was other causes. However it is possible none of your treatments were verry effective in that case you would blame operator error not the products. Consider the purpose of a thanksgiving treatment,,,,,, the idea is to knock down the last few mites that may be there in prep for spring brood rearing the fact is in pa thanksgiving day your winter bees are in the box already ,for the most part and thay have been bitten by mites or not so if in fact you determined without a doubt mites were the cause of your dead out you need to look at your augest treatment first then again at what you did with the oad as there should have been little to no evidence of mites a month after oad when applied properly to a broodless colony. With the exception of might frass in comb that again points to a time when there was brood,, ie the winter bee production period. On a last note,, i dont see any advantages of oad over oav for a thanksgiving treatment when one owens a vaporiser however i do see advantages of harsher treatments for augest treatments compared to oav


----------



## delber

OA Vaporizer. . . 1/2" copper pipe cut to about 7" long, smash one side, roll it over by about 1/8", smash it down again. I then insert that in the hive entrance, seal around the sides and use a propane torch. I tested it out in empty boxes first and it worked very well. Before I did this I borrowed a unit from a guy in our club and tested it in the box as well to see how it responded to get things right. I've been told that you can heat the OA up too fast and cause it to be toxic to the bees so I wanted to make sure that I did it at the right speed. It takes about 1.5 minutes to complete per hive. I made up 4 of the copper pipes and I can allow the first to cool and leave it sealed up for about the 10 minutes that it takes me to get through the other 3 then it's also cool enough to take out and continue on. I figure I can do a ton this way. 

Birddog I appreciate your thoughts. I will consider it however my experience with mite deadouts are when the cold weather hits they are short for this world. They don't last in a cold snap of about a week under 20 degrees. Well these 2 hives I'm thinking about were looking great when I did the OAD in Mid - late December. I have never lost a hive that looked like that in December unless it was to starving and both of these had plenty of stores. One honey and the other sugar syrup all capped. I am reasonably confident that the OAV was effective this summer. I could see them on the bottom board. I didn't do any further test after the oav though to see how many I had.


----------



## delber

Amazon has a container of OA for about 7.00 if I remember right. This will last a LONG time.


----------



## birddog

Delbercan i ask how many treatments you applyed in augest


----------



## manpunchingbear

I grew acquainted with a family of beekeepers (three generations) near Pymatuning last summer, purchasing a package from their bee yard that had been successful at decades of overwintering. I lost 4 of my strongest hives by December 2016 and suspect it was what they are now referring to a "mite bomb" because they were very strong going into winter. Most of the honey stored for winter was still present and two of the hives had a large presence of dead mites at the bottom. I contacted Bill to get on his list for more packages and he told me that he lost half of his yard from the OAV treatments that may have been too strong. While I intended to go treatment free, my philosophy has changed a bit and I am going to treat all of my hives and packages with Apivar strips this spring and figure out something for fall. Based on news and research that I get from some of the beekeeping associations, I have read in the last few days that they believe mites are cyclical... they suspect "mite bombs" are contributing to hive failure... and I read a more scientific article yesterday about the features of the mite genome and how it is different when in bee colonies than when outside of colonies which can affect the way they treat. But the OA Drips and vapor approach seems to have mixed results.

The one hive that has been successful overwintering multiple years so far with no treatment is my hive of Minnesota Hygienics, but I did see a mite on one of the bees during last Sunday inspection.

I grew up in Latrobe / Greensburg, my parents attended St Vincent / Seton Hill, and my paternal grandparents farmed in Latrobe... are you located near Carmel? I do not remember anyone keeping bees as I was growing up and now find it interesting to learn of the pockets of beekeepers and hives around the region. I keep a few hives in Pittsburgh and more in Franklin.




Sr. Tanya said:


> Thank you! I was wondering if OA vapor was THE answer but since I don't have the equipment, I won't go in that direction.


----------



## IsedHooah

The use of OA and VARROX vaporizer has been a game changer for me these last two years. I treat once in mid August during a dearth or brood break, right before the feeders go on. Then I treat again in early to mid November; this one requires the 3 treatments a week apart. Haven't lost any hives due to mites since (knock on wood).


----------



## manpunchingbear

That is reassuring to hear. 

Out of curiosity... if the treatments kill existing mites over the three week period, I wonder if there is there a residual chemical left that also kills future mites for a period of time? What I read a few days ago about the mite bombs, essentially we can have a strong colony that is relatively mite-free but it can quickly get an infestation just before winter sets in if it robs a feral colony (or neighboring hive) that has a mite infestation and crash.

Three treatments a week apart for multiple hives sounds like it can be fairly time-intensive for a month.






IsedHooah said:


> The use of OA and VARROX vaporizer has been a game changer for me these last two years. I treat once in mid August during a dearth or brood break, right before the feeders go on. Then I treat again in early to mid November; this one requires the 3 treatments a week apart. Haven't lost any hives due to mites since (knock on wood).


----------



## IsedHooah

manpunchingbear said:


> That is reassuring to hear.
> 
> Out of curiosity... if the treatments kill existing mites over the three week period, I wonder if there is there a residual chemical left that also kills future mites for a period of time? What I read a few days ago about the mite bombs, essentially we can have a strong colony that is relatively mite-free but it can quickly get an infestation just before winter sets in if it robs a feral colony (or neighboring hive) that has a mite infestation and crash.
> 
> Three treatments a week apart for multiple hives sounds like it can be fairly time-intensive for a month.


This type of management can be labor intensive for larger operations, but I find it works well for my 10-20 hive set up. As far as the residual chemical in the hive, I don't think it would be potent enough to kill any mites that may enter the hive after about 10 or 15 minutes to the hive being opened back up from the treatment. This may be different if you use solid bottom boards, but I can't comment to that for sure. 

To your comment about robbing; that is why I treat just before I load my hives with feeders. I do my best to keep the robbing instinct to a minimum by feeding heavily.

Here's a good thread discussing OA use. http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...e-treatments-over-21-days-detrimental-to-bees


----------



## PaBill

Pollen on February 23rd in rural north western Pa. (Clearfield County) or what else could it be?


----------



## delber

birddog said:


> Delbercan i ask how many treatments you applyed in augest


I treated once as they were broodless with a young queen. The queen should have started laying the week after I treated. I actually think I did it in late July as the queen should have started laying the first week in August if I remember right. (I didn't record timing - sorry for that) but it was only one treatment. The treatment 3 times a week apart is for a hive with brood and a laying queen. I chose to do it as they were broodless. Could that have effected the queen? I'm not sure. I may experiment more with that this year. I may see if the 3 weeks treatment effects things differently than a broodless single treatment.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

manpunchingbear,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. I am trying to get a better handle on treating. I think my losses are from not doing a good job treating for varroa.


----------



## Allen

Cracked the hives yesterday and saw a mix of eggs, larvae, and capped brood in all of them.
Hope we don't get an extended freezing spell before Spring hits.


----------



## Cloverdale

PaBill, could be anything that is soft and powdery.


----------



## PaBill

Just noticed yesterday that some of the willows have the soft grey buds already so that would be my guess. Never seen the willows budding this early.


----------



## pejam

Pike county Northeast PA, at 1300 feet. Just had an hour or so to check my foraging bees before the front came through. About 50% of returning bees had baskets full of yellow pollen. Maples have gone to bud....terrible year for sap, but to me there is no doubt they are collecting maple pollen. Getting fruit to set looks like a challenge again this year. First spring with bees and that too looks like it won't be a walk in the park.


----------



## camero7

pussy willows blooming 4 weeks earlier than last year here in MA


----------



## missybee

Dandelions, daffodils, peach trees blooming here in zone 6b, the first dandelion last year was 3/11 and it was snowing. The plum has leafed out and has beautiful buds on it.


----------



## Zib

How is everyone handling this weather? Not sure if it is time for 1:1 or more winter parties!


----------



## EvilZeg

Sticking with MC sugar for now, these temperature swings are crazy.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

Same thing here, with the weather swings. I still have the sugar blocks on but had added some bee pro when the weather was a bit warmer last month. It's also finishing off any of the smaller clusters. I wonder if I should be giving them some insulation protection going into winter.


----------



## birddog

Just made and put fondant on last sunday will continue with fondant for a another week or 2 depending on end of next weeks 10 day forcast. The 30 day shows promise


----------



## IsedHooah

Looks like weather is finally starting to trend the right way.... I have some packages coming next week, so that is a good feeling at least. Although there is a lot of potential rain in the forecast for the next week or so.


----------



## Allen

The three survivor hives are still alive and the queens started ramping up their egg laying only to shut down again once the cold came back.
They haven't gone through the extra honey I added during winter and when I checked yesterday they've got approx 100lbs left.

Zib, if your bees have honey then that's all you need.
The bees have been bringing back all sorts of pollen on the warm days we've been having and I don't spend money on substitutes.


----------



## costigaj

Dittos here. Homemade sugar bricks as insurance. Still a fair amount of honey. Bees were enjoying the bricks. I also added some powdered pollen sub about a month ago which they consumed quite readily over the last 30 days. They've been flying in the warm days and by the looks of the numbers. the queen has probably been laying.

Btw, maple buds are opening and my neighbors ornamental pear buds are opening.


----------



## laketrout

Anyone seeing any swarming in the northern half of Pa yet .


----------



## wildbranch2007

laketrout said:


> Anyone seeing any swarming in the northern half of Pa yet .


no but when the next 7 days of rain ends, the trees will be filled with them


----------



## laketrout

Mine swarmed around the middle of May last year and I have one exceptionally big hive that I want to split before that date but I'm not seeing the drones flying , there are alot inside maybe I haven't spent enough time watching .But this weekend if its nice would be good .


----------



## timduvall

Got a swarm today in my pine tree. Second swarm in this tree this year. First was a small swarm and left my box.


----------



## laketrout

Its getting close Im sure in my area too and now with all of this rain I can't get it done . Wonder what a long rain storm like this does to virgin queens that just hatched out do they wait it out or do they go for broke and fly out to mate in marginal weather .


----------



## delber

As long as it's not too long they'll go out the first day it's nice. If it's too long then you could lose the queen. A couple days either way I've seen them go out. Last year I had a storm hit the day mating flights were to come. The storm lasted 3 or 4 days. I had out of either 4 or 6 queens I had only one not get mated properly. I know that a couple of them went out the day before the storm based on when she started laying.


----------



## laketrout

So there in a pretty good hurry to mate , what do you mean by , if its to long you can loose them , do you mean to long outside flying or to long in the hive waiting to fly out .


----------



## COAL REAPER

laketrout said:


> Anyone seeing any swarming in the northern half of Pa yet .


nothing in the niorthern half of NJ yet. but expect some actino after next weekends rain.


----------



## delber

laketrout said:


> So there in a pretty good hurry to mate , what do you mean by , if its to long you can loose them , do you mean to long outside flying or to long in the hive waiting to fly out .


too long waiting in the hive to fly out. The problem with this is it's difficult to know / see if you don't see any eggs in the hive. If you suspect this I'd put in a frame of eggs from another hive at the time that she should be laying and if they start q-cells then you know that she's not doing so hot. This will also keep the number up in the hive if she's a little longer to start laying for all of the same reasons. If you are able I'd add another frame of eggs about 1.5 weeks after the first unless she has started to lay. They will probably "oust" her at this point and start new cells which then you can either put another queen in or another cell or let them rear their own. You just want to make sure that your frame is soft "white" wax not dark wax or else the queen that they rear won't be a good one.


----------



## Johnnycake

Swarming here north of Philly. One of my hives swarmed two days ago. Witnessed the whole thing from start to finish. They ended up 30 ft up a spruce right next to the hive. Went and got all my gear and by the time I did and went back they were gone.

BTW Tulip Poplars peaking and clover is popping up.


----------



## Johnnycake

My God I've got two hives that won't stop. Cast a swarm each and both have now sent out 2 afterwarms (as far as I have witnessed). I am choosing to experiment and not go in and cut cells. I'm just going to let them do what they do - we'll see if they calm down or swarm themselves out. They like a Mulberry right in the apiary and I've been able to nab 3 of the swarms so far - 3 have gone elsewhere.

Heck if you live in Montco or Chester co. keep your eyes out cause they be a swarming! :banana:


----------



## timduvall

got a swarm in my backyard trap. that makes 3 so far in my backyard.


----------



## PAHunter62

I'm not doing much swarm trapping this year since I had most colonies overwinter. I decided to help out another beekeeper that lost his hives and home in a fire. I put out a small line (four traps) using his frames to bait. A bear tore one down and smashed it to pieces (same location bear got a captured swarm late last summer - guess that tree is out of the mix until the bear is gone). My other three traps all caught swarms. I also found a swarm on a fallen tree in a field close to one of my traps and hived it for him. Caught another in my fathers driveway (in a tree I caught four swarms last summer), and also caught four other swarms in traps near my apiary sites (not all from my hives). I'm up to nine this year without too much effort. We'll see what the next month brings.


----------



## Zib

Where do you all think we are at with Nector flow? I don't feel like there is a lot coming in but it could be weather hard to collect with all the rain.


----------



## timduvall

don't know how it will end but I have 2 hives that made it through winter the one has a medium totally full and the other has a deep practically full. that's really early for western PA but I'll take it.


----------



## costigaj

Zib said:


> Where do you all think we are at with Nector flow? I don't feel like there is a lot coming in but it could be weather hard to collect with all the rain.


Mines fairly good out here in the Sothwest central area. I plan on robbing some in a few weeks.


----------



## Allen

Hey, how are all your colonies doing?
I went into winter with 6 full size and 2 Nucs and am down to one full size 8 frame hive.
When it was in the 50's one day, I placed two deep supers of honey from the other hives on top and closed it up.
Did a quick inspection the other day when it was up to 60 degrees and found they were at the top already with brood.
Some mediums and deep supers below the cluster still had honey and moved those boxes up on top.
Also removed a medium and 2 deeps from the stack.
https://www.facebook.com/furnacecreekhoneyco/photos/pcb.1963058600613497/1963058560613501/?type=3&theater

Our two bee club colonies are still alive at this point and have plenty of honey, egg, larvae, and capped brood.
If the temps continue to stay warm like this, I'll be monitoring them in case they need syrup.

Last Fall I saw my first spotted lanternfly here in Robesonia.
Not looking forward to more of that.

How is everyone else doing?


----------



## Sr. Tanya

Hi Allen,

I went into winter with 6 hives (one was a late nuc which I didn't think would make it and it didn't). I now have 3 but they are robust and it looks like I can make 2 or 3 splits from them. That'll get me back to my 6.


----------



## COAL REAPER

tall stacks you have for winter there. I would use caution adding supers of honey above the clusters when winter is not yet over. these boxes from deadouts are ambient temperature, up to 90 pounds worth of ambient temperature. big heat sink. that and breaking seals between boxes may be quite disruptive to the colony and prevent them from clustering when it got cold again. if somebody rearranged all the furniture in your house before you came home from work one evening, how would you sleep that night?
try to get to the bottom of WHY your other colonies are dying. if you have honey left in the boxes, then its not because of lack of food...
anyways, I treated my bees for mites this fall after playing the 'treatment free' game for years. my bees have never looked better. only 8 colonies. lost 1 nuc in December. got pattys on them the 17th, first pollen noticed the 20th.


----------



## Allen

Coal Reaper, I don't want to turn this thread into a debate but wanted to answer your comments.
This past season and current winter are the worst I've ever had.
Usually experience 50% mortality.
The yo-yo temp swings caused most of the clusters to break apart.
When the temps crashed at night and stayed there, the isolated smaller clusters starved.

Yeah, some of my hive stacks are tall but what you are seeing in that photo beyond the ratchet strapped hive, is three dead hives placed onto two.
The survivor colony was huge going into winter and there was no way to crowd them into two deeps and a medium. Especially in 8 frame boxes.
That colony goes back several years now and plan to make some nucs from it.
As to placing honey on top of the stack, when they move off empty cells and onto uncapped honey, they have to warm up that honey before they consume it.
This is no different and the cluster warms up what they need.

When bees are at the top of the hive in winter and have no more honey, what should I do differently?
Their emergency sugar is only going to last so long?
I've always added honey to the stack in late Feb or early March and it hasn't killed any yet that were alive up to then.

I'm also aware of the dangers of breaking the propolis seal. 
The hive was rearranged when I knew that the temps weren't going to be crashing again and would be in the 40's and up.
If the temps were going down consistently I would have re-wrapped the hive.
I think the house analogy is a bit much as the two boxes that they were clustered in was put back in the same configuration on the bottom of the stack.

I had major issues last season with queens. All of the hives except the remaining colony re-queened themselves more than once during the Spring flow and on into the dearth.
I've treated with MAQS for several years and winter mortality is no different than when I didn't treat.
Am done wasting money on chemicals.

Glad your bee yard is doing good.
What chemicals are you treating with and how are you applying them?


----------



## COAL REAPER

yeah, not looking for a pissing match. I didn't say what you did was wrong, just that I would use caution. and it sounds like you did. very well.
its early still so I am not counting just quite yet. I jumped right to apivar per manufacturer instructions applied early july when dearth comes for my location. saw no DWV in the fall like I had in past years. I am used to only 2 or three hives making it through winter, sometimes only 1. then rebuilding. another month to go. historically over half would crash before the new year.


----------



## PHSINV

Glad I found a PA group! 6y beek. Have had 2 hives survive winter out of maybe 25 during that time including 9 that bought it last fall. Fed up with “treatment free.” Couple questions: 1) anyone use a single deep (instead of 2 deeps or 3 mediums) for a brood chamber and 2) anyone ever get enough goldenrod in fall to have a fall crop?


----------



## PHSINV

Oops - double post


----------



## Allen

Hi PHSINV, how is the weather in Franklin Co?
I use double deeps mostly and need them to keep the brood nest open. 
Often a third deep gets added to help with holding the honey frames and have had a fourth deep on at times.
I usually don't take honey in Fall and most times the goldenrod honey I sell is excess from deadouts over winter.

A few years ago the Spring flow was awful around these parts with intermittent cold and rain into May.
The following Fall flow looked like what the Spring flow usually does.


----------



## Sr. Tanya

*PHSINV* 

Yes, I often get a large fall crop. Goldenrod, and asters. A lot depends on the weather- temperatures and rain. I use double deeps.

I'm in Westmoreland County.


----------



## PHSINV

Thanks for the replies folks. Weather here is 40s by day, 20s by night, apparently good maple syrup weather! We have large amounts of goldenrod here but it never seems to be enough to harvest and of course it could be the result of some weakness.


----------



## laketrout

Four medium brood chambers most years seems like I can never get them consolidated down to three , we do get a good goldenrod flow most years and can usually bottle quite a bit but it crystallizes very easy and I'm leaning towards keeping it for the bee's to overwinter on but I like goldenrod honey so i like to get some for ourselves at least and also to help keep up with honey sales .


----------



## laketrout

I'm in northeast pa and there bringing in quite a bit of nectar but not sure what all of it is , I would think tulip poplar , no clover yet dandelion is gone , not seeing much on ground level maybe most from trees .


----------



## Steve in PA

laketrout said:


> I'm in northeast pa and there bring in quite a bit of nectar but not sure what all of it is , I would think tulip poplar , no clover yet dandelion is gone , not seeing much on ground level maybe most from trees .


Locust just finished over the weekend here. It was a bumper year. Maybe that's what you are seeing? Clover is just getting started.


----------



## laketrout

Hey Steve ,I have never seen any locust in my immediate area and always figured there wasn't any close buy , but in talking with other people I have come to the conclusion that there is more locust around than I realized and I actually just saw some only a couple miles away the other day so hopefully my bee's are finding some . Took a short look around the property today on the way up to the beeyard and noticed multi flora rose in bloom with bee's on it and also blackberry is blooming , all of this should make some really good wildflower spring honey !!


----------



## Steve in PA

laketrout said:


> Hey Steve ,I have never seen any locust in my immediate area


I thought you would be loaded with Locust since you are near the river (I grew up just outside Bloomsburg and knew people from Shickshinny). I don't have blackberries, but their cousin the dewberry is blooming as are the multi roses. I think this is going to be a very good year all around and the bees that made it through winter will be very productive.


----------



## Allen

Time to get this thread going again.

We currently have three colonies still alive and the queens are ramping up.

Did inspection last Sat while the temps were in the 70's.
The girls are storing a lot of nectar and found all stages of brood. 
Some different pollen was also observed being brought back and it's nice to see that activity again in the bee yard.

Had to reverse some boxes because of all the nectar and the clusters weren't affected by it.
The bees have been in the top deep supers most of the winter unfortunately.

I bought a Russian queen last August and it is interesting to see how frugal they have been with the honey and emergency sugar stores compared to the italian mutts.

We received 72" of rain in our county last year.
The Locust crop was a bust because of that.
August had 20'some inches and I can't remember a year with that much rain.
Goldenrod didn't do that well either.

Hoping for a warmer, and drier Spring than last year.


----------



## laketrout

Sounds like your ahead of us daffodils just popped out this week there bringing in alot of pollen but havent been in the hives at all yet to see if any nectar is coming in . I had two hives that went through there sugar bricks and im still adding as needed ,last year was really bad up here too with all the rain made the lowest honey production we ever had. No hives lost this winter so hoping for better weather for honey production this year.


----------

