# Sticky  bone head split so far, somebody save the day.



## gww

Ok, I caught a swarm yesterday. Found queen cells in my biggest hive. Today, moved hive ten plus feet sideways and looked for the queen. I set a box with two honey frames in the old hive location to collect the foragers. I looked through every frame looking for the queen but did not find her. I have never found a queen on my own and so maby she is still there and maby not. I had seen some uncapped swarm cells yesterday but today I also found some capped ones. 

Since I could not find the queen, I took one partial frame of brood that had a capped queen cell and two not quite capped ones on it and put that in the old location where the two combs of honey are. The rest of the hive is full of foundationless frames.

The old moved hive has lots of capped brood honey and pollen. It has queen cells and maby a queen and maby not a queen.

I was looking for open brood and had thought I saw some eggs but then I seen the same later and believe it was just the way the sun was shining on the wet cells. I did not see any larva but I took a brood frame out for the swarm yesterday and did not see but maby three larva in the three or four frames I looked at. I saw lots of giant drones while looking for the queen and so if she was thinned down I might not have seen her anyway.

I guess my question is, what have I done and what will probly happen?

To me the hive still seems crowded and the swarm was big and I just don't see how that hive could have had that many bees in it. It was only a three medium hive.

I didn't want after swarms and so I did what I did by splitting bees by age.

I was hoping to give a freind some of the queen cells when they got capped.

If the queen is still with the hive, I am assuming that the bees in the young bee hive will start tearing down queen cell. Is this correct? If it is correct I will be wishing I had just did a teranov split and put a cell in each hive.

The foragers with no comb but two full honey combs, very little brood, queen cells and the rest foundationless frames. What is going to happen and will it work or need more work to make it work?

I don't mind you guys calling me stupid. I thought I was going to find a queen today.

Any advice?
Thanks
gww


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## Vance G

Stupid is as stupid does and at least your attempt successful or not had a rationale. Stupid is just wringing hands and doing nothing. I do not know if your plan to segregate age groups will work. I have never tried that so I can't say. I would reduce your herd of queen cells. Those just capped are too delicate to transport well to your friend. Your parent hive may have swarmed if you have no eggs or open brood. Save the best two queen cells on the same frame and eliminate the rest or move your friends to the nuc on the original stand and watch the cells for evidence of the bees chewing the wax off the bottom of the cell. That means the virgin is soon going to chew her way out. 

When in your situation, a good first action is a taranov swarm recently discussed in a couple threads. Another beginner and blind old man ploy is to shake and brush all the bees thru an excluder. Its all a learning experience


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## gww

Vance
I wanted to do a teronov but was afraid that all that shaking would destroy all the queen cells. My friend was going to come over monday and help me move stuff around but yesterday we thought it was only extended uncapped cells and that my hive had not swarmed yet. So I looked up bee math and got scared that the hive would swarm before monday and I did not want that. However, yesterday we were hard up time wise and so only tipped boxes and looked from the bottom. Today on finding the capped swarm cells, and not seeing any larva which is about the best my eyes can do right now, I figure we got it wrong and the swarm did come from this hive. 

I thought about taking every frame that had queen cells and dividing up the resources as even as I could to match the cells but don't really want to mess with to weak of hives untill I learn more plus, it might be a pipe dream, but I am kinda hoping I might still get a little honey off of the young brood hive due to all the comb starting out full right now. I should have put some empties in the brood nest earlier but it was only in the sixties and I was afraid it was still too cold. I thought I was good till the 15th of april no matter what cause I caught my first swarm in early may last year. My big mistake.

This bee keeping stuff is pretty hard when you are new.

I spent most of the night last night and this morning reading up on queen cells. Since these look like new wax and some are still not capped. I was thinking that monday they might be 4 or 5 days from when they were capped. So I was hoping monday when I got a little help might be soon enough to start destroying cells and hoping that the splitting the age groups would stop after swarms if I was wrong.

I am almost sure the swarm came from this hive but just don't see how that many bees could have fit in the hive.

I guess I have done what I have done.

I am not trying to over load anyone with my issues but have a couple of things going forward that I would like to maby get a little advice on.

On the hive with the old bees and partial frame of brood. If it takes eight days or a little less for the cell to hatch and two weeks for breeding, Then should I leave the hive alone for 20/24 days? I don't know how fast it will take for the bees to draw the medium out with comb but at that 24 day mark, will I have to extract to give the new queen a place to lay? Have I got all of this wrong?

Also on the old bees, will I sometime in this process need to ad another frame of brood?

I figure on the young bees that they have three mediums full now and since there is no foragers for a week or so that they will eat some room into the comb that is already there. Is this right or wrong thinking?

I thank you for your comments above, believe it or not, they made me not "feel" quite as dumb as I really am.
Thanks
gww


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## RayMarler

I've done just what you did many times and it worked out great. The way I figured it was that the old bees fly back to the old spot over a period of a week or more, so the hive you moved won't swarm without enough foraging bees to go with the swarm. That was always my way of thinking anyway. 

The older bees going back, they should do fine. Keep in mind that bees go for their orientation flights around day 6-10 then come back to the hive as house bees for almost two more weeks before they become foragers. So, over the next couple weeks, bees will be going back to the older aged bee hive. Most will go back in the next 1-3 days, then the amounts going back will reduce quite a bit, as some bees that oriented to the old location will still re-orient and stay at the new location also. 

All in all, the older aged bees hive will lose populations so that by the time new brood is emerging from the new queen, they'll be quite a bit smaller than when they started out. Yes, check them in 24 days or so, and when you see eggs being laid and larva being fed, then it might help them out to give them a frame of sealed emerging brood.

As the queen mates and needs to lay, the bees will move honey around to give her room, They will draw wax then if needed to clear her some space. 

OK, keep in mind, all beehives are not the same, they are individual organisms with their own attitudes. I think you did great, that both hives will become queen right and all will be good. But, one or both may still decide to swarm on you, that's just the way it sometimes works out. But for the most part, they both should work out just fine with what you've done.


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## gww

Ray


> I've done just what you did many times and it worked out great. The way I figured it was that the old bees fly back to the old spot over a period of a week or more, so the hive you moved won't swarm without enough foraging bees to go with the swarm. That was always my way of thinking anyway.


I was hopeing this might help with the after swarms.



> The older bees going back, they should do fine. Keep in mind that bees go for their orientation flights around day 6-10 then come back to the hive as house bees for almost two more weeks before they become foragers. So, over the next couple weeks, bees will be going back to the older aged bee hive. Most will go back in the next 1-3 days, then the amounts going back will reduce quite a bit, as some bees that oriented to the old location will still re-orient and stay at the new location also.


This was something I hadn't thought through and is a big help in my understanding. I knew the oreintaion flight but did not put two and two together untill you wrote this. Hope I remember it. Very happy to have it explained to me.



> All in all, the older aged bees hive will lose populations so that by the time new brood is emerging from the new queen, they'll be quite a bit smaller than when they started out. Yes, check them in 24 days or so, and when you see eggs being laid and larva being fed, then it might help them out to give them a frame of sealed emerging brood.


Thanks



> OK, keep in mind, all beehives are not the same, they are individual organisms with their own attitudes. I think you did great, that both hives will become queen right and all will be good. But, one or both may still decide to swarm on you, that's just the way it sometimes works out. But for the most part, they both should work out just fine with what you've done.


Yes, Its all good. I am new and learning and maby I learned something in all this. I gave away the swarm to the guy that I bought this hive from. I lost half a hive but he was happy and I am a little on the good side rather then just a user and so all is good. I will get good brood breaks and probly no honey but more drawn comb and maby, just maby learn a little too.

I hate to go to the pump too often but have one more thing that is of interest to me. I am not too worried about stores cause the young bees have lots of honey including in the old brood nest. I also figure some type of flow is on or they would not have swarmed and over all the bees were pretty calm and this sorta says they are to busy to worry about me. So, my question: As the hive will mostly be young bees, will robbing be a bigger issue then I am hoping it will be. My view is I will probly be ok. I have reduced both entrances down fairly small. The old bee hive is even backing up at the entrance a bit. Not to much coming into or leaving the young bee hive. Is the young bee hive going to be more open to robbing under these conditions and expecially since I am not feeding?

I really thank you for your comments. I am a very indecisive person when I have what seems like choices and so I am always thinking I picked the wrong way to go. 
I can take losses but will still be kicking my self while I take them. 

Your post has really helped and I don't feel quite so helpless now.
Thanks
gww


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## Hoot Owl Lane Bees

gww
leave the small opening on till the hive is full of bees and your ready to move them to a larger hive.
I have 19 nucs started from swarm cells + ones with Queens.
Remember the bees will fix our ma-stacks.


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## gww

hootowl
The hive is still big, three medium big anyway. I was just worried that the leaving foragers would remember and the hive full of young bees might not gaurd. I am willing to wait and see what happens now since nothing glaringly stupid seems to have been done by me, yet. I will watch the entrances for the next 24 days and maby on the forager side pull the top in a week or so to make sure they have room since they are in one medium and I don't know how long it will take to draw it out.

I may sound stupid posting this stuff, but you guys that answered have made me feel not quite as edgy as I was. I read a lot but am still new and you guys have helped.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, it sounds like you are growing more colonies there. Though I would watch for robbing, you should have a good spring flow going on, and that helps to reduce or eliminate robbing. Its going good here with extra stores being collected. Warming is just around the corner here and I have been adding space and doing swarm prevention on hives. They are definitely considering it.


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## gww

Danial
Yes easter is sorta getting in the way of bee stuff right this second, but good grandchildren stuff going on. I have a couple of scouts checking a trap still and so maby I will get it in time and maby not. Monday I think I will tear into the brood nest and slip in a bunch of empties. It is still in the forcast for a 60 degree day but after one swarm, I will take my chances on splitting the brood nest and the hive are full of bees.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I wouldn't get overly aggressive with empty frames in the nest. Of course, I don't know what you mean by a bunch of empties. If I don't see backfilling of the brood nest, I would only add an empty frame on the side of the nest in a couple places. When I find them drawn and used, I would do it again. If I find backfilling, or it's warm out, or already a strong hive, I then add a random empty frame in the nest, maybe after the first brood frame from the side, in a few places. I have done up to 4 empty frames at one time in a nest that spanned 3 10 frame boxes, favoring the top more, and was a strong colony. I don't know if that's correct, but that's what I have done. I understand that you just have to tell the bees they have empty space and not ready to swarm. Empty space above is good too.


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## gww

Danial
The hive that swarmed had built out most of three frames in a two week period right before the swarm and still filled the brood nest, (if I know what I am looking at which is questionable). The other two hives are smaller drawn comb wise but have lots of bees. I have a fairly big incentive of getting some drawn in the brood nest cause they draw them so much nicer and not as fat down there. My very best drawn frames where putting one dead center in the brood nest and pulling the middle frame up to the super and the frames they drew each side of that were good also. It was 95 degrees last year when I was doing that though. I will head your advice (maby, cause sometimes I plan one way and end up doing something differrent) and only hit the edge or edges of the brood nest.

I have a very hard time with seeing brood, larva and eggs. I found some decent size larva in my smallest hive but it looked like only a couple cells had hatched and there would be two or three that I could see here and on another side a couple. Funny laying pattern when I compare it to pictures but the hive is just overloaded with bees and so I don't think there is a problim but each hive looks a bit differrent from the few times I actually pull brood frames. I just need more practice reconizing what I am seeing.

I will just keep plugging away and asking you guys every time I get in trouble and hope you guys bear with me untill I become a bit better.
Thanks
gww


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## RayMarler

The hives being fed are the hives that get robbed. Weak hives also do, usually weaker mating nucs and such. As it is, from what I can understand of what you have, you should have no worries. Just don't stick a feeder on ok?  I'm betting your flows are on, or are starting, you won't need to feed. The thing is, they'll back fill the brood nest until the new queen is mated and laying, That is when they'll need to move honey out to give room for the new queen to lay. By then temps will be warmer and flows will be on and they'll start drawing wax. I'm guessing of course 'cause I am not aware of what your weather is and what your hives look like, my binoculars don't work so well from this distance!  But, it's that time of year where if you are not in the far north, flows should be on or at least starting, I'm betting flows are even starting further north than you are. Don't stress and enjoy the weekend.


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## gww

Ray
Good dandilion and tree bloom right now. No clover but it might not be too long.
The foragers have two capped combs and the young bees have lots, lots, more then that. No feeding in the plans. some comb is being drawn in the hives.
Hopefully all is rosy. Just need to keep the other two hives from getting any ideals now.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

gww, to clarify, I do add frames right into the brood nest when it's warmer, like it is now, for a larger hive especially. I plan to keep feeding them a couple frames every time I find the brood nest mostly occupied with brood, eggs, and food. You can find areas of empty polished and shiny cells sometimes, which tells you which way the brood nest is about to expand. If I find areas of empty cells like that, I consider that they have some room yet. 
You surely have a good flow going on, as we do here. Dandelions are going good.


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## gww

Danial
I run all this through my head and plan and stuff and then I get to the hive and things just sorta happen. Sometimes it is sorta like I was thinking of doing before hand and other times it does not resemble any of my plans. So many timing flow wether issues that when I open the hive, I have a general ideal of somethings that could be done but also have fears of the current wether, bloom, bee density and yada yada that I very seldom reconize what I really do. 

I do think that thinking about it helps prepare a little but I will be honest, I really have no ideal what I will really do most of the time. I can not believe my bees are alive, I can actually look at the comb and they haven't attacked me due to my ineptness. If I wasn't so off ballance all the time I would have to say bee keeping must be easy if a guy that feels as lost and indecisive as I do still has some alive. Of course there is always tomorrow, ha ha.
Thanks
gww


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## RichM

RayMarler, do you have any references to early orientation flights and going back to being house bees before foraging. This seems very pertinent to some manipulations but I do not remember coming across this information in my reading.


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## RayMarler

RichM

The exact age of the first orientation flights are not known precisely. Different researches and writers give slightly different ages in days for the first flight. I've read so many literatures about bees that I forget who said what. I've heard and read anywhere from days 6-12. What I go by myself is the worker bee emerges and cleans it's own cell and is a brood nest house keeper for 3 days, then it feeds older larva for 3 days, then it feeds younger larva and maybe the queen for another 3-6 days. The first orientation flight happens somewhere in that time period, probably towards the end, of the duties of feeding youngest bees and/or queen. I myself count it as 9-10 days old. Next tasks are in the wax drawing, honey storage, and nectar handling tasks, then guard duties and then foraging. Here is a link to a PDF from the West Plains Beekeepers Association that gives a good simple overview of the tasks by age of honey bees as they understand it...

http://www.wpbeekeepers.org/presentationnotes/AgeandTasksofHoneybee.pdf

http://www.wpbeekeepers.org/resources/presentations

So, nurse bees are what I call the bees that are working in the broodnest area, 9-12 or so days old and under. First orientation flights somewhere in here, around days 9-10 is what I have always figured, I forget just where I got that number from. There are other daily cleansing flights and further orientation flights after this age. Nectar handling, wax drawing, and honey storage with guard duties I count as another 14 days or so. That gives me approximately 4 weeks in the hive, then another 1-2 weeks as a foragers. 

It's been my experience that foragers also contribute to wax drawing in the honey supers, probably more as night duties. I say this because I've found much more wax drawing gets done when there is a good population of foragers. Just house bees by themselves, even with feeding syrup, do not seem to draw the wax as much as when there are also lots of forage aged bees.

Hope this helps


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## RichM

RayMarler
Thanks for the great reference. I mainly consult Winston's Biology of the Honey Bee. He indicates the mean age of orientation flights is one day less than the mean age of onset of foraging. But since there are successive orientation flights and there is much overlap in age related tasks it makes great sense. I guess if you are just taking a short orientation flight, you have lots of time to do other things that day.


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## gww

Well, today I gave my friend 2 queen cells. I then looked through the other hives and I found queen cups with larva in one. I said heck with it nd tried a teronov split.










As you can see, I am kind of a slob on set up. I figured it would work though. The inner cover I was using for shade that was getting the little ball of bees on it blew over.

I did not shake the frames compleetly empty of bees and did not brush the rest off but the big portion come of with shaking. It took some time cause I also fixed a little wonky comb.

This is where the foragers were going back to after I put the hive back together but before I put the double screen board on and the young bees on top.










It is the far right box on the stand. The top box is compleetly empty because I forgot to pull a frame or two up. I was about to die of heat stroke and it is not even hot out yet.

I hope I got the queen in the young be part cause I did not put any brood in that part and it only has two partialy drawn honey combs in it. The shaken part seemed smaller then I was thinking it was going to be and was about like my second biggest swarm that I have ever caught. I guess I will let it go for a week or two and check for eggs and hope for the best.

I will have to add feed on it and also on my other young be split, cause it felt light though I don't see how they could have went through all the capped honey it started with this spring.

I sure hope the queen is in the young be split but I never did see her.

I did get stung about 5 times and so must be pretty rough or did not move them far enough from the origional spot. I did ok till my gloves ripped which did not take too long as they are just hospital gloves. I did get one sting through the glove which I didn't mind cause you just lift up on the glove and it pulls out the stinger. Got stung once on the top of the head when I was messing around while cooling down a bit and a bee got caught in my hair.

The hive was only a two medium frame hive and I was dissapointed I had to split it but oh well. I am hoping to get a bit better at this cause it took me over two hours to do all this, it is no wonder my bees were getting upset. What I did find interesting is how much honey these hives had just two weeks ago to what they have now. They are not gaining weight I don't think. 

I am trying to decide how to feed them. I am guessing on the three medium young be hive with drawn comb, I may just put the hive top feeder two gal of two to one and the small hive with young bees and no real drawn I guess I will give a pint every evining untill at least the first medium is drawn out and maby till two mediums are drawn.

Did I mention that I really don't know what I am doing and think it is all going wrong everyting I mess with them. I also can not believe how many time I forget to do things that I planed to do, like moving a comb up in the empty box and I also may start some robbing going on cause I tore out about a third of a medium comb while fixing comb and left it on top of one of my long hive and had a bunch of stuck bees in honey on top of the hive where I used it as a table and fixed my wonky comb. I was going to put the comb on the inner cover of one of the hive or something but forgot.

Oh well, whats done is done and I am not sure I am going back down there yet as I just washed all the sweat off.
Thanks for reading and if anything I have done is glaringly stupid, please tell me as I would like to learn.
gww


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## DanielD

gww, your bee farm keeps growing and you can't stop it. Keep building that wooden ware for them. You are being blessed with bees.


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## gww

Danial
Yes, I am blessed with bees, of course that just means I didn't open the brood nest well enough. I will be blessed when I figure out which hive are successful in the queen department. Who knows, I might be putting them back together before it is over. That would be funny if I have to put them all back together again. I think I have enough wooden ware to last till winter, but I am giong through it at a pretty fair rate.
Thanks for the comment.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Great thread, please update!
opcorn:


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## gww

SiW.....
Not much to update, I put about 3 gal of food on the what I am describing as a fly back split. I had thought it was chalk full when I did the split but seemed light so feed I did. I am done feeding or anything except watching the entrance till some where in the beginning of may when I will look for signs of a laying queen in both sides of the fly back swarm.

On the teronov split, I am giving about a pint a day to what is hopefully the queen and young bees. I will check it in probly a week and see if it has got the queen cause if it does not, it has no way to make one cause I put no brood in the young be part. I figure this part of the split is pretty small because it is only taking a pint a day and has zero foragers coming out of the side opening on the double screen door. It has only been 5 days or so since the split and hopefully that will change. If I do another teranov split, I will probly still be as sloppy but will use a staple or two to hold the sheet from the wind. But, I should have some ideal of queenlyness on that hive sooner then the rest. If it is queenless, I will recombine the hive which shouldn't be too hard since it is on a double screen board over the origional hive. I am mostly in a waiting mode right now on the queen thing. If the queen thing works out on all of the four parts of the splits, I should be in fair shape as the first swarms that I caught last year where on may 6/7th. Right on time for a couple of smaller hives to build up. I have not feed any hive that has foragers in it. One has only one comb of brood with a queen cell and the other forager split has all the brood. I should have an interesting contrast of things to look at. I may feed the broodless forager split but had thought I read some where that it is better to wait untill the queen is laying. I will decide when I check for a laying queen based on what comb they have built between now and then.

I have my fingers crossed on all of this. So far I like the fly back split best when starting with a queen cell because it is so easy. I would have liked it even better I think if I could have found the old queen and moved her with the foragers rather then a queen cell, but I was too late and believe the hive had swarmed before I caught it. I did not see the queen on the teronov split either and just took it for granted that she would end up in the right place. If she did not, it will only be the second one I have ever heard of being a failure. She could be dead in the grass though due to the wind that day. Time will tell and fingers are crossed.
If you see me being stupid in any of my moves, do not be shy, I may not listen everytime but sure want to hear it.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, I'm learning the beekeeping lingo from your post. Queenlyness. . :thumbsup:


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## gww

Danial
Yea, I make it up as I go. You think it might catch on?.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

It will probably reside in my head gww.


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## gww

Ok
Though I was really trying to wait, I checked the hives today. My intention was to check the teronov split for a queen. I wanted to wait till the end of the week but the wether has a whole bunch of rain in it.

I opened the shaken bees that are over the snelgrove board. They have built some beutiful comb with the sugar water that I have been giving them. Maby about 30 percent of the hive body. It is all full but no sign of a queen. Since the hive had queen cups in it but no larva, I was thinking that I should have got the queen but don't think I did. I am not sure how long the queen would have stoped laying and then started if the hive had decided it wanted to swarm and so maby checking in six days was too early.

I had made the walk away split with the foragers getting one brood frames with one capped queen cell and two uncapped cups and two frames of capped honey. I decided to open that hive next to see if one of the queen cells was still in it. It was made 8 days ago. It had about sixty percent of the combs drawn out and sure enough on the brood frame the bees had actually made even more queen cells. I could not find one that was open yet and did not see the queen. These bees have recieved no feed. 

I found a capped cell that was not too close to the bottom bar and used my pocket knife to cut it out trying to take some extra comb. I took this cell which is turning dark color and hard and so I hope close to hatching and put it in one of the combs in the teronov split. I cut out a hole in the comb in the teronov split and smashed the extra ears I had left on the queen cell into the hole I had made. 

Two things worry me a little on this. One is that when smashing the cell into the comb, I saw some royal jelly or bee bread ooze out. I am hoping this is from brood that might be in the excess wax that I cut around the cell but am still a little worried. The second fear is that when I slid the combs back together so everything fit, it was pushed right up against the top of the cell where the queen usually comes out. Time will tell.

I did notice one other kinda funny thing. Around the queen cells there sure were a bunch of bees doing the waggle dance. The bees were covering the queen cell very well. They did not like it very well when I blew on them to make them move so I could see.

Hope it works.

I also got in my one hive that I did not find cells in. The had about 60 percent of the super I had added to them drawn out. I moved that super to the side and pulled two frames from the second medium box up into a new box and put empties in thier place and then put that super brood/new brood nest and then set what was the old third box on top of it. The very top box now was almost all honey but it did have a drawn out queen cup in the middle of all that honey that had a bee going in it and I guess cleaning it cause I looked up in it and it was empty. I might be giving them too much space to quickly but it give me a chance to move a couple of frames of brood out of the brood nest.

It might be a mistake but I also undersupered the walk away split that had all the young bees and all the brood that I had given 3 gal of serup to. They don't have a queen yet I don't believe because they should be the same as the one I took the queen cell out of but the young bee part of it. They have all the brood and were three boxes high and now are foraging and I udersupered that hive.

I am going to have a very hard time on it deciding what is honey and what is sugar water because I did not mark the frames yet.

I was supering some of this early cause I don't want to mess with them during a virgin queen mating flight and was afraid they might turn the mating flight into a swarm if they felt crowded.

I don't know what I an doing and am just guessing what might work.

Wish me luck. I think I can stay out of the hives now till may 6/10 or somewhere around then.

Cheers
gww

PS On the teronov split I didn't have much choice cause they had no brood and no way to possibly make a queen of thier own.

PS PS I don't know if it was coincidence or just time for some bees to graduate to foragers, but for the first time since making the split and after I put the queen cell in the teronov split, the bees were bringing back pollen on almost every bee that left the hive. The one that I took the queen cell from was now for the first time bringing no pollen in but they were working like crazy. I know there are still queen cells in the hive though.

One other good thing is that even the combs that were pure nector, the bees were drawing them strait and not fat.


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## RayMarler

gww
You are going to be a Master Beekeeper in no time at all, keep up the good work. Marking the honey/sugar frames may or may not be any thing meaningful to do anyway, as bees do move honey around in the hive. Mostly they move up what they don't need down below in the brood nest, so that over time the top gets capped and the cap-line moves down towards the brood nest. We like to keep open space to store excess brood nectar right over the top of the brood nest, so under supering can be a good thing this time of year.


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## gww

Ray
I took all the foragers and left all the brood and so I was worried and so fed. That hive has now put together a pretty decent forager force and hopefully 30 lbs of sugar with them feeding brood and drawing comb, might not be a killer in the big picture. My other hives that might have a chance of giving excess have not been fed since fall and so I can still have a clean point, especially if I am willing to move some comb around when harvesting. 

I spent 3 hours today watching some scouts check out a bait hive. I post this stuff incase I really do something stupid, somebody can either get some comic relief or clue me in. I don't really worry too much which of those happens though I will say getting clued in works a little better for me.

It seems a little wierd on the teronov split that I did not get the queen but I did leave some bees on the comb and I did have the wind mishap. In the end, I guess I will know more of my success rate when it comes time for the queens to start laying. I will proby check in about 15 days or so but it might take me twenty five to really see if I was successful cause I can not see eggs and can only see the big larva. I have my fingers crossed though that all four sides come out ok and that I don't have to recombine.

I thank you for your comment.
gww

Ps Master beekeeper, ha ha, I still have never found a queen with out help yet.


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## gww

Ok, after a week of rain and the first day that was going to get to 70 degrees, My bottom half of the hive that I made the teronov split on to try and stop swarms swarmed, dang it.

I still don't know if I had a queen down there cause I did not think she had made it to the young be side of the split. I have not checked the hives for a good 20 days and had four hives that I had been waiting on queen mating.

This was one of them. I have heard that when the queen goes out to mate that the hive sometimes will send a swarm with her. I went ahead and hived the swarm cause I had thought that the swarm flew with the queen untill she out flew then and then they went back to the hive. Since this swarm was in the tree where my last swarm was, I am guessing that that is not what was happenning here.

I am going to have one heck of a time getting any honey this year the way things are going. I only have one hive that I don't think has swarmed or been split but even that hive I have stolen two frames of brood from to try and tether the two swarms I have hived.

I am a little lost in all this but if they get queen right, I now am at six hives frome three. No honey but getting plenty of bees. Of course that depends on having queens in them all.










Every body likes pictures.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I am not sure I get this gww. Your taronov split, the one where the queen should have ended up in, is the one that swarmed here? If that's the case, I am wondering if you also gave that split a queen cell or two, which prompted them to swarm. O If you made a split with the queen, but there was a cell or two in the split, it may not have made them think they swarmed. The disruption may have delayed any swarming till the virgin emerged, then the weather prevented a swarm till today. 

If this split was the portion to produce a new queen, and you had several cells, I am supposing that could prompt the first virgin to swarm since there are more on the way, and again, the weather delayed it all. 

I don't know if all that is reasonable, so it's just thinking out loud again.


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## gww

Danial
My take on it is this.
1. I did confuse you because I put the young bee portion of the split on top of the hive that I shook. It is the lower old bee side that swarmed.

2. Some how I do not think that I got the queen in with the young bees. I shook every frame and did not compleetly clear them of bees while shaking and so the old part of the split had some nusrse bees and all the brood.

3. Since it did not seem like I got the old queen up with the young bees, she could have still been in the old be part. I was under the mistaken ideal that the queen would fall easier then the nusre bees when shaking and I did look after shaking for the queen on the comb before putting it back with the old bee part.
I did have the wind blow a clump of bees in the grass while doing the shaking and had pretty much decided I had harmed and lost her but she could have ended up in the old bee part. 

4. I don't think the queen had swarmed yet when I made the split because the swarm cells were none capped yet. It is not impossible that she ended up in the old bee side or swarmed. I did not worry about it and was just taking the chance that splitting off that many young bees might change the make up enough to make them think they could not swarm.

5.I was thinking that even if the queen was in the old be side that the bees would tear down the cells or would have let them hatch and take out the queen.

6. This swarm did not look but about one third the size of my last swarm and so I am thinking it might be a virgin swarm but don't know. The queen cells if capped would have hatched about a week ago if my math is correct (and it could be wrong). It did rain steady and not get above 65 degrees on the one day that had any clearing at all and was 3 days ago. The virgin queen would have been hatched in the hive for a good week and maby closer to two weeks. I think I made the split on the 18th or so of april. 

I did put a queen cell from a differrent hive in the young bee part because I could see no eggs and it would have hatched even earlier. I had intended to give them two good days before going in the hive so they had a chance of a mating flight before I messed with them again. I still have not seen if I was successful there but that part is not the part that swarmed.

On the part that did swarm, I did not reduce the amount of queen cells to two. It was pretty big and I had reduced the number of bees in it and had the split on top of it that had a differrent aged queen cell in it and I didn't want to mess up the possible mating of that queen cell to get to the ones below to cull them.

I deserve the swarm and may even get more but I was hopeing I had done enough just by splitting the age groups to forstall it. I was wrong ha ha.

It wil be interesting to check the old hive that swarmed or the swarm in a couple of days and see if either has eggs. My problim is that I can not see eggs and so at times might miss read the truth even if looking.

The queen may have been laying down there all along.

I do not inspect very well and lots of time even looking, I don't find. I have never found a queen on my own yet but I also though looking never really search for her that hard but more look at other things and just do manuvers that should work regaurdless of where she ends up. By work, I don't mean work best (to prevent swarming and such) but more to make sure each thing I do leaves bees an avenue to end up with a queen. I realize that I can do better but this being the first few times of me moving bees around, the doing it the first time is hard enough and I should get better with the process to be able to add more to it. I am a slow learner and so I did this and watch the out come and believe that I will do better next time taking what I am learning as I go into account.

Guess I am going to have to make a shaker box and go that rout to find the queen a couple of times.

Thanks you for the comments
gww


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## DanielD

gww, it seems as though when there's a swarm impulse in progress, that impulse needs to be squelched. Just taking away the queen and some brood, may be like a swarm to the bees, but if there are many cells and many bees left, an after swarm can still happen easily. That's probably what you have, which could mean you have a virgin queen swarm there. 

One thing I don't get, you put the "swarm" bees back on top. Does that mean you only separated them with a screen or excluder, or were they totally separated? If they had a screen or excluder, yet in contact, I don't know that the Taranov split put back on top did anything to squelch the impulse. I don't know about that though. Evidently what ever you did didn't convince them not to swarm anymore. Leaving one good cell would not allow them to swarm with the queen, since they then would be done for. Many cells tells them to do some more swarms. Even if you take away the 'swarm' if they have the resources, they'd still have the impulse to after swarm. For insurance, you could do 2 splits out of the remaining, with each split having one cell, and have an extra opportunity for a mated queen. The original Taranov swarm would need to be eliminated from the hive though as a split. I might not understand what you were doing there.


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## gww

Danial

This is what I did except I did not shake the frames completly free of bees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETgWMMZr4So&t=227s

I used a double screen board to seperate the splits. Lots of people use them in splits. My mentor said he didn't cull the extra cells down and I also had a lot older cell on the top split and so didn't want to mess up the mating flight by messing with the top part. 

I knew the risk but also know that lots uses the double screen board in simular fassion if they find cells started in a hive. If I had moved the brood with the young bees, I doubt they would have swarmed but I figured the young bees would draw better wax on foundationless frames and I had read in langstroths book that sometimes the bees will not be drawing good brood comb untill they get a queen and so the ideal was to end up with the queen being in the young bee part of the hive with only foundationless frames. 

I waited 5 or so days and looked at the comb the young bees were making and did not see any laying and so added a queen cell just in case cause I had put no brood with the young bees. It may be that she had already quit laying to slim down and had not started back but I figured what the heck, even if she was there, a new queen would give the bees a brood break with no capped brood in the hive and since I haven't treated, I figured that would be second best if I somehow missed getting the queen with the young bees.

Some of this is due to lazyness. It was much easier to just shake and stack. Honestly, I would think it would work more times then not but this time I did leave too many bees on the frames when shaking and also had lots of brood hatching. 

I should have culled the queen cells but had already stolen two from the other hive and gave to a freind and also had stolen one and gave to the young bee split and had it in my mind that they might still come in handy somewhere. I should have did like michael bush says and split each with a frame of brood and then put some of them back together later if I didn't need them. I was thinking that I might still get some honey from these hives is why I did not split a bit deeper. I thought with all that brood hatching and no queen that the bees might just pack in the nector even with the young bees gone. Insted I got a swarm. I

really don't care too much but am trying to learn as I go so when I start caring more, I will be better at it. I figure this is just a learning experiance. I am not sure I learned anything though yet. Cause I am thinking I want to try it one more time next year and see if I have better results. Maby next year I can do it before they start queen cells and get it in thier mind to swarm. T

hings happened this year sooner then I thought they would due to it not being as warm as I thought it needed to be to make moves like that. I am thinking that the warm febuary put the bees pretty far ahead this year then what is normal. That is the problim with being new and not knowing what to look for. I also had my mentor telling me the hive were in build up this year and I didn't have to worry too much about swarming and so I am just trying to pay attention and only reacting and not really being proactive yet cause it is my way of learning.
Clear as mud right?
Thanks
gww

Ps I do know that scnelgrove (double screen board fame) had proceedures of using his board on hives with queen cells started and stacking to quelch swarming.


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## gww

Well here we go again,





































Same hive as yesterday. I put it in a warre hive this time just for grins. I may have killed this one by putting a top hive feeder on that leaked. When I built it, I filled it with water and it did not leak. I should have filled it up with water for a day and let the wood swell. Either way I had two to one water running out the bottom board. They might get robbed before they get started. Maby I will get lucky now that clover has popped.

I went through the hives today and must say that I still have never spotted the queen in one by myself. The queen cell was gone on the one on top of the hive that swarmed today but even with only about 5 not compleetly drawn comb, I still could not find her or proof of her. They are bringing in pollen though. I will wait one more week and then think about combining it with the hive that just swarmed which hopefully did not leave its self queenless. It is the only hive I did not go through.

My other hive that I did the walk away split on and let the bees fly from it back to the old location. It seemed like most of the brood has hatched and though it had lots of bees, having all that brood hatch makes me think there should be more bees then there is. Maby it swarmed and I didn't notice it. I did not see signs of a queen in it either but the brood placement looks clean and the honey and pollen circle around where the queen would lay looks full.

The old part that I let the bees fly back to and that had one comb of brood and a couple of queen cells had more comb built then the teronove young bee split that I had been feeding. I did not feed this old bee split and it had to draw all its comb from scratch. I think I saw a very few wet brood in this hive. It was not milky wet but it looked like it had a few very small larva. The queen cell I gave the teronov split that I could find no proof of (for you danial) queenlyness had a cell the same age as this old bee split and also the young part of the flyback split. I probly checked a little to early due to the wether we had. I hope.

Any way, I hope I am not making a bunch of queenless hives. None of the hives I looked at that had brood had drawn much new comb. I felt the young bee flyback split was pretty light considering I had given it 3 gal of feed. The all look heathy. I am one bee killing machine when putting boxes back on. Even the swarm today, I had had the warre box up side down to use as sort of a funnel to pour my 5 gal bucket of bees in. When I fliped it so that the bars were on top, I looked at the edge and saw several crushed bees. The heavy supers are really hard. I will smoke the bees from the edge and by the time I am setting the super back on the sucker are under it. I will slowly lower it and move it back and forth a bit and still will hear lots of crunches when I set it and you can see the damage when it is opened again.

I have a lot of learning to do. My swarm management is going to have to go way up though I must say, when makeing bees, I have one hive that is four now if they all get queen right. Mel the mad splitter has nothing on me right now, ha ha.

The bees look healthy and are active as heck.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, you're going to have to give away nucs to those you planned instead of honey. You are pretty good at making bees and they seem to be good genetics so far. A bit swarmy maybe. I hope you get it all figured out and have a bunch of queenly hives in a few weeks. 

I have one hive from a swarm last year that I suspected could be swarmy. They are good builders, so I have been giving them room and adding a few empty frames in the brood nest for them to draw. It's a deep and 5 mediums so far and I have kept it from swarming. They have brood in the deep and 3 mediums, and a good reserve of nectar/curing honey. I don't know what it's going to look like when we get the main flow here. I wonder if it's a 2 queen hive a bit. There are a boat load of bees coming and going at the entrance, and fun to watch. The colonies right now take a weekly inspection to keep them convinced they aren't ready to swarm, and give them more frames to fill.


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## gww

Danial
I am a bit lazy on inspections but also had a swarm on 4/13/2017 and was thinking I had till at least the 15th before I even had to worry about swarm cell being started much less capped. I wanted to do some minipulations but the real wether for it came in february and I was getting in the hives every time it got almost 70 degrees out in march but was afraid to move stuff or add room to give me the abillity to move stuff due to it getting cold again.

I didn't have any drawn comb and so I would be adding empties in anything I did.

I still am not sure how to handle it but will have to be a bit more agressive.

I read the checker boarding and opening the brood nest and baiting a super but these hive built up fast from very small hives. They did have lots of stores for thier size to work with and they went to work.

I do see a bunch of dead bees around the warre. Some might have happend while dumping them and such but I would say all the spilt sugar water is taking its toll. the bees are still wound up and I got stung on the arm going around them. So two stings so far today. I think I am going to either paint or soak my top feeder cause that is why I put them in the warre. I thought it would be easy to feed them.

I really liked how this hive built up last year with out feeding till fall. I had two simular hives and this one was better at all of it. They are swarmy though. The hive I bought is swarmy enough to go first but atleast it was a full hive. It did have a new queen and so I was not that expectant of it swarming.

I may end up having to combine and so might still get a little honey.

I was given 350 lbs of sugar last year and so right now I should at least get a little comb drawn with all this swarming.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok, It has been 25 days from when three of my hives/splits/nucs had capped queen cells all from the same hive. I looked at all three today. I had moved one queen cell to the split that I attempted to do a teronove split on. For the verry first time in my life, I finally spotted a queen. I did not however spot any eggs or larva or wet brood in this hive. I would have thought I would have by now but I do not claim to have good eyes and even in big hives the best I reamember doing is seeing pretty big larva.

Seeing this queen brings up some questions for the other two hives. One is pretty big comb wise and bee wise. I one capped queen cell in this hive. To me, having a capped queen cell is imposible at 25 days out from a swarm. last time I inspected this hive 5 days ago, I found one out of place bullet that looked like a queen cell but was built out virtical and a little small but bigger then a drone. I had taken my knife and broke it and it was a big larva and lots of royal jelly. The queen cell actaully looks pretty nice. But is is impossible that it should be there and I don't get it. I also saw no wet brood in this hive. This is the hive that I took four queen cells out of and left more then two in. It will not upset me if I had to combine the one I found a queen in with this hive or would it be better to wait untill she is laying and just steal a frame of eggs larva or just wait on this hive and check again in 5 days? I don't know what to do.

I also have the old bee hive that I let the bees fly back to the old location when I moved the hive above to a differrent spot. As a side note, these bees are pretty amazing, I am feeding the teronov split and it is only at about 5 combs drawn out. This hive has seven drawn out and they are almost perfect and it was not fed. 

Anywho, when I looked at this hive and all of them I was trying to listen for noise of queenlessness, It is hard to really tell because when you smoke them they put a buzz on also. I though maby it was a little louder. I listened outside to all the hives this morning also and maby it was a tiny bit louder but I am not sure. I went through the seven frames and did not find the queen. All three of the hives have some pollen. I also saw no wet brood on this hive. I also am not sure how to handle it. One thing is that since this hive started out as all old bees except for one medium frame of brood that had the queen cells on it. My thoughts are that it would not last long enough to raise another queen cell from eggs. Is this correct? How long can I play with these hives before having to worry about laying worker bees? I am guessing that I will wait one more week and look again before taking any type of action. What action should I take if I find nothing in a week? We did have some bad weather and maby that is why things are behind but I also did cut one of the queen cells out of the comb in this hive and so rough handling might be an issue athough the cut out cell that was moved did make a queen.

I have the other hive that has not swarmed but it has already given up two brood combs and is about my best hope for honey and is still not built out to a full brood nest yet (3 mediums).

I also have a swarm that came from the hive that swarmed twice on me and is in a lang. That was maby three days or so ago. I am sure it had a virgin queen and so wonder when I should inspect it. It is another avenue to get eggs or combine if needed if its queen gets to laying. I put one in a warre and it will be no help for stealing from.

When do you inspect virgin queen swarms?

I know this is a lot but if anyone could guide me a little, I would be thankful.

Thanks 
gww

Ps I did see one hive beetle in the bigger hive with the queen cell. I think I am going to have to reduce the space in that hive even though it still has a lot of bees. I had under supered it because it had all the brood to hatch but they have not did too much with the extra space but do have bees on almost all the drawn comb.


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## DanielD

gww, after a cell is capped, it takes 9 ish days before emergence. After that, the fastest I saw was 7 days to egg laying, but that's not normally what I see. 2 weeks minimum usually, up to 3 weeks after a queen emerges is possible. You are 15-16 days from a queen emerging, so you are just a bit early for concern. Your plan to wait a week is the best plan. Your swarm from 3 days ago, would most likely be 10-15 days yet, maybe a few more. If you see adjacent patches of cleaned out cells on a few frames, they have prepared for queenlyness. 

Hive beetles, keep the hives away from shade is the best thing.


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## gww

Danial
Thank you so much, I was thinking that but it is hard to know things you only read about. To me it looks like a very small area that does not have stores in some of the comb. But they do look like little brood areas in center to side of comb. They hive in question on hive beetle is in full sun. I watched it go into a cell on comb but it was the only one I have seen in this hive.

I am sorry to bug you but I notice you are very, very patient on a couple of the other threads I have seen you take on.

What do I make of a capped queen cell (only one) in a hive that has not had a queen for 25+ days? It did not look like the bees were trying to hide it like they do at times.

When does your flow end in your area for the year? I am just curious on if I did try and re- combine two hives that just went through the requeen process, if the first round of brood would make it to foragers before the flow ends or if it would end up being its strongest just as the flow ends and need everything to survive.

I really like how you incorperated "queenlyness" into your sentance.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Hive beetles can get ahead of a hive if they are weakened, but one beetle on occasion may not be a concern. They enter and try to set up shop, but the bees can keep them harassed where they don't make headway. I had a hive last year in sun, but it sat on a deck which meant cool damp ground underneath. There were also a couple bushes next to the hive. It had beetles a lot later last year, but the were never allowed to do harm. This spring beetles still were in the hive, but I moved it to full sun on hard ground with no shade nearby, and the beetles went away. It's the only hive that had some beetles, and there were dozens. 

About patience in a thread, I remember going through the same thing, and I am glad to be helpful, if I am actually helping. I hope I don't get all full of myself and all huffy about someone who doesn't get some of the basics yet. 

I don't know what to think about the cell in the hive. Is it by chance an empty one that has the door shut back up? There's also a chance it went laying worker already and they are trying to make a queen with drone brood, but it's quite early for that. If a virgin queen mated and laid very early, they could have a cell, but that doesn't seam logical to happen. 

Our flow ended last year a couple weeks after it started in early June. It wasn't too great because it didn't rain after mid May or so. I don't know exactly how long it would go, but I am assuming into July a bit if the weather and rain is good. All that sugar, you could feed if needed to keep them building up. We could get a good fall flow too, for wintering stores. Last option, you can combine them late in the summer if needed. No sense getting rid of a queen if you end up having them. 

I am just trying to help with your hope in Queenlyness catching on. It sounds so noble.


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## gww

Danial
Ok, my questions for now have been answered and so what ever I write next is just converation that I don't expect any one to have to answer.

I looked through four hives during the first real warm spell in february and the biggest one was a double deep hive that was just loaded with bee. It had a ton of hive beetle in it and the guys said he thought it would die because the beetles would not be so thick unless something was wrong. I mean it was packed with bees.

I went to a bee club meeting last night which I don't do too often. Somebody ask about adding nurse bees to a hive to strengthen it and I said why not just shake a frame of nurse bees in front of the hive. A big uproar started about how that wouldn't work and my mentor told me I didn't have enough experiance to be advising yet. I don't think he was trying to be mean but more that he really cares about the club and is the guy that most ask stuff to. I really try and be careful on the things I tackle as far as advice goes but do believe I was correct in the advice and even not doing the bee keeping thing for long, some things can be learned by reading. I think I am going to try it sometime for my own sake now. 

I want to help people on here but don't want to lead them astray and also relie a bit on somebody smarter to call me on it if I do make a mistake cause I don't want to cause any harm. I also have real weak areas that I need help on and some that I should even know better by now. I still say though that if I do know something and I am pretty sure I am not screwing up, it is better to share it with a person who does not know it.

The cell in the hive, it looks as good as any I have seen and not like the pictures of laying worker cells I have seen. Now the one that was vertical that I destroyed looked like some of the pictures. I don't think laying worker is an issue cause in my mind if they had a cell to the point of capping there would be some capped drone brood some where and I did not see but them two queen cell anomallies. It might be a test of one bee becomeing a laying worker or something along those lines. I almost stuck my putty knife in it but thought I better mention it here before I did anything stupid due to not knowing enough.



> All that sugar, you could feed if needed to keep them building up. We could get a good fall flow too, for wintering stores. Last option, you can combine them late in the summer if needed. No sense getting rid of a queen if you end up having them.


I have used 50 lbs of it so far with the small splits but you are correct, it is a neat gift I got. I see you are paying attention.

Keeping as many queens as I can sounds good enough to me. Fingers crossed.
Thanks for your help
gww

Ps I thought my bees did ok last fall though I don't have a referance point of old experiance. I did see them working pumkin and zucinie in the garden and my field is full of queen anns lace insted of goldenrod. I saw the bees working that pretty late.


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## RayMarler

GWW
You were correct at the bee club meeting. 
Shaking bees off in front of a hive, the older bees fly back home and the youngest bees that have never flown will crawl into the hive you shook in front of. It's a good way to get youngest bees into a hive that needs them. Another trick is to shake them off on top of the lid, the older ones fly home, the younger ones crawl down and in. Hives on stands, lean a board up to the entrance and shake off at the base of the board. Once again, the youngest crawl in the older flies back home.

Sometimes a queen cell is made but not cared for and it is no good but they don't tear it down until they have a laying queen and some population going on. Sometimes a queen lays just enough for them to get a queen cell going and then she fails and they get rid of her, waiting on the new cell to get them going again. That's all I can think of for now.

Queens...
Egg becomes larva after the end of the third day.
Cell capped in five to six more days, or 8 days after egg lay.
Cell emerges 8 days after capping, or sixteen days from egg lay.
Temperature variances can cause emergence to vary by 1 day either direction.


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## gww

Ray
I say the meeting thing was either that my mentor knows how new and in some ways dumb I am and also maby affects his status or maby not. Either way, since he is the dedicated one, I don't plan on hurting him in any way cause I do use him a little. I also think he knows bees but has kept them for 20 years in one way and things like flyback splits and teronov and like things seem to be a waste of time in his mind cause he has his way. I know every one can not know everything and I really am pretty careful (though not perfect and might be a little over bearing cause if you see some one that seems to need help, you want to help.

I always go to bushe's web site for the chart on bee math when my memory lacks a bit, I do think that I should be in the window and stuff should be happening already but also don't know the effects that wether and such have on bee math as far as flying and stuff. I just took it for granted that we had a couple days of 70+ degrees and there was no excuse now for the queens to be laying. I see the seven to 14 day mating thing and take it for granted that laying should occur. I don't know if you have ever mushroom hunted but my experiance is that I really don't see them very well untill I find a few and then they stand out better. Then my eyes get aclimated to seeing them in the proper setting. This for me has to repeat its self every year. That is what I find in the hive. I can look at all the pictures and vidios but it does not look the same when searching comb. I could be missing quite a bit even though trying.

I am not going to worry about the queen cell. I almost destroyed it just to see but then thought, maby it really is a second chance.

I do see how a guy can get worried when those perfect number of days have gone by and then you get in a hive and don't see what you are thinking should be there. I also think it is its very worst when using queen cells because the brood has all hatched by the time a queen is mated and it is hard to tell if it has not happened yet or they really are queenless. The only thing that gives me any comfort is that the bees seem to be foraging normaly when watching the entrance of the hive. There was a guy at the meeting who said he was only getting 25% of his vergins mated however he had brought some two frame nucs in to show how he was going to fix the problim and start selling queens and so I sorta take it with a grain of salt as being part of a sales pitch but am waiting on queen mating and so it plays on you mind. Another girl had two hives she was sure were queenless. 

I don't really mind if one goes bad and I have to combine but I would hate to have problims with 5 cause I don't have the resources to handle it well. I do think it is really probly going to work out but will feel better when I know it has.

I figured the nurse bees could beg their way in but them guys were pushing that if they were not bearing gifts the hive would stop them. I don't worry too much if anyone listens to me cause I only try and help and if I am ever wrong and they don't listen they won't be hurt and if I am right at least I tried. I really don't want to be wrong though and hurt some one.

I like you don't have a set number of reaching a bunch of hives but don't want to be a total failure in the things I do either, that is mostly for my pride more then my need.
Thank you for taking the time and effort to clarify a bit for me. I would be lost with out you and danial calming my nerves a bit once in a while.
Thanks
gww


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## RayMarler

My queen matings have been dismal this spring so far, not a very good success rate at all. I'm blaming in on the weather myself.  which has been unusually wet, then some wind, then too hot, now cooling again, has not been good queen mating weather at all here.

You are seeing a little of the politics and money that seems to be in bee clubs, that I've noticed too. I did not say about the shaking of bees for you to go argue with anyone, but only to give you yourself peace of mind that you were not incorrect on that point.

Keep up what you are doing, that's how we learn about bees. Give them time enough to perform. It takes 14-21 days After emerging to see eggs laid from a virgin queen that has mated. So from the time you make a split, to the time of eggs, is about 28 days.


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## gww

Ray



> Keep up what you are doing, that's how we learn about bees. Give them time enough to perform. It takes 14-21 days After emerging to see eggs laid from a virgin queen that has mated. So from the time you make a split, to the time of eggs, is about 28 days.


And then panic.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I have already written it too often on other threads, but I have seen it on BS a lot, which is, the queen generally starts to lay right after the new beekeeper starts to panic. Sometimes a keeper will panic and do some manipulating thing and maybe ruin the whole process because it just wasn't quite time yet. Patience is important with bees.

I am glad Ray Clarified the queen cell question. Sounds reasonable.


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## gww

Danial and ray
Well I finaly got a swarm in one of my traps and I don't think it is much but will know tomorrow when I switch it to a medium hive body. One more possible queen to save the day if things go south.

I spend a lot of time watching scouts when I see them, I can sit on a bucket for hours. I know I don't need to but find it interesting right now while it is new.

I am going to make a couple of post and then go out and try to cob together a new trap to replace the one I remove tonight.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I hope to have time someday to sit on a bucket for hours. I'd rather have a chair so I can lean back though. Congrats on the catch. I have 4 traps out right now, waiting for new bees.


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## gww

Danial
I love retirement. I am wondering if there is more then three hundred bee in this swarm and also if they are going to live the night. I have a feed sack as an inner cover on the trap to keep them from building comb on the lid and when I opened it a little, there were two million ants. I lifted the feed sack and between the ants I saw one or two bees look up through the frames. I don't think it is much but will switch them out tomorrow and if nothing else, maby it will have a queen. Even being small, it will be like opening a xmas package. Good luck on your trapping
gww


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## DanielD

I caught a swarm last year that probably covered 2 4x6 areas of comb and one more frame with half that they had built after I looked at them a week later. I was wondering if it came from a hive of mine that was in the middle of a supersedure. That would be a very small swarm if you have a queen in there. That was last May, and they are going strong right now building up. I didn't really feed them last year and they built up very slow at first, but steady when they had a flow coming in. It was a bad flow year too, barely a fall flow too. They filled 1 1/2 8 frame mediums last year is all and they overwintered. 

I am sure if I ever can, I will enjoy retirement a lot too. I have lots to do then.


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## gww

Danial
I don't know how I missed your last post but I did. I had one small one last year and added a bigger one with it a month later and it only built up thirteen medium frames. I did slam some quick feed in october and put a sugar block on it and it was busting at the seems the first time I checked in march. It was the only one that had queen cups with no eggs durring my first inspection. It is now my only hive that has not swarmed and is working on supers. My only real chance at honey. I have about a gal and a half worth almost capped in this hive.

My other swarm built up probly 17 frames and it was busting at the seams also. I do think not being able to adress swarming this year had some to do with so much stores in the hives in spring. They were built up to bigger then their origional population before I could even look at them due to the wether.

I am feeding a bit this year to see if I can see a differrance in build up and because of the free sugar.

I got impatiant and looked in the big hive part of the walk away split. I was down to the last three frames out of the 20 I looked at when I spotted the queen. This hive surprizes me a little. I had slamed 3 gals of 2 to 1 on it close to when I made the split cause it seemed to be getting lighter and I did not leave any foragers in the hive and it had a lot of brood to hatch. The part that surprizes me is that it is really active, It is packed plumb full of bees but has not stored much since the nurse bees and some of the hatched brood has turned to foragers. Still no egg laying but the queen is new and fat and has almost three meduims of empty comb to lay in. I did have a question. I found the queen in the second medium from the bottom. The bottom medium is mostly empty comb except for some pollen. Should I leave it where it is or should I reverse the two bottom boxes? There is still no sign of laying but I am no longer worried after seeing the queen. If those queens did not have a big orange colored tail, I would not see them.

This tells me when I look again at the old bee split that that queen will have to bee seen also cause even though tomorrow will be 30 days from capped queen cell, I am sure I will not see laying yet, the wether must have played a big part. Sure have my fingers crossed on that split but will wait 5-7 more days if I don't spot her tomorrow.

So, I now have two queens spotted out of six. I may go in the hive that swarmed twice tomorrow also to check on stores and comb drawing. It had an empty super on it that the bees had started on and then swarmed twice anyway. It is hard to inspect because it has the teronov split on top of it. It should gain some foragers tomorrow while I have the teronove set off to the side. These queens should by all rights be a week behind in development from when they were made but the swarms sorta tell me that they come out about even.

Anyway, my one question is wether to leave the hive that I found the queen in the second medium the way it is or move the second medium to the bottom?
Thanks
gww


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## RayMarler

Leave it the way it is until you see sealed brood emerging which will be in about three weeks. Don't disturb the way they are until she has laid a full round of brood that is emerging so that you know she is well established. That empty on the bottom is not hurting a thing at the moment.


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## gww

Ray
That sounds great to me. If you remember the imposible queen cell I found, I would say you had what happened correct. I took it off the frame and broke it open and it had a little runny liquid in it but over all was empty. It was very rubbery and pretty hard to break into. It sure was a nice sized good looking cell. 
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I would do what Ray said too. It's a good plan. 

I didn't keep track of how many swarms and splits you ended up with. You're waiting for 6 queens? I hope you get 100% on mating. I would leave them be till you have a minimum of 2 weeks after emergence, maybe more. If you open them at 2 weeks and find no queen or eggs, you won't do anything about it anyway, except worry about it. It's good to let them go. Ok, I have a virgin queen in the swarmed colony from the supersedure Friday, and I will try real hard to stay out of mine too, for 2 weeks +. It's not always easy to do. I will check the swarm after a week to confirm it's got the laying queen in it, but no farther than seeing eggs.

About making honey, I have a friend who had a hive swarm about the 3rd week of May, then after swarm, he caught both swarms, and from the three hives he harvested 60 pounds of honey anyway. He didn't feed them at all after that and they are still alive this spring, so he didn't rob them too much. There's hope with a good flow.


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## gww

Danial
My hives should be about 3 weeks from emergence on the ones I am checking. The ones that just swarmed 4 days ago should have emerged earlier but I am guessing the bees tied them up during the wether so they could swarm rather then let the virgins kill each other. I only have one more queen that is 30 days from capped queen cell. After that, I only have the swarms which is three more proby two weeks from now. The hives all seem to be foraging normaly and so I should not worry too much. I am sitting at eight and gave one away.

I can't seem to stay out of the hive but only part of it is worry over queen issues. Since I don't know what I am doing and even when doing it, I only remember half of what I see when I get in the hives. I have to be spicifically looking for something or when I think back on what I saw and try and remember other things, I can't. 
I partly got in the hive today a day earlier then planned because I was trying to remember how its stores looked. My issue is that I don't know cause and effect yet. So I get in and see the stores don't really reflect the foraging action I see at the entrance of the hive. So what I think I learned by getting in besides finding I had a queen is how much food it takes when you leave a hive with only nurse bees and a lot of unhatched brood comb. If I learned nothing else, I learned that it is a danged good thing that I gave them the three gal of sugar water in the beginning. Now I should have been able to have come up with that answer 4 days ago when I looked but I am not practiced at connecting the dots yet. 

Tomorrow, I will look at the split of just old bees that I gave no brood or comb to except a frame of honey (give or take) and a medium frame of brood with a queen cell on it. My issue with them besides finding a queen is that 4 days ago they had 70/80 percent of the medium hive body drawn out and filled. Even looking, my decission is, 
1. The bees are old and even if they have filled the medium, they should start dieing and brood is forty days away before new foragers arive.
2. They may be full enough of honey that the new queen only has a small area to lay. do I need to extract a frame and make room?
3. Even if the comb is pretty full of honey, the brood is going to take a lot and the bees may start dieing and not be bringing in enough and might need the honey there to make brood.
4. If they now have it drawn out and filled, do I add a super even kinowing the bees there now are old. 
I am going to look and see what is happening but don't really know the cause and affect of the hive make up and so don't really know how to handle it. I would love suggestions on this.

I don't have base lines to work from and so the queen is kinda a biggie and a good excuse to look but there are a few more reasons like trying to learn what bees do so when it happens in the future, I won't really need to look cause I will know (if I can remember any of it).

I am still first year but am looking forward to the day when some of this comes a bit more natural.

There is one more kinda funny or odd thing. I really am not as worried about the swarms as much because I had good luck in the past but it seems differrent on the minipulations that I made and were not the bees ideal. It is funny how you can not feel as bad for the bees if they do it to themselves but if you are the one that does it to them, you want it to work out. Wierd huh?

The flow? It seems early enough to have hope but I bet it depends on the rain being space correctly. I still have some hope and the hive that is giving extra now should give more and the one with all the bees and empty comb will be interesting to learn how the brood raising will affect what is possible.
Thanks for the advice.
gww


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## RayMarler

Your thinking is about right. If you feel she needs more room, you can swap out full frames for empties with one of your other hives, instead of adding a box of foundation. A box of foundation is not room, it's work needing to be done.

You can also set a frame or two out in the open for the bees to rob out for you, then put back in the hive once it's empty.


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## gww

Ray
See how simple that was, with two or three sentences from you, I have a decent plan of attack. I some times think myself in circles and it is nice to have some body simplify for me.
Thanks
gww


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## gww

Update:

I have to tell on my self so you guys know who you are dealing with when trying to advise me.

The hive that is all foragers that I looked at 5 days ago and could see nothing now has *capped brood*. Yes I was trying 5 days ago.

I think I also figured out why the hive that had the teronove split on top of it swarmed twice. The super I put on it only had one little tear drop of comb in it. I forgot to pull comb up or when I did it there was uncapped honey and I didn't want them to draw it fat or I just got into a hurry. I really can not remember what I was thinking. I believe I could have saved them from swarming if I had baited the super better. There is really no excuse. 

This is the hive that I shook all the young bees from when doing the teronove split. I put this box in the old place to catch the foragers that flew back and then when I moved the old hives brood back. I apparrently set this off and then set it on top of the brood and did not bait it. If I had moved the split on the double screen board sitting on top before the hive swarmed. I may have adverted this cause I would have seen what I did. 

I did not look in the bottom box to see what the be density was and guess that it is pretty light but the middle box under the super still has a lot of bees even after swarming twice. I left the super on and pulled up two frames and put them in the 4 and 6 spot and called it a day. This may be too much room for the amount of bees but I sorta figure it will gain some foragers when I move the teronov split off of it in a couple of weeks to a month or so.

I have one chance at honey if I go by comb and stores and that is with the hive that did not swarm. The top medium super is about 70% drawn out and full and 50+ percent capped. The super below it is probly 40/50 percent drawn and full and the bees are drawing on it hard. If the honey was capped enough, I would try to extract those frames and put them back. I am a little afraid that hive is going to run out of room and want to swarm before that happens cause it is active as heck and noticably so. I did shake the capped frames hard and nothing was coming out and I don't know what might be a time line for them to get it where it can be extracted and I don't know if I should add another super or not. My plan is to check in 5 or so days and see how much they got done but even that is worry some now that they are working the super below so hard.

Cheers
gww


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## gww

Small little update.
I am pretty sure the warre hive that I put one of the swarms from my hive in is either robbed out and I think queenless. (due to me using the leaky hive top feeder twice). I look in it and it has the prettiest little pure white comb in it. There are about five starts about as big as my hand with my fingers all together and strait as an arrow. There are only enough bees to cover those comb but not very heavy coverage. I have never quit feeding it about a pint a day or a little less and the comb has little spots of capped sugar water but over all look pretty empty since I am feeding. I don't get the robbing alowing any sugar water staying in the comb but also this hive was the only one that was not bringing pollen in today. I put another jar on it anyway but don't think it is going anywhere. I can't believe how many bees I killed when hiveing the swarm in it as you can see along the box edge a bunch of smashed bees. I bet one was the queen.

I moved the teronov split today. All the bees in it that were foraging are gethering at the top of the hive where the double screen door was. I figure they will be accepted pretty well where ever they end up cause they are just loaded with pollen. I moved this a bit early and it will probly be somewhere about the tenth of june before the split part that I moved will have new foragers. It only has about five comb built out but several are just packed and capped honey and so I am taking a chance it will be fine long enough for them to try and recover.

As a funny side note to the moved hive above. I put it at the end of my other hives and all the bees from the hive that was the end one before I put this here are flying to the new hive and getting right to the entrance and then flying to the hive they are supposed to go to. It shows that there old way of finding their hive was just to go to the last one. I just found it interesting that thier oreintation was based on such a lose criteria.

My other swarms are so slow and should be combined but I am just feeding them and letting what happens happen. None of them have more then two combs but they are bringing pollen in and we will see if they ever get to critical mass.

I did not look at my honey producer and the one hive that is the old hive on the end is filling the comb that used to have brood and has lots of bees but is not yet drawing a lot of comb but there is still hope for it cause it is crowded and has a new queen. I have four mediums on it but two are only about 50% drawn out due to stealing a frame and pulling a few up into the supers for bait and ladder frames. I hope they fill it in the next month and think it is possible due to bee density.

That is all I got. As always, point out any flaws in bee logic that you notice in me.
Thanks
gww


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## RayMarler

The only flaws I can think of are in me, I am having hard time keeping track of all you are doing. So, no comments at this time, I'm just reading for enjoyment your first year adventures in keeping a few bee hives. Thanks for the update and the small little update which is almost as much writing as the first update so don't know how you call it small... :} I enjoy reading your stories very much and am looking forward to more results of the rest of your adventures.


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## gww

Ray
Don't feel bad about not keeping up. I can't even remember what I have done even when it just happened and then add typing and spelling and everything goes out the window. I really envy those who can actually get a point across with few words.

First year is first year and you only know what you know and so adventure is an understatement. No matter what happens, I should know a little more next year. 
Thanks for reading.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok, an update. 

I took my home made bee excape board and put it on a bottom board and pulled all my capped frames from two hives and put them in two supers on top of it. I will pick them up tomorrow around 7 am and if there are still bees, I will brush them off at the house. I have crush and strained about a quart and a half already due to wanting some honey and also one comb being fat and on two frames.

I am going to extract these in my home made extractor and try to save the drawn comb. I am foundationless and so it should be interesting.

Off of the two hives and just guessing, I think I will end up with about 15 quarts when all is said and done. I thought I was going to have two full supers worth but did not end up with that. I have a few frames in the hive that were not compleetly capped yet. I was a little surprized by the hives. One hive was the one that I think had swarmed and that I then did the fly back split (to stop after swarms) where I moved it to the side and let all the bees fly back to the old location. The honey came from the young portion of this split that had all the brood and just a queen cell when I made the split. I got a full super off of this hive. 

I only got about a half super off of the hive that did not swarm. The third brood box was just packed with brood and light (probly 5/6 frames) I did not look below this super cause I was just after honey. A funny thing happened in this hive that I hope does not add up to trouble. I broke off a whole brood comb full of brood while pulling frames because it had a 2 inch portion in the middle that was attached to the top bar beside the brood comb frame. It seems that during storing honey the combs are more wonky and I cut another one also and just let the honey drop down in the hive. The reason I thought something bad might have happened is because there were some bees on top of the open hive sticking their buts up in the air putting out homeing farimone. Maby I killed the queen with dropping honey in the hive or the way I fixed the broken brood comb. Or maby robbers telling each other heres dinner. I proby just killed the whole side worth of brood because the way I fixed the comb was to just lift it back on the frame and put it against the wall of the hive so that the brood against the wall will probly not be able to hatch. I wonder how many days I should give the bees to reattach the comb and then move it enough from the wall to give a little bee space?

I condenced the hives down to just three medium brood boxes which ment that none of the comb was put back in order and so all the bee spacing will bee off and I am sure it will take some time for the bees to get it right.

I also wonder how good the excape board is going to work as I know you are not suposed to put brood in it and still expect the bees to leave. I had one frame that had about a 3 inch circle cleaned out for brood and it had one capped brood on one side and three capped brood on the other side and the rest was capped honey. The cells were cleaned and except for those few capped brood, it seemed that they were compleatly empty as best I could see looking hard. I guess tomorrow I will see if just a few nurse bees stay or they all stay. The night time temp is only forcast to get down to 57 degrees and so it might not be cool enough for the excape to work well and I am only giving it 12 hours to work rather then 24 or 48 hours. Time will tell.

I have some pretty strait combs but have also found that being foundationless and trying to use honey combs for guides that just being 50% capped is not good enough to put empties in between, they just draw the uncapped parts wide. Also the closer to the walls of the hive the more the comb drifts on the end to the next frame. I still aint mad that I am too cheep to buy foundation because, though I might be setting the bees back a little/lot, It is a good learning experiance and as long as I can keep ahead of the bees equiptment wise, I sill have no money in it and though I might not be production king, I am getting what I get pretty cheaply with time being my real investment.

Tomorrow will be my first extraction with an extractor, Should be interesting.

As always, I know I match the bone head title of this thread and don't mind if somebody tells me so, especially if I have a hope of learning from it.
Thanks
gww
Ps I also think that one or two frames is from last fall. The capps on these frames are not bright white like most of them are. If it was yours, would you try and keep those frames of honey seperate or would you just mix it all and be done with it?


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## RayMarler

Do let us know how the extracting goes, here's a tip...

My extractor is a tangent, so it has a cage that the sides of the frames lean against that helps them from breaking out. Another thing I've done is to take some light weight cotton string (yarn would work also) and made a loop on one end, put that around one "ear" of the top bar, and loop it round and round the frame and tie it off at the other top bar "ear". It looks like an old fashion barber pole wrap. That helps hold the comb together during extracting.

Also, on that broken brood comb, use the cotton string wrap idea I just mentioned above to tie the brood comb back in place so that it won't fall out of the frame. In a week the bees will have it attached well enough to remove the string. I've left the string in for a couple of months at a time in the past without any bad issues.

Looking forward to hearing more of your bone head adventures!!!


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## gww

Ray

I have used the cotton string thing several times. I guess mine is closer to thick thread. I have never taken it out of the hive but have watched bees do it. I have watched them hang near the end and kick in the after burners and you can see them shift gears. It looks like they can pull pretty hard. They sometimes seem to work in teams. I did not do that today because the comb fit the frame pretty good and I was not expecting trouble. I had quite a few things that I used my putty knife on to smash and straiten. Pulling honey by the frame is harder then setting a whole super and then just returning the stuff you don't extract.

I had the combs spread out due to pulling up frames to bait new supers and so had to go through all of them to condence the hive.

I have also made a frame with little nails and wraped the cotton thread around them to make a spider web type thing to lay the comb on but the last time I did that I made the web with a little too big of holes and the comb did not hold that well. I have used rubber bands. I had read that michael bush sometimes uses rubber bands around new comb when extracting. I have about 15 frames and I might try a little of everything and see which ends up being easyest. 

I also had a frame at the hives that I had drilled two holes in the top bar at an angle so that shish kabob sticks could be driven into the comb but was flustered at the time and sweating and just did it the way I did. Probly should have tried harder. So far I have used the string thing the most but would have went back to my garage to get it and I had had the hive open pretty long and it was already 6pm or so.

My extractor is a four frame radial and a sewing machine motor and so we will see tomorrow what kind of speed control I can get out of it with full honey frames. I only tried it out with empties.

All the honey I droped in the hive could have killed some bees. I have fixed combs before using hive tops as tables and know that honey can kill bees and that they get stuck pretty easy.

I will let you know how it goes. I am not a very organized person and even though I have been reading, studieing and thinking about how to do the extraction process, I, in the end, usually jump in the first time unprepared and then I get a little bit more prepared next time. I have been dreading the first time cause I am the way I am.

I do thank you very much for giving me the tips.
Thanks
gww

PS I have been making the wife a bit peturbed because she likes the grass cut and I have been using the bees as an excuse to not cut. If the grand kids are coming I cut it so they can play but I have seen the bees on the yard clover and so only cut half today. She told me she would rather not be embarressed with and ugly lawn than have bees and honey, Ha ha. Guess I will bite the bullet tommorrow and finnish the lawn also.


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## RayMarler

LOL gww yes you better get the grass cut before you end up sleeping in the bee yard.


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## gww

Ok
I have the honey in the house. It did not go well in my opinion but is done. In the end, the bees did not leave through the excape board and most seemed to be clustered at the top of the hive and still spread out on the frames. My garage is 50/75 yards from the hive. My gas blower would not prime so I could start it. I took it to my compressor. I thought the bees would leave with a little smoke and blowing out by the super. Maby there is not as good a flow as I thought. I had to get two unused supers and blow each frame individually and put them in the new supers.

The bees are still clustered on the boxes and not flying home. I must say that all I had on was a smock with veil and shorts and flip flops and the bees were landing on me and following the frames but did not sting me and I was abusive and some bees did die.

More later.
gww


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## gww

Ok, extracting done except for putting the extractor into storage.

My wife was excited and also did 90% of the work. When we were done she wasn't excited any more.

Here is where I blew out the bees from the combs. This is about an hour after and you can't see it but there are still hundreds of bees in the air and robbing from the surface of the old boxes.









Here are my bee free supers before exctracting.









Here is our uncapping. we just crush and strained on comb due to it falling out while uncapping.









The extractor which worked well though at the end something slipped enough and the tolerances are tight enough that it sounded like somebody knocking on the door cause one frame was hitting the trash can in one place. The sewing machine motor worked great for starting slow and then speeding up. Good speed control. I could have went much faster then I did and don't know how wet I left the frames cause I have no point of referance. I just spun a little slower and longer.









I blew out two comb with the one in the picture being the worst. I used rubber bands on some that where not attached on the bottom of the frame and I think it worked pretty good. I did lose to but could have lost more cause many of them were not very attached at the bottom.









last picture next post.


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## gww

Here is my extractor taken apart for the bees to rob. I also put the cappings wax spread out on a tray and put it all in the trailer I pull with my atv.









I put the wet supers back on the hives and parked the trailer in mid shade for the bees.

I got right around 4 gal of honey. Extracting is hard work and I would still be at it rather then writing this if my wife had not did most of the work and clean up.

I saved some drawn comb but think that crush and strain is easier then extracting.

I did not fix the broken brood comb better and did not mow the grass (yet! ha,ha).

Ray. I did bring the cotton thread in the house but it ended up that the rubber bands were just good enough. The honey was very thick and not all the same color and for better or worse is all in an almost full 5 gal bucket now. The only two good things about the whole thing is that it is done and that I did lick my fingers a lot on the way to the kitchen sink.
Hope to make it a bit smoother some how next time.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Well that chore is done, other than the final cleanup and storage of equipment, I bet you're glad it's over. Sorry it did not turn out as well as you'd hoped, but hey, 4+ gallons of honey is nothing to sneeze at either. I hope you enjoy it tremendously!

Have you thought yet about next time? What will you do differently?
I'm thinking one main problem was trying to extract foundationless frames huh? The ones that were successful, the next time will be stronger combs so won't be as tender and may extract with better success.


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## gww

Ray
In a way it went as I was expecting it to except the bee excape did not work at all. I do think it might have gotten rid of more bees if I would have put one on top and on bottom of the stack. I am also not sure of flows, cause I really just wanted to try and just tip the supers near dark and near the hive it came from and pick it up after dark. I am not sure that works well in a derth and bees at night sorta scare me.

Over all with the two combs blowing out, it was not a big surprize cause some of them were not the greatest in fitting the frames square. I think I would like foundation but just can't make myself do it money wise and I go from greed to dread on having to get rid of any honey for money. I am not a salesman.

What would I do differrent. If my wife was not helping me, I would have decapped one frame at a time while I loaded the extractor. I think that it would have took longer but that it would not have stressed the comb as much as her decapping and laying them on thier side till I got to them. I also need to make a better system with the honey gate on the extractor and the bowl that I let it drain in. The extractor walked away from the bowl and poured some honey on the floor. I need to attach a board for the bowl to sit on so it walks with the extractor. If I could do it out side. I have a stand that puts the honey gate at 5 gal bucket higth and coud go stait in the bucket but I didn't want to carry too much into the house.

I also need to get better honey gates. I bought the absolute cheapest off of ebay to try things out cause it it didn't work, why do more. The gate is hard to close due to a washer at the wing nut and the handle kept slipping around and the handle on it would fall in the honey. 

After that it is harder to keep things clean and honey would drip to the floor from the handle even if you did get it closed good. I would also not be as rigid about the filtering. I am going to get a paint filter for next time. Except for the capping, I would like to put the honey in the bucket with no filter and just let it sit and then skim the top and see how it turned out. I used some kind of micro filter that had about an 8 inch plastic ring on it and the filter was probly two feet long. I cliped the ring to the bucket and then poured about a gallon a time into it everytime my bowl at the extractor honey gate filled it. When I was done putting honey in the bucket, I just lifted the filter out. It filtered well and did not stop up but I wonder if it is really needed. It just seemed like we dirtied a lot of bowls and trays and that if we worked slower, we might not have used so many and may not have carried drips from place to place. I don't know why I care about that since my wife did all the cleaning but she was tired because of it and that made it not as pleasent.

I think everything worked as it should but if I could work on the flow of our work, we could do more in the same time or maby more time but less hard cleaning. If a guy could do it out side with out the bees bugging you it could be made lots easier. 

Part of it taking so long is not knowing when it is good not haveing done it before. At four gal for the amount of frames I had, I figure it probly worked like it should and so next time, I will be better able to guage the feel and look of a drained comb and be able to get my extractor speed to where it does it quick and yet good enough.

In all, I think clearing the bees from the frames is where I need the most help.

Mostly it went like I thought it would but maby I can do better next time on the extraction work flow so we don't make as much mess to have to clean up. I also think that this being the first honey and trying to get every drop of it in the bucket is a mistake. We used a spatula to clean the walls of the extractor. If we can convince out selves to not worry about the inch of honey that is below the honey gate are the honey that is coating everything an just let the bees have it back, that would be a help also.

When we deer hunt at dads, I was always the one to clean all the dear and I used to save the ribs and cut as close as I can to the blood shot meat and make sure I get the little piece of meat from inside the dear at the back of the spine. As I have gotten older, I have quit gutting the meat and just take all the meat off of the four quarters and the back strap and the neck. Just not gutting and leaving the ribs has really made the cleaning a bit easier and you really are not losing much. Just like falaying fish. You don't lose that much and the pleasure of eating boneless fish makes it worth it.

As you can see, I have never learned the talent of saying what I want to get across with just a few words.

The bees are just tearing up the stuff I gave them to clean, expecially the pan of cappings.
Cheers
gww

Ps My wife says I can't give it all away cause I only got enough for her and the kids. I doubt I will be selling any yet. I bet some other relitive get some though.


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## RayMarler

Yes, I think having an escape board on both the top and bottom would have been better, but also it works much better if you can leave them that way for 24-48 hours for all the bees to get out. They don't come out real fast so it does take a little time. To speed them up, it takes a bit of that beego or beequick stuff that makes them want to exit with a quickness.

Leaving the frames out and near sunset for the bees to fly back to hive by dark won't work out well unless you are in a good flow. If not in a good flow, they'll start trying to rob the honey out and back to the hive.

On the uncapping and extracting, next time take an empty box or two to use to hang the frames in when uncapping or when done spinning. Set it on a flat oil drip pan from the auto parts store to catch the drippings, it makes for quick easy clean up. You can also just set them in an upturned hive lid.

And yes, better honey gates are in order. Put one at the bottom of a five gallon bucket, and put a 5 gallon paint filter bag in it. This filters the honey great, and gives way to empty into jars or another bucket for storage. This is how I do it anyway. Sometimes I use a fry screen that is shaped like a tea cup strainer, only large enough to fit a five gallon bucket. That gives plenty enough straining for honey. Letting the bucket sit a few days, then bottling it from that bottom honey gate gives nice clear honey.


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## RayMarler

and Oh, my extractor is SS and is attached to a couple large truck rims on the bottom, so gives it weight at the bottom, and height off of the floor so it drains into a five gallon bucket. At the end, I tip it over some to get the honey out of bottom of extractor. Maybe this will give you some ideas on your garbage can extractor?


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## gww

Ray
I was probly over confident on the bee excape cause I built one based on one on Dave Cushmans site that he said he tried and the bees cleared the super in 1.5 hours.

Good ideal on the supers though since one super was only half full, I did "this time" have a place to put the extracted frames. I had it setting on a plastic trash bag. I have some big restrant cookie sheets that would work to set a super in for the uncapped but not spun frames. I will have to bring one or two home.

I have one of the cheap honey gates on the bottom of my $5 walmart 5 gal buckets now. I thing if I ever open it and start filling jars, I better have enough jars for all the honey. I may never get it closed again. defanate upgrade in my future.

The extractor was "ok" even with having to move a gal at a time if the honey gate was easier to use and more secure. If I add anything to it, it might be tip wheels and a handle so that I can move it with out seperating the frame from the trash can. The sewing machine motor and frame it is on is pretty heavy and auckward. I do have the perfect size small table to get the hight but it might make it auckward putting the frames in it though I think I tried it in the garage when building it and it was do-able.

I love getting your tips and thank you for them.
gww


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## gww

I got in a few of the hives today. It looks like the bees are working pretty hard like if there is still a flow on. This might not be the case though cause they are also gethering at the water hole and carrying a lot of water. They did not do that earlier. Maby they need the water to eat what honey they have in the hive.

Anywho, my goal was to just see what the bees might have done with the wet supers that I put back on and to see if there was any comb being drawn.

I also wanted to see if I needed to add space to any of the swarms I had. I have three that are still in a single medium at this time. I only looked at two of them. Both were about 70% drawn out. They are a little less drawn out now due to me fixing some wonky comb. 

I had slowly given all the swarms about a 1.5/2 gal or so of 2 to 1 sugar to water mix given slowly. The bees had made the honey band around the brood pretty thick which had made the combs slowly go to a differrent frame the closer it got to the walls. I took my putty knife and sliced the comb where this drift was. Usually this was about the last 3 or 4 inches at one end of the top bar of the frame. I also took my putty knife and smashed some of the thick stuff flatter which of course drained some of the stores. One frame I just smashed the cut comb from the frame on the side into the frame it had flowed into. I just cut it out in chunks in two of them. One of those chunks just had a big bunch of brood in it. I also flipped one frame a full 180 degrees cause I find the bees will cut comb down on thier own when I do this and smash comb together. I put the broken comb in a shim above the inner cover.

I pulled two frames up and went ahead and added the next brood box. They may not draw more comb if we are in a derth but they also don't like empty space in the brood nest. It was pure brood that I pulled up and it might be a mistake that I put an empty between then and two empties between the bottom where they were removed from. Due to bee density this will probly tax the bees ability to cover the brood well but it gives me probly till sept before I need to look at the hive again. Then I will have to decide if I want to dump some fast feed to them of 3 or so gal. The other swarm was handled the same and like I said earlier, I did not look at one. I am probly rushing the adding of space but I get nervous that life is going to take a turn and make it hard to get to and so now it is done for good or bad. There was still a small amount of comb building going on in the swarms hives.

The ones with the wet supers seemed to have actually lost a little of their stores. I had one that had some uncapped honey in the fourth medium that has not progressed furthur towards being capped. I did go down and fix the brood comb that I had broke last time and just kept in the frame and slid against the wall. The bees had only barily attached it to the top bar in two places but it let me slide it away from the wall.

The bees were happy and that makes me think maby the flow is not compleetly dead.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I only now had the time to follow your doings, enjoying the read very much but having some problems with understanding your managements and terms, not a native speaker, myself.
Well, I hope you forgive my misunderstandings, if there are any. I would like to comment or ask now and then if you allow.

First, congrats to your harvest. 

To queenlyness :



> 1. The bees are old and even if they have filled the medium, they should start dieing and brood is forty days away before new foragers arive.


I had one hive loosing it´s queen two times with mating flight and it still had bees enough to start the third time with a queen cell I donated.
After almost 3 months they had a laying queen which layed 5 frames in two days but only 3 were nursed because of the density. They had filled their combs with stores and just some went out for pollen, the other old ones cared for the brood. All bees were almost without hairs and had fringed wings, they were very old. But producing bee bread seems to use them the most and after the first brood cycle many died.
Before winter I put in a comb of capped winter bee brood from another stronger hive, but they would have made it without help. I did not feed, we had fall flow and they bred winter bees in high number after having young bees again. No mites.




> 2. They may be full enough of honey that the new queen only has a small area to lay. do I need to extract a frame and make room?


I did that the last days because we have an extraordinary good flow, took out single frames with capped honey and put in foundations or empty frames, one at a time because this needs work.
Bees always shift nectar though, as Ray Marler said. If they have space.



> 3. Even if the comb is pretty full of honey, the brood is going to take a lot and the bees may start dieing and not be bringing in enough and might need the honey there to make brood.


They need honey for worker energy and pollen and honey for breeding. They use more water when they have more brood and need to use the pollen stores. I thought one of mine would not breed but the had so much pollen they only went for water. Trust your bees more, gww, they shift to the jobs they need and accommodate.
But I know how you feel, because of the honey ound brood nests I really got panicky. mentors had to calm me 

Last year I had some mating problems, because of the weather, the queens were not very prolific, some superseding took place and some superseded too late and succumbed in winter.
This year I had to rebuild my bee yards and splitted, later I realized that I had not much queenly hives left which made me nervous.
But as long as you have two hives with laying queen you always have some egg combs to donate.
Why do you work so much with queen cells?
Capped queen cells are sensitive to handling and you never know if thers a good queen inside if you are not a professional breeder.
So, in my case, I will make a strong hive queenless, put some frames with eggs between brood frames and distribute into splits using the frames with cells. Much easier.

I think you should use a flashlight or magnifying glas to look for eggs. Too much stress to not know what happens. To see eggs is always calming you down, you don´t have to check the whole hive.

When I harvest I have a plastic box near me with lid, frame size and space for one box of frames. I brush off the bees and deposit the comb in the box quickly closing it each time. I´m not blowing off the bees because I have no queen excluder or bee escape and because I´m sometimes harvesting from old brood combs which I placed at the sides and which I want to sort out. i don´t want to blow away the queen.

I put some balled up newspaper between the top bars so the cappings are not broken while transporting. I store the combs in this boxes until I have all I want to extract. I extract the year old honey combs with liquid capped honey from last year, which I still have in store for feeding and exchange them for new capped frames. I leave different kinds of honey, capped, in the hives throughout the year, so they have not only crystallized fall honey for winter food..

I believe there was a post of someone ( Lauri it could be) who was strengthening the combs with wooden sticks. If you can´t wire them having only top bars, you can use vertical sticks or thin branches, peeled, from willow.
My co workers with natural comb build wire mesh frames , like a bag, for extracting the comb. Put over the frame with comb.

I clean my extractor with very hot water and a spraying can. The honey water runs down into a basin and we use it with lemon juice as lemonade. Fill in bottles. Nice with peppermint tea added.


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## gww

SiW......
First let me say that I am always surprized anyone can even get close to understanding what I try and type. Believe me, it is not because of a language differrence. I quit school at 17 and only went to school before that so I would know where the keg parties were. I make up my own termonoligy as I go. My laptop computers key board is so old and dirty that lots of times the keys don't respond even when I get lucky enough to hit the right one. I go back and try and proof read and lots of times, I don't even understand what I wrote. I have to give you a big thanks for even trying and am always thankful for any suggestions.

I write half of the stuff I write cause I know I am a dummy and feel lost on what might be the right thing to do. So, I put down what I do do and hope if it is way out of line somebody will call me on it and also maby give suggestions of other ways of handling it better. I don't always listen to those suggestions or even remember them lots of times but I am always thankful for them.

It is good to know you can milk along a hive long enough to get a queen if you fail in the beginning.

I handled most of those queen cells due to other mistakes such as,
1. I did a teranov split but the queen did not end up with the young bees with no brood. I knew there was a queen cell in a differrent hive and so figured that even if the queen was there, I would be taking less chance having a queen cell in the hive and so cut one and put it in. I also didn't want to put a brood comb in the hive cause I figured if the queen was there, there would still be a bit of a break while the bees drew comb for her to lay in that might tamp down on any mites since I was making a split anyway.

2. My friend wanted a couple cells and so why not.

3. I moved the whole frame with a cell on it to my flyback split because it was going to need a queen and would get one sooner with a capped cell.

Mostly I handled the queen cells so much because the bees made them even though I was trying to keep the hives from swarming and they pretty much forced me to make the actions I did or go the other route and just keep tearing down queen cells with my fingers crossed.

As far as extracting a frame for the queen to lay in. I came out of winter with a whole bunch of stores. I had had a 16 pound sugar block on the hive and the bees pretty much went through them but left all the combs full. I didn't know for sure what to do and still really don't. I had no drawn comb. In the end the bees built up really strong but also swarmed and tryied to swarm. Only one out of the three did not swarm and get split or both. I did take at least 3 brood frame from that hive to tether swarms and such.

I only have one hive that I am pretty sure has one of my old queens in it. I don't know what happened the the queen that was in the hive that I did the teronov on. It might have swarmed and I just missed it. I had three swarms come from my hives which I sit by pretty much daily. They all landed in the same tree right where I sit. It is not impossible that I lost one and it went some where else to rest. 

The way I look at it is that I had 8 queens that needed mating and only have one that was not successful and it is in the warre hive that I think I caused a bunch of robbing on due to a leaky feeder. I was worried and it took longer then it should have (due to rain I think). I was worried about the queen cells I handled but they apparrently took it ok.

In the end I do what I do cause I don't know better. I can not look at stuff and know if it is normal or not cause I have never seen it before. 

As a side note. I thought about making a late split right now with the hive that did not swarm, so the genetics had a chance to be around due to the mite break a split would give. I think I have decided to leave it and see if it lives through its second winter though. It was a swarm (actually two swarms due to a combine) that was caught 12 mile from me and so would not have been bred by the same bees that are around me.

As far as a magnifying glass to see eggs. I don't plan that well most times. I did find it very stressfull when looking at bee math and not seeing what I thought I should. I usually try and figure about when the capping of brood should happen and then when I look and don't see capping, I figure the larva should be pretty big and easy to see. I was nervous cause I didn't see but it all worked out. So, I sorta care and sorta think that even if it goes bad, it is not the end of the world and I will learn something. If I wasn't so sloppy, knowing would be better and less stressful. 

As far as extracting goes. I did brush two frames off. I don't own a brush but using a clump of grass actally worked pretty good. It may sound stupid of me but the blowing causeing queen loss really doesn't scare me too bad as long as the bees have viable brood in the hive an the time to make another. That said, I don't want to purposly lose a queen and have the other risk that is associated with that. I did think that being away from the hives that the blowing would cause the bees to fly back home and not hang around so much. The way they did hang around, I might as well have brushed the bees off right at the hive.

I actally looked at every frame that I extracted and made sure that I only took the ones that were capped. 

I do have lang frames and could wire them or do the bambo thing. I really love those ideals but also like the ideal of not having to do anything. It sorta comes down to adding up which is more work or if losing a comb or two due to blow out adds up to being worth the extra work. I know those guys that wire and such figure it is easier to have comb you can be rough with. Myself, I am just starting and just now seeing if the not wiring and cutting peices of comb to straiten of breaking off one once in a while is too much of a hassle. I am thinking that if I break some and throw it in the hive and the bees reprocess it, That yes, I might be setting them back a little by making them build comb twice but if it is easier on me and also something I might get better at and do fewer times, that learning this way might make bee keeping easier in the long run. If I wasn't so cheep, I might get foundation and may someday. Right now, I am just learning the cause and effect. If I break some comb, how bad is it hurting the bees? So far (Knock on wood) I don't really see it as hurting things too bad. I might smash or break some next week and it might start off a bunch of robbing cause honey made it to the bottom board. I am not saying that I am smart or right or others should do it but more that I am trying it this way and trying to learn about this way. I want to know the other ways but so far am liking this way fairly well and also hopefully learning from my mistakes.

I do wonder about the time of year and the space I just added to the hives. If it was early spring, I would not worry cause I would know a flow will take up the room. I would not even be worried if it was sept as we usually get some good golden rod if there isn't a big lack of rain. I was a little gun shy due to the swarms earlier of not having enough space on a hive. Now I might be over reacting and putting too much on them. I don't know our flows yet. I also don't know how to handle space and winter. I put the wet supers back on. I know we can get a decent flow in fall. I know most use fall flow for wintering. I know some get some honey also. I realize the ideal is to fill the brood nest with winter stores. How to get all that done is still a mystery to me. 

So, I am leaving my honey supers on for now and near the end of september, I am going to see where the bees are, where the stores are and then worst case, I will take the supers off and feed my last 200 lbs of sugar to them so the hives can get heavy. Then next year I might know when to condence the hive and not have to feed and not make the brood nest so crowded that they can't make a winter cluster of young bees. This was not as hard last year when the bees could barily get big enough to winter and no extra honey or comb was involved.

Maby I will know more next year.
SiW....
I hope I didn't wear you out or bore you too much.
Thanks for your comments and suggestions.
gww


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## Arbol

well gww you did a real good job writing this post ^ completely understandable, you don't give yourself enough credit.


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## gww

Arbol
Thanks, you don't know how long that post took to write.

Typing is hard and I can not spell well and words that are in my mind don't always get to the commputer. Some people really have an art of getting real good points across with few words. I am envious of that skill.
Thanks
gww


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## eltalia

Okay <gww>.
I am having a great deal of difficulty in following your description of events/reactives. 
Likely just me.
So I offer basics, fully aware I may be "preaching to the converted".

Any active queen is with the swarm.
That swarm colony should be relocated at least a mile offsite, particularly where other managed colonies exist close to it's origin.
Likewise moving a colony "10feet" is more likely to fail than be productive. Close it up at dusk and move it offsite also.
There will be plenty of days remaining to sort a queenless colony, so for "do now" action eliminate the immediate risk of colony drift in all cases. Consequences of drift/confusion could include robbing and/or after swarms or even more full swarms.

One single standout quality of your record of management is that which makes beekeeping all about you, what suits you, what is convienent for you, what works for you. Fine as that is, as an ethos it is a mistake, one shared by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of beekeepers.... yet those persons get on fine albeit often tripped up by the bees with resulting "woe is me" outcomes.
Honeybees exist fine in the wild, have done since time immemorial (1189), so until the day we (managers) 'tune in' to the organism not only will we get stung a lot, lose whole viable colonies etc etc, but we sure will type a lot 

Cheers.


Bill


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## gww

Eltalia


> I am having a great deal of difficulty in following your description of events/reactives.
> Likely just me.


It is probly not you.



> So I offer basics, fully aware I may be "preaching to the converted".


On some of the things you mention, I am not converted. I more look through the forum seeing things others have tried and liked that fit with what I want to accomplish and then I try it and see if it works.




> Any active queen is with the swarm.
> That swarm colony should be relocated at least a mile offsite, particularly where other managed colonies exist close to it's origin.
> Likewise moving a colony "10feet" is more likely to fail than be productive. Close it up at dusk and move it offsite also.
> There will be plenty of days remaining to sort a queenless colony, so for "do now" action eliminate the immediate risk of colony drift in all cases. Consequences of drift/confusion could include robbing and/or after swarms or even more full swarms.


Most of this is over for this year but I did have my issues during all the things that happenned.

I do understand the queen is with the swarm. I did have a swarm that I caught but also had three hives and so I thought I had it figured out which hive had swarmed. Then I did a teronov split on a differrent hive cause it had cups with larva and royal jelly in it and lost the queen some how and so now I know that I don't know for sure.


Move bees a mile.

As far as moving a more then ten feet. I reconize this may work best however on the splits that I did do that were not swarms I caught, I tried to split the bees by age and job so that drift was less of an issue and also on one used a double screen board cause drift of forager bees from the young bees on the top of the board would only help the lower hive at some point and so as long as the top part stayed "strong enough", The bottom would be even better and it could be accomplished in one yard. 

The one that I moved ten plus feet away and let the old bees fly back to the old location was something that member "lourie" said she really liked and I tried it and it is my favorite as those were my strongest comb building split from the hive I was already sure had swarmed. I really like that split and would sometime like to try it while having the old queen and before she had left.

I did put two of the three swarms that issued from my hives only 10/20 feet away and drift could be an issue with one of them. They were both after swarms that came a day apart from each other and one of them is not now viable. I did however put a leaky feeder on that hive and also killed a bunch of bees when hiving it. It could be drift or the queen not making it back also but I think it is more likely the killing of all the bees maby getting the queen or mostly my leaky feeder running out the bottom board.

I do have access to two hundred acres about 12 miles away that I could move splits and such to but figured that I would like to keep everything in my back yard for a while and try to learn with them first. I could move them for a couple of weeks but am foundationless and moved a swarm one time and collapsed all its comb and so for now I am practicing in my back yard, good or bad. 

I do think that when the swarming and splitting happenned might be why they worked as well as they have so far. I would hate to do what I did with those small swarms in a derth.

I realize I do put a lot of "I" in my post and believe you are probly correct that I might have a small selfish (lazy) streak that could work against me working with the bees. I do look for post that help me midigate what I want to accomplish in a way that the bees may accept it though.

I don't dissagree that I could work with the bees better. I also find that I can read and read and read but the doing is always differrent from the picture that that reading puts in you head.

I am retired though and maby having a differrent goal in mind than handling bees to thier max. I don't relie on the income and don't know if I want to have another job but more want a cheep hoby that teaches me things. I may experment a bit and then come on here so smart people can tell me that the reason this didn't work is because it did not fit with what the bees want.

Don't get me wrong, I want to know more of the right things which is why I put it out there. I want to eventually know what can and cannot be done and what works as well as what does not.

I do say that so far, my very favorite split was just moving the whole hive 10 plus feet and letting the foragers fly back to the old spot and start building comb.

As far as my stand out quality, every body keeps bees to get stuff for themselves. I do too. I do look for ways to make the bees want the things that I want. I get most of my ideals from people willing to comment and I thank you for yours and also any more that you have the patients and energy to give.
Cheers
gww

Ps The hive I did the teronov split on and then put back on the hive was the hive that put out two after swarms and so I am not discounting that is could be from confussion of having all the splits so close. I did mess up on that split in two or three ways in my mind though that could have contributed. One, I did not shake all the bees off the frame and may have left too many young bees on bottom. Two, the wind blew the board over where the young bees were clustering putting them in the grass, Three, I did not bait the empty box with drawn comb or brood to intice the bees to use it and lastly, I did not cull the queen cells down to one or two in the lower split but left all of them.
It was still fun for a first time and I will do better next time.


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## eltalia

@gww.
Quite clearly your interaction with the forum frames much of your way forward, not a bad thing at all however it always holds true locale determines which works best for bees you manage. And so it is what some report may or may not apply to any situation you stumble across.
I guess, in a nutshell, the solutions often given should be considered as options up against what you know locally. 
When something does not work, resist making the mistake of forcing the option to work - in thinking it is your work at fault(?word?). 
Observation is the key, often months over a single colony.
Bees make the decisions, you observe... and learn, a never ending 'game'.

The "one mile" 'rule'?
An arbitary number which will guarantee the bees must reorientate totally.
1/2 a mile might work as well as 100yards, in a particular circumstance.
A single mile - or more - will definitely work, in any circumstance.
Like yourself I am 'lucky' in that I can roam freely within a 25x80mile valley.

What one wants?
In what is now coming onto five decades of colony interaction I can quite definitely say I have yet to meet any enthusiast who is "in it" solely for the bees, regardless of their utterings. I have run across some who near on had me convinced, but time proved that as entomologists and/ or journeyman biologists the end game was peer recognition within their career path.
So it is I adopt the attitude "everybody is guilty of "I want""... it is only a matter of what that "want" is.
For mine my work in retirement is wholly philanthropic. Like yourself I have no need for income from it, nor am I (us) that keen on honey stores above what two ol'furtz can consume in any year - but - the rub-off is I and my partner get to be known (recognised) to be of value in an otherwise closed local community owning a poor attitude to the aged, 
So whilst we do not actively pursue that end it is nice to know it will happen. So in "sack-cloth and ashed" I am as guilty of "I want" as the next person. 
Yet having grown a genuine liking for bees (all) I can only wish they want me around 

Cheers.

Bill


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## 1102009

> I do say that so far, my very favorite split was just moving the whole hive 10 plus feet and letting the foragers fly back to the old spot and start building comb.


That´s really fantastic. Please go on updating, gww, and don´t belittle yourself. 
You give good reasoning and reflecting about what you do.
I like to learn from your stories and I do!

Learning by error and success is good learning because learning about your bees is a local thing.

As to education...I rather have less and be practical. Must be a whole lot of academic people who are not able to build such a pavilion as you did.
As much as I respect educated people learning by doing is the best education.

Why should it be strange starting each sentence with "I do" ? It´s your experience you tell about. Your thoughts given.


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## gww

eltalia
I am first year and will be dead before I can say I have fifty years with the bees. I worked for someone else for 30 years and now can do some of the things that interest me. I have found that with an internet connection that it is not like the old days where you actually had to be innovating and smart to be able to do some things. I have you tube and forums and such that may not make me an expert but give some chance of making me have some minute success of surviving new things that I try. I agree that learning a skill of picking through which of those things a person may try and which is a waste of time is still a trick in its self. I have a limmited income and lots of time and decided to try bees cause it fit with my likeing to stay home but yet be a little busy and yet fit my income level.

It has led me down some strange avenues. I am cheap and so I built everything with scrap left over from other jobs till I started having a hard time finding more. This led me to building a home made saw mill so I could get more wood. This led to me building some storage buildings and helping on my brothers club house and still get wood for bee hives.

Now I doubt that I saved real money and buying things that are mass produced would probly be cheaper in real life. Doing it this way though only hits my finances at a rate that it is much less noticable and so therefor is something that I can keep doing forever. I do not do any of it good but more just good enough. It makes me closer to the old saying of "jack of all trades and master of none". It also gives the illusion of having accomplished useful stuff. Others can accomplish it better but I still feel a little good that I can accomplish any at all.

SiW....
I also learn from you. I am getting so forgetful as time goes by that keeping what I learn is not garrenteed. I know what I know now is very little and so I muddle through and try to know more and you and what you do helps. I also will sometimes defend things I think I know and am later proved wrong on because it is the defending that brings out other views that give me more veiws to assess. I figure to make some mistakes and then see if I am the definition of a fool who keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over or if I can actually learn. How a person learns is probly how he has learned to learn. I only know for myself one way to do it and maby actually end up knowing something. That is to jump in and try it and put it up for review from people that probly do know and then see what happens. I feel lost everytime I try new things and bees is no exception. Throw in that many seem to accomplish the same thing by taking many differrent routes, then chosing from all that is out there to use for yourself is a trick in its self.
I just keep reading and depending on my energy at the time, trying some of it and then just leave it to faith that it will be what it will be.

I enjoy our interaction.
Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> I figure to make some mistakes and then see if I am the definition of a fool who keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over or if I can actually learn.
> I enjoy our interaction.
> Thanks
> gww


Well, I am more the fool than you perhaps, because sometimes I repeat my mistakes even knowing about them.

If I could make people smile at my posts in a nice kind of way I would cover my keyboard with dirt, too. Keep on! Love your spelling.


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## gww

SiW....


> Love your spelling.


Now that is new, ha ha!
Cheers
gww

Ps You don't need dirt on the key board, your last post made me smile.


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## gww

Just because it interrest me. This lizard on the bottom board next to the hive has been living in an empty hive on the left for a long time. Looks fat doesn't he.










The fruits of my labor. They never seem to get as much honey on the side of the jar and the counter top on the you tube vidios I watch. Bottled 3 gal and one still in the bucket. 










Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Very nice. 
The fingers show how sticky this job is, very elegant motion.


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## gww

I found this interesting at about 5pm today.










None of the others are doing this.









From the side.









How deep they are hanging.









All the hives have slatted racks. This hive is really doing well. This is the flyback part of a hive that was started with a comb of capped honey, one frame of brood with a queen cell and empty foundationless frames and of course only foragers for bees.

Out of all of them, it has built up fastest and probly had the most stores (almost a full medium) by the time the queen got mated. I just added (a week ago) the third medium and pulled either one or two brood frames up to bait the super/brood box.

I thought that maby the boxes were just made a little better and did not have as much natural ventalation at the seams but it looks like it does not fit perfect. This hive is the most active at the entrance of the three hive on the stand and the only one that is close is the second from the end which was the other half of this split. Maby I have found the queen I need to propogate from though it did start the biggest in spring and was the only hive I have bought.

There was some washboarding going on on the front of the hive.

I don't know if I am going to crack the inner cover for ventalation or not. I do not have any entrances in my inner covers on any of the hives.

It did rain two days ago and sprinkled this morning for about a half hour.

I am getting into a few hives tommorrow so that I can add two supers to two hives one super each. I will also remove on another hive a shim that I put on to hold some comb I broke out while adding a super to it. It will be interesting to see if the bees messed me over and drew comb in the shim in a week and wether the little bit of brood that was in the comb hatched.

I have seen bearding before but it does have me curious of why just this hive.

Any ideals?
Cheers
gww

Ps My pet lizard is still moving from hive to hive checking the entrances. Thought about taking another picture so you guys could see that he doesn't seem to be losing weight but figured I have run that into the ground already.


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## DanielD

gww, are you looking for an out yard for next year yet? The bearding could be one or more of several things. Some of mine beard more than others, but I don't get concerned. They surely have the temps taken care of inside just the way they are.


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## gww

Danial
I have an out yard but am too lazy to really want to use it. I was thinking I had lots of equiptment made ahead but started getting close to using it. I wasn't that worried cause the long hives don't have bees in them and I have two more of everything but wow, getting close. I may never put bees in the long hive because they have really turned into handy tables.

I was thinking that I might be able to have up about 20 hives here at home. I may someday put some somewhere else if for no other reason but to see how the bees forage there compared to at home. Untill I become a lot more confident that I know what I am seeing easily and can only go in a few times a year, I will probly keep them at home for awhile.

I am such a worthless hermit or lazy type that I can hardly make myself drive to the store 6 miles away or even go the mile to buy milk at our one gas station in my town. Putting bees twelve miles away seems hard though I did go to mom and dads and plane some more boards for hives the other day. So I am not so mentally ill that I don't do what I absolutly have to.

I gave some advice using your name the other day to a guy who was checking on a virgin queen return. 

Danial, is your flow still going?

Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, the last week and a half has had a good flow surge after 3 inches of rain in a couple days. The white clover was still out, and is still finishing up, as well as 5 acres of blooming alfalfa a mile away that hasn't been cut yet. I am just suspecting that they are utilizing the alfalfa, and there was some very light honey coming on last weekend. I don't know for sure if it's still going good today. 

I had an issue with honey harvesting and top entrance hives. Seems once the main flow subsides, and it did for a while a couple weeks ago, the colony wants the brood at the entrance so they bore up through the beautiful full frames of honey above them to get there. I saw up to 1200 pounds on the hives before I discovered that. My one bottom entrance I have has given me 12 gallons so far, (beautiful 4 mediums stacked up and fully capped) and has another 4-6 gallons to take when it's capped. I am impressed. The others are top or combination entrances and they mostly had started their drive to the top by the time I was going for harvesting. It's a shame to discover the top entrance issue too late. One instance, my second best producer, had maybe 10 gallons, but I only was able to take maybe 3 1/2 or so. A good amount of the honey was consumed to make all the brood, but a frame that's half brood and half capped honey doesn't do to well for extracting. I got 35 gallons the first round, and there may be another 20 on. I cured the top entrance error on some and they are correcting themselves. I also pulled a bunch of queens for nucs and stopped the march upwards. I plan to split more as the cells are completed next week. Yes, I am reproducing that 200 lb honey maker hive.

One product of the drive to the top entrance with brood is lots of bees. Most of the hives are boiling over with bees Like I haven't had before. I even lost a swarm out of the second biggest hive since I spent a couple weeks scrambling to snatch what honey I could, and extracting, as they all were marching upwards. I will be able to make some more strong splits this month with all the bees. I want to end up with some side by side double nucs to winter. I don't know for sure how many. I am at 28 colonies right now, but several need to make a mated queen yet. With the nucs I could see going to 40-50 colonies easy, but time is getting tougher to come by for them. I may see if late July nucs are a viable product to sell in a couple weeks. I can't help but laugh at the multiplying bees and the honey flowing in, even though they did consume or block a lot of it from me. I hope some of the queenless hives can pull in more as the brood nest empties of brood, for more honey crop. I would say the flow is going to grind to a halt very soon, unless there's a soybean field nearby that will produce nectar, or something I don't know about.

I need an out yard too. Shouldn't be hard, but I haven't tried to find one.


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## gww

Danial
Even my one hive that did not swarm did not make the Mo average per hive honey crop. You are doing something right. I was told last year to take my honey off at the end of june or the bees would use it to make babies. I only have bottom entrances.

I had some more honey in the hives but it wasn't capped and part of that is my fault for the way I supered them. I moved up some partialy capped supers and put empties under them. I am not to mad about it cause I did want them to build me some more comb and maby it didn't even really make a differrance on that but I did leave some uncapped stuff in the hive. I will get in a couple or tip a top and look down in a few tomorrow and maby know more. 

I had put my wet supers on and the bees at the entrance looked busy last week but when I looked it did not look like they were gaining much or making lots of comb. I do think a few were still drawing a little though. It has really looked busy since our last rains. I guess I will know more tomorrow. 

It is kind of funny, you know what to do but don't have the time and I don't know what to do and do have the time.

I am not going to try and do any splits or try for increase. For right now I am satisfied by what the bees made me do. If they all live through winter I might even sell one or two in spring and then again maby not. In one way I think I am stupid not to split one just for the experiance but think I am just going to let it ride and see how I do over winter this year.

You must have did very well in keeping your hives together to get those high numbers for honey for a couple of your hives. I have read your top entrance thread but can not comment cause I have nothing to add and so more just try and learn from reading. I am trying to pay attention though.

Thanks for telling me about your flow. Mine are hitting my garden and I always think of that as the end but I do see bees on the clover that is in my yard. You mention out yards. When I look at the size of the heads on the yard clover and the amount compared to my area, it is unbelievable how lush it is at mom and dads house compared to mine. They have corn planted in the crop fields this year and so that is not a good thing. 
Thanks for the responce and good luck on your splits. I would be interested around the end of sept of how they worked for you.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I probably should argue with you about me knowing what I am doing. I am learning every year though. FYI, I had 16 hives that were used for production, which means so far the average isn't too good. 3-4 of them haven't produced anything to take off, so those queens are out soon. It's a queen line that hasn't been very good. The biggest hive is a new swarm from last summer. I hived it and did nothing to it but add a box when needed, and it grew to survive winter to come into spring strong. 

I guess I don't know for sure about taking off honey at the end of June, since my bottom entrance didn't do that. It actually shrank the brood nest some as the flow subsided before the last rain which is good. I didn't see any intent to eat up the stores, and it was a big colony. I did pull the queen Monday to make cells for splits, and hoping to see the 3 mediums on it topped off. 

My biggest gain this year has been heavy wax plastic foundation from Acorn. It has made a big difference in the productivity of the colonies. They draw them out easily as they need them, even before they need them sometimes. I also was aggressive with swarm prevention and didn't have too many go to swarm before the flow.

Again, I don't know if I really know what I am doing or it just happened. I just consider I have been blessed this year.


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## gww

Danial
I have been blessed also.

New thoughts,
I guess I need to decide to do something or not care and see what happens.

I peeked in most of the hives, no real deep dives. I did not add supers cause I did not see what I thought I had seen last time I got in the hives. 

One hive I had not looked into last time but just guessed compared to what the others did and what it was the time before when I had looked at two side beside. This was my last swarm and very small. At this point in time it only has about 4 frames drawn out and does not look to be making wax. Its brood pattern is fair. I am trying to decide if I want to jump start it or just let it go and see what happens. It is hard to write down my ideals because if you involve other hives to fix one you have to think about the effect all around.

My thought was to maby take a frame of capped brood and bees from my strongest hive and then put a fast feed gal or two of 2 to 1 sugar to water on it to jump start it into making comb. My issues with this ideal are several. One would be that of the two hives I harvested honey from, one is just going gang busters and has already filled the six or so wet combs that I put back on it and still has a few bees on a frame festooning to draw more comb. It has four mediums on it but the top two both have empty frame and so it really only comes to about a medium and 3 or four frames. I hate to steal from them and stop there progress. My other big hive that has about six wet combs on it is not doing as well but it has 5 mediums on it but has not filled the wet combs that I put back on it and also does not have the traffic at the entrance that the other big hive does. The top two mediums on this hive are about drawn out the same, Like really only a medium and a few frames. So this hive is not progressing and still building in the same fassion as my other big hive. I would feel more comfortable taking from this hive but the one thought in my head is that this is the hive that did not swarm and had no brood break and so I might be moving a bunch of mites if I move capped brood from it. The other big hive did have a brood break and I feel more comfortable about mites being less from its capped brood.

I am also scared of the feeding part of the plan. I put a shim on the little swarm so I could throw a gallon on it in zip-loc baggies because I was tired of feeding a quart at a time with only two holes in the jar and my thinking is fast feeding will get them to draw comb. I also have a top feeder. I am a little worried bout starting a robbing frenzy and kinda wonder if just letting them do what they do might end up being better. It might be in my mind only, but it always seems like the bees from other hives are more interested in the top feeders then when I just use quart jars. 

The little warre that I killed all the bees in and counted as dead still has a small amount of bees in it. I have not cared enough to try and pull a frame and look for brood which would be doable but a little harder. I know this hive was robbed pretty good with the leaky feeder causing robbing. This hive perplexes me a little because it has very little increased its comb. It still has a small number of bees covering the comb and a few foraging from the entrance. The thing is that it always has little white peices of wax out in front of the hive at the entrance and on the ground. I took this to be from robbing but with the comb always being covered with a small amount of bees and a very small capped honey band on top of the comb (which is why I can not see brood) robbing doesn't seem to make sense. I wonder if the bees are in there but so few they can not reach critical mass. Just for grins, I have been thinking of shaking a frame of nurse bees in this hive also and adding so feed. I don't get the wax capping looking stuff at the entrance but still capped honey band on the comb. You would think it would be one or the other. 

I also had thought that the teronov split that I added a super a couple of weeks ago had it about drawn out when I peeked last time. When I looked this time it was less then fifty percent drawn out. Here my mind played a trick on me but needless to say I did not add more room. I am not too worried about the empty comb in almost all my hives cause I believe if we have a decent fall flow they will finish most of the hive bodys that are on them now. My mentor said that he has never had any luck with the bees drawing comb after july but last year mine came close and then I added three gal of food and it was ok. I don't want to add food every year but untill I get some comb, I do still have 200 lbs of sugar to play with.

I guess I am going to think on this a little and do something tomorrow morning before it gets hot.

I do think we are not quite in a derth due to a recent rain and so if any feeding does need done, the sooner the better. I base this on the big hive filling the 6 wet comb in about seven days and just the activity at the entrances. 

As a side note, the hive I put the picture of the bearding, it does not seem to be drawing comb in the added super but does seem to be hatching out the brood I pulled up and repacing it with honey. It is very active at the entrance and I don't know if what is going on inside the hive is a good sign or a bad one.

I guess I will think on what to do tomorrow and if anyone comments before then, I will add that to my thinking and then I will do what I do.
Thanks for reading
gww
PS I think most of the old timers did not like taking from the big hive to prop up the small hives . I think they liked to add the small stuff to the big stuff. I kinda like having the queens around though. I do wander if it might actually help a hive with a lot of bees if you removed some bees/brood from the hive when going into a derth. Any thoughts on this?


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## 1102009

gww,
if you put the feeder on top in the evening and fill with sugar syrup, there will be not much robbing. Just don´t do it in the morning and don´t make honey syrup on a weak hive.
Sugar smells not much. You can but some menthol salve on the box to confuse the robbers. 

If you make thin syrup they will build, if you make thicker they store it. Look it up on MB page. To build comb density must be so put a comb in where bees emerge the next hours. 
It weakens the donator but take only one. Don´t use nurse bees, the donator needs them. The hatching bees will give the weak hive a push.

A taranov split is not a natural swarm so don´t be surprised if the priority for the bees is different. A natural swarm thinks only of survivability and so starts the necessary activities. Propagated with feeding or some combs it´s strong in no time because it draws like crazy.



> I may never put bees in the long hive because they have really turned into handy tables.


So you make me smile again 

Do all managements before winter bee breeding. Then comb must be available to fill with stores and bee density must be so they can nurse winter bees. This differs with climate.


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## 1102009

I would rob the hive with the beard, if possible.
Those lazy ones should be able to draw one more frame and nurse it.


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## gww

SiW
I could not decide what to do and so this morning, I didn't do anything. The hive that is bearding was my favorite split and it is the one hive that has a chance of getting three mediums drawn out with out feeding. It has two now but the third one is empty and it looks like they had not been drawing much in the last week. I do think it has enough food stores in it that the resources that it used to get the brood to hatching probly didn't set it back as much because it had lots of honey stored before its queen got mated and they needed to use them. It is one of my two most active hives at the entrance.

I am in a quandry on the feeding. My mentor and a couple of thread on this site have said that if the bees go into the derth and decide to quit drawing comb, they will just store what you give them and then think they have a queen problim and superceed her because she is not laying enough.

I never feed anything but sugar water with nothing added to try and keep down the intrest from other bees. Plus I got free sugar. I know you are not supposed to count your chickens before they hatch but I talked to the guy that gave me the sugar and he says he is going to bring me some more plus some other things. I gave him a quart of honey last night. He says he can give me a bunch of nirilite gloves cause they run over the boxes with fork trucks all the time and he can't sell them. I could get all kinds of flower cause the bags break. He is going to get me some buckets and lids that held fruit or icing and a bunch more sugar. He has a buisness that sells to bakeries.

So, I have the stuff to feed with to make bees if I just knew how to make it work and had the energy to keep up with it. I will probly be topping off the hives late fall. I have read micheal bushes feeding page and I very seldom mix thin sugar water. Randy oliver did his study that seemed to suggest that it didn't make a differrance and it was the sugar content that the bees used and so it was easier labor wise to feed thick and michael palmer takes that position also. Michael bush also promotes making it as thick as he can (5 to 3). I am lazy and so I don't really measure when I make sugar water but more put sugar in a bucket and then bring the water out to the level the sugar was and then stir and this come to about 2 to 1. I am very lazy.

As far as the teronov not being the same as a swarm. If I could have gotten the queen with the young bees instead of a queen cell, I think they would have made furthur progress. They really did pretty good compared to the swarms I caught as the amount of bees were no bigger then any of the swarms I caught and they actually drew out a bit more comb. I read something the other day that said the old bees draw faster then the young. I know it is not very much to go on and I also think that the bearding hive that was started with all old bees had lots more bees at the start but both had to draw everything and they old bees have about doubled what they drew compared to the young bees. Again though, they may have had double the bees to do the drawing. I will say that out of pure ease, just moveing the hive and starting a split with the bees that flew back to the old spot is the easiest thing I have did in bee keeping and worked the best.

I am not sure that I have the talent to guage which caped brood is the oldest. I may just do as you say and give a frame of capped brood with no bees to the small swarm and put some feed on and keep my fingers crossed that they don't get robbed. 

I don't have any vicks or vapor rub and have been meaning to get some but I usually only come home with half the stuff I want to buy when I go to the store. It has been on my list and also mentioned to the wife but has not made it to my house yet. Maby next time I go to the store or if robbing does start it will become such a priority that I make a special trip. I really have been thinking about getting some for quite a while. 

I have also been thinking about the comb situation. I still have a small hope of getting a little more honey from my bees. I have some sugar. I was thinking that come about the middle of september, that I could look at what is in the hives and extract any comb that is capped on the hives that have more then 3 medium boxes and then take that comb and move it around to all the other hives and get them with as many boxes as I can that have the full ten frame and then feed them some sugar to fill the comb. I wintered two hives last year and one was only one medium and the second was only about 70% drawn and filled and the other was only a medium and another with only about 40% drawn comb. I put the 40% filled combs on the bottom of the brood nest and put sugar blocks on the top and did not look in the hives again from october till the first warm spell in feb. By then the bees had pretty much filled the boxes that were partially drawn and were just booming with bees. I am thinking that I am going to have enough comb this year to get all the hive that are not at least 3 mediums (the goal) to at least two mediums and do know it is possible for them to make it on two mediums for a brood nest. That is the over all goal anyway.

So I guess the goal at this point is to take a capped brood frame (no bees) and put it in the small swarm and add the top feeder with about a gal of sugar water. 

I just wonder if I should shake some nurse bees in front of my dead warre hive? They could be queenless of laying worker or whatever but there are still bees in it and it does have some traffic at the entrance. It is probly a waste of nurse bees but I wonder if it is worth trying and if the nurse bees are cheap enough to lose? I do wonder what it does to a hive that is going into a derth if they lose some nurse bees. I have it in my mind that it might even help a hive if the lost some nurse bees right before a derth. Any thought on this?

Thank you for your advice. I, like you in you thread will make my moves dependant on wether and if it seems too hot in the morning, I might wait for more perfect before I move. I do have a plan now though.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

SiW
I switched gears again. I took the easyest thing to do and just did that. I put the two top hive feeders on the small swarm and the warre and put 3/4 to a gal on each hive. I did nothing else. Don't stop giving advice just because I don't always follow it. I still want the advice but sometime I get lazy and take the easy way out even if it doesn't work.

It was really hot out but I went down to the hives to watch the entrances and think about what I was going to do. I would have swore I showed up durring a tiny oreintation flight from the warre hive though it could have been just a few foragers coming in for the night.

I got to thinking of you mentioning feeding near dark was safest and so just did it.

I act like that one forum members signature line on all his post indicates. The one that says, "Honey badger don't care".

Anyway, that is what I have decided to do for now. I did put some masking tape around the seam of the warre hive top feeder cause the gap looked big enough for bees to get in. I will watch the entrances for awhile and then check on them again someday.
Thanks for letting me use you for a sounding board and also for your advice.
Cheers
gww

Ps the hive that bearded only did it one day. Back to normal today.


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## 1102009

gww, 
I think you do just fine. It´s your situation, totally different climate and so you must know best. Often, standing before a hive or opening it you decide otherwise.
That´s cool.

To read to much advise could make you doubt your own way, but, in the end, everybody has different conditions and needs to make his own mistakes to adapt.
Just compare it with drinking beer, everybody likes to drink beer but not all like the same kind. But everybody thinks his sense of taste is the best. But you would try and then go your own way not using beer you don´t enjoy.

It`s good you have Daniel to exchange experience with, since he is your zone.

Ah, don´t put vick on a virgin hive, she will not find back, lead by the pheromone fannings. That to my advise :no:

Why not creating robber screens for all your hives? You have stuff to work with at your home , I bet. One problem less. They are easy to do. Install them in the evening.


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## DanielD

gww, I had a full weekend and couldn't respond to your questions, and I don't know that my experience is enough to give you complete and totally competent advice. Also, all I can do is give you general thoughts and you need to figure out how to apply them. One thing I think about is that your focus should be the health of the colonies going towards winter. It's too easy to focus on how many hives you have instead of how viable each one it according to the time of year. It's also too easy to focus on getting honey instead of having strong colonies to survive the winter. If you strive for healthy strong hives, the honey will come. You may be better off disregarding the small colony that's not advancing. You also should determine if it actually has a laying queen before spending other resources on it. Very small colonies have a difficult time growing. When a small number doubles it's still small, but when a huge number doubles, it looks like a giant. You would benefit to know what to do to keep colonies from swarming for next year too. That's a valuable piece of knowledge. 

Foundationless growth does come slower than other means. They won't draw any if it's not truly needed. If there's little flow, they could well store it in the brood nest instead of use up some of it to draw comb. Drawn comb is very valuable to growing small hives. If you have empty drawn comb, you could give a frame to the smaller colonies instead of setting empty on some of the others. My experience with foundationless is that they will draw it if they need it, even into the fall. In '15 we had a dandy fall flow and comb was drawn a little bit more in October even. Dow what you need to protect comb when you start having extra to store off the hives. I used plastic foundation this year and it's a big boost. If you ever want to try some, I may have extra I can get to you when you need it. A far bigger boost is drawn comb to a growing colony, though they also need nurse bees. 

It's the season, small hives need robber screens, feeding or not. Don't wait till they start robbing because that's hard to stop and quick to kill a small colony. 

Capped brood darkens as it ages, and right before the emergence, you can start seeing the upper center of the brood darken considerably more with the black of the young bees showing through a bit. The cappings are slightly translucent where you can see that blackening.


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## gww

SiW.....



> It´s your situation, totally different climate and so you must know best


But I don't know best. On the one hand I want to do the best I can but on the other hand, If I really screw up as long as it does not take all my hives and I can figure out what I did wrong from it, I only care a little.



> To read to much advise could make you doubt your own way, but, in the end, everybody has different conditions and needs to make his own mistakes to adapt.
> Just compare it with drinking beer, everybody likes to drink beer but not all like the same kind. But everybody thinks his sense of taste is the best. But you would try and then go your own way not using beer you don´t enjoy.


This may be true but I thought the origional plan was pretty good but I also thought that it was easier to do what I ended up doing and it might work. My view is to like all beer but maby like one beer better if I am the one buying. I try not to turn my nose up to other beers if some one offers me one. Sometimes I don't want to do what is best but more what will just get me by.



> It`s good you have Daniel to exchange experience with, since he is your zone.


Agreed plus Danials advice has helped me (and Rays advice also) and is usually good advice no matter what zone you are in.



> Why not creating robber screens for all your hives? You have stuff to work with at your home , I bet. One problem less. They are easy to do. Install them in the evening.


I have thought about robbing screens but mostly keep all my hives reduced till really strong with a block of wood and it is easy to cut any size. I know the robbing screens exsist but find myself not doing anything that is not required. It is in my mind that if it were ever required that I could make one almost immediatly. I have only seen two times that robbing that could be seen occured. Once when I open fed by a hive that I think already had queen problims and of course the warre hive with the leaky feeder where the sugar water was running out the bottom board. That doesn't mean there is not some unseen robbing going on that puts pressure on hive trying to grow. Last year I had two swarms side by side and even when I combined another swarm with one of them, the one that got the extra bees still grew quite a bit slower, It could have been that there were more bees being tied up having to gaurd the entrance.
Its all good.
Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

gww,
listen to what Daniel says in post #101
He gives very good advise.


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## gww

Danial


> gww, I had a full weekend and couldn't respond to your questions, and I don't know that my experience is enough to give you complete and totally competent advice. Also, all I can do is give you general thoughts and you need to figure out how to apply them. One thing I think about is that your focus should be the health of the colonies going towards winter. It's too easy to focus on how many hives you have instead of how viable each one it according to the time of year. It's also too easy to focus on getting honey instead of having strong colonies to survive the winter. If you strive for healthy strong hives, the honey will come. You may be better off disregarding the small colony that's not advancing. You also should determine if it actually has a laying queen before spending other resources on it. Very small colonies have a difficult time growing. When a small number doubles it's still small, but when a huge number doubles, it looks like a giant. You would benefit to know what to do to keep colonies from swarming for next year too. That's a valuable piece of knowledge.


I really am not that worried about how many collonies I have. It is more a challange (if it is easy enough) to see if you can help one along if it does not cost too much to do so. I have 7 that I think will be close to being ok for winter and two that will surprise the heck out of me if they live. I do have a hard time taking from the good to give to the bad. A mental thing. I have combined swarms before when I had so few of hives that I just wanted one to live because I didn't want to be with out bees or spend money. Now that I have enough hives that I am pretty sure one of them will make it to spring, I have more guts to let each hive sorta stand on thier own even if it kills them. I may not have even given the small swarms the sugar if I would have had to buy it but figure due to my unique situation of haveing free sugar fall into my hand and probly more comming, the cost is pretty cheap to play a little. Even if the warre is queenless, it cost so little right now to put a little sugar on it just incase.

As far as the honey consintration. I don't know the flows and don't know what is possible. I do know that if the bees make it that I will take it. Under normal conditions it might be that I should have reduced the hives down to just three brood boxes and made them put everyting from here to october in those three boxes so I could garentee that the fall flow was where it should be. My thoughts on all this are that the risk is that the bees would fill everything and not make fat bees for winter due to lack of space. So I put the wet supers back on and come fall if I have some kind of mistake in my management, I will fix it with sugar but also try and learn how to do it with out sugar next time.

I defanatly need to take better measures next year to prevent swarming. No doubt. I have some ideals and have moved earlier some of what I tried this year that I did too late.



> Foundationless growth does come slower than other means. They won't draw any if it's not truly needed. If there's little flow, they could well store it in the brood nest instead of use up some of it to draw comb. Drawn comb is very valuable to growing small hives. If you have empty drawn comb, you could give a frame to the smaller colonies instead of setting empty on some of the others. My experience with foundationless is that they will draw it if they need it, even into the fall. In '15 we had a dandy fall flow and comb was drawn a little bit more in October even. Dow what you need to protect comb when you start having extra to store off the hives. I used plastic foundation this year and it's a big boost. If you ever want to try some, I may have extra I can get to you when you need it. A far bigger boost is drawn comb to a growing colony, though they also need nurse bees.


You said the bees would draw comb till about oct last year. And like you said, mine did. I am using last year to judge this year and where my hives might be by then.

That is a very nice offer on the foundation. Orscheln localy now has foundationless frame for sale here locally for about $4 apiece. That is high but if a guy wanted less then $100 dollars worth which gets you $3 frames of foundation shipped free, it is probly close in the big picture.

I will probly just keep at the foundationless for a while longer. I will take the honey if the bees make some and from a pride issue would like to hit atleast the MO average some time. I do want honey if I am going to keep bees but make no mistake, I don't need the honey and can see a day where if I got too much honey, bee keeping might become not that fun because then I would have to find a way to get rid of it. Mostly right now I am into learning the possibilities and how to handle the hives based on our flows. I have the free sugar and this lets me learn this with out taking quite as many chances and for low cost. It does leave a little room for mistakes. After I see what really happens, I will want to not relie on the sugar even if it is free because it is still hard to feed and I am basically lazy.



> It's the season, small hives need robber screens, feeding or not. Don't wait till they start robbing because that's hard to stop and quick to kill a small colony.
> 
> Capped brood darkens as it ages, and right before the emergence, you can start seeing the upper center of the brood darken considerably more with the black of the young bees showing through a bit. The cappings are slightly translucent where you can see that blackening.


Thanks for the advise and totorial.

I would like to say that when I respond to what people write, it may seem as I am trying to counter good advise but that is not nessasarily what I am really trying to do. I am more trying to be an active participant in the discussion and putting out how I take and process the advice and hopefully adding scope. It is showing how my mind processes stuff and what I am thinking at the time. It may have no reflection to what I end up doing and what actions I really take because many times I will sit and watch the hives while thinking over stuff and than a little light bulb will go off in my head that says it is time to do this and then I do it no matter what the "this is". So I am very indecisive untill I just do something and then I take the position, It is what it is and what happens will happen. I put this statement in as an attempt to show that now matter what I really do, I really value your advice.
Thanks
gww


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## gww

Update. Well about 8am I went down to the hives. I have some heavy duty robbing going on on three of the little nucs/mini hives. It is not like I was not warned. I was a little surprized due to it looked like the bees still had some forageing going on and everything was normal yeaterday. I was expecting robbing but I was expecting it last week when I put the feeders on the two small hives. 

I still did not put robber screens on the hives. I did reduce the two small ones and the warre down to about one to two bee space entrance and put a small piece of bathroom clay tile in front of that so it was sorta shaded. The hives were already reduced to about three or four inches before this. I only have one hive that is open and it is the one that the bearding was on earlier. I doubt the small hives are putting up much of a fight cause I didn't see very many dead bees on the ground (a very few). I do notice sometimes that a reducer will be pulled out and I don't know if this is due to a back up of bees against it or night time animals. In the spring when there were quite a few dead bees in front of the hives the eventually got cleaned up buy wasp and maby my lizard or other scavangers and so maby more bees are dieing then really show.

Two of the hives that are being robbed were the ones I really didn't expect much out of and did not really think they were going to make winter anyway. One had almost a full medium of comb drawn and I was expecting it to make it based on how my hive performed last year.

I also knowticed my biggest hives were not nearly as active today. They are probly the bees hanging out in front of the hives being robbed. They can only get in and out of the robbed hives so fast with the reduced entrances.

I hope the bees can still move enough air with the reduced entrances to cool the hive. Not too worried about it today as it is only the low 90 degrees but it will be getting closer to 100 degrees in the next week.

Still haven't got the vicks yet either. The robbers on the warre are really hitting under the roof and may have found a breech in my wood working. This would still keep them out of the hive but they are hitting the entrance hard also.

I was thinking the warre was dead this whole time anyway and find no surprize with it being robbed.  The other two did have a queen though and they surprize me a bit.

On another note, I have two traps that I will eventually have to take the tops off and check. I am not in too much of a hurry to do this cause based on bees at the entrance, even if it is just not the bees sucking something out of the wood or a few getting out of the sun, the swarms if there were any would not be much. I can't see with the current robbing going on that I should be in any hurry to look. One is sitting on a box about two feet off the ground behind my garage and one is nine miles away in the woods. I have seen this before (more this year then last) and opened them to find nothing. I put my ear on the one behind my garage after dark and rapped on the box and heard what sounded like maby one or two bees and so know that at least a couple stayed all night but like I say, I have seen it add up to nothing before. Even if something small is in them, it will probly just add up to wasting more resources on something that is too late to really work. It still is fun though.

As long as the robbing doesn't keep spreading, I will still have double the hives going into winter then I started with even if I lose the three questionable ones and will have enough drawn comb to get them to missouri standards. Of course I have never seen what robbed out comb looks like and wether it stays usable. I would be curious on this though I guess I am going to get to see.

Except for saying I am stupid for not making robbing screens and trying to relie on reduced entrances only (although I don't mind if you tell me something I probly know), Any thoughts?
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Some pictures of the effect of the reducers I put on the hives being robbed.










And the two that were getting robbed not counting the warre.










It was only supposed to be 90 degrees today but got up to 96. I think tomorrow is only suposed to be 90 degrees but then we are scheduled for 98 degrees for the three days after that.

The two bee reduction did seem to calm down all the hives but the warre and it is my assumption that any bearding is probly from the hive its self. I think some time tomorrow. I am going to put the hives that have the hanging little beards back up to 3 or so inches and let them fend for themselves. I may leave the smallest one closed to two bees entrance.

I of course will probly take a look in the morning first. They may still be getting robbed even at the one bee entrance. My worry is that the small entrance may not let them cool the hive. The one hive that is bearding that is fully open doesn't bother me that much cause they have the work fource to gether water but and fan. I will be gone all day tuesday and so any adjustments I make are ones that probly won't be readjusted for a couple of days anyway. Or I might leave them the same, I will know for sure when I do it.

I also looked in the trap I mentioned below. The one at my house. My guess is that the bees just decided that the one third of a frame of old comb was work salvaging something from. It had about fifty bees covering it on both sides but I did not see a queen and so figure they are probly just bees from my hives. I saw bees acting this way on a trap that is on a tree 15 feet away from this box. All my traps were done pretty much the same.

I wish I would of taken a picture of the bees in the swarm trap but like everything, I was going to just put off looking but then spur of the moment looked. Didn't think of a picture at the time.
As porky pig would say "Tha,ba tha ba thats all folks"
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww, thanks for updating.

I think ( but it may not be) that the 2 hives are already robbed and traffic is the robbers. If robbing is without much fight there is probably a dead queen somewhere and a handful of dead bees. They need weeks until this normal looking traffic stops.
You can leave it behind with an entrance like that, it does not matter any more.

The robbed comb look like decapped extracted combs, a little more damaged perhaps, but they are better than foundations or having to build new. 
If the honey was crystallized, they are more damaged, because the bees pull down the cell sides.

The bees in your traps can be scouts which prepare a swarm and defend the trap against others, or the homeless robbed using some nourishment and shelter until they die.


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## gww

SiW.....
[QUOTEI think ( but it may not be) that the 2 hives are already robbed and traffic is the robbers. If robbing is without much fight there is probably a dead queen somewhere and a handful of dead bees. They need weeks until this normal looking traffic stops.
You can leave it behind with an entrance like that, it does not matter any more.
][/QUOTE]

I can't say that I agree or dissagree with this yet. The reason I say that and why think that the bees are from the hive that are hanging in a ball at the entrance is because the hive in the first picture, to the left of the warre, did not seem to be getting robbed. I reduced its entrance also and now it's beard looks exactly like the beard on the one closest to the big hive in the second picture.

I know it is not great evidence comparing two beards but is all I have untill I look inside. The other thing is that I don't think the robbing had been going on very long cause I look every day. I know hives can rob pretty quick but the only other time I saw robbing, it lasted for more then a day on a pretty weak hive. I would think the warre is still getting robbed, and also that the other hive probly would not have been getting robbed if it had not developed some type of problim like maby lost a queen or something because the hive on the left of the warre is pretty simular in size and was not being robbed.

It doesn't matter which it is cause if they are robbed out by now and I won't move the hive to adress it and try to salvage, then it is what it is. Time will tell.

I paid more attention to the water hole today and I am guessing my grooming was just fighting. I watched a bully bee today go to three differrent bees and grab their legs. Maby they have been practicing at my hives that are getting robbed.

I will probly decide this morning when I go out and look at the hive traffic on wether I open up the entrances back to three inches or so on the ones that didn't seem to be getting robbed or if I leave them. I don't know myself cause I usually do nothing untill some insperation tells me what to do and then I do it quick.

It would not take long for the bees to rob the hive on the very right of the warre cause it only had about 4/5 frames of comb barily coverd with bees and its second box is the feeder I put on. I am surprized it took a week for the bees to get to robbing the warre and it cause I have not added more then the origional gallon put on last week. I guess the amount of bees to cover brood and gaurd was finaly found out by the other hives cause maby the flow made a big turn for the worse. I told my wife I shouldn't mow the lawn.

Thanks for the advice.
gww

Ps I had also thought that robbers went back home at night and just started new the next day. I would not think that they would go into evening hanging on a hive other then their own. Am I wrong on this thinking?


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## 1102009

gww said:


> The other thing is that I don't think the robbing had been going on very long cause I look every day.
> 
> Maby they have been practicing at my hives that are getting robbed.
> I told my wife I shouldn't mow the lawn.
> 
> :lpf:
> 
> Ps I had also thought that robbers went back home at night and just started new the next day. I would not think that they would go into evening hanging on a hive other then their own. Am I wrong on this thinking?


I remember someones advise (maybe was MB) to look first thing in early morn if bees appear at the entrance and want to get in ( before foraging or scout bees go out).
I believe they go home in the evening.

Next time you see robbing starting, take a wet cloth and hang it over the hive and close the entrance with grass.
The robbers will tire of trying and the hive needs some hours to open the entrance. The cloth prevents overheating.
Good luck!

Before I used robber screens I used wax. Kneaded it and closed the entrance to one bee`s space. The bees adapt the entrance to their needs then. Don´t use wax with honey.
Maybe you can do this before leaving home.


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## gww

SiW..
I am pretty sure the warre is toast but I have thought it was toast since the first time I installed it.









I saw this also when I first installed the warre and at least half, I killed while hiving it and the other half was the leaky feeder I put on it. I am suprized that there were this many bees in the hive for the robbers to kill and that they put up enough of a fight to have any killing. The only thing that gave me any hope at all on it (the reason I put feed on it) was that they had a honey band on the small amount of comb they had built and I would have thought that would not happen if it was just robbers in the hive. I bet there isn't a honey band in thier comb now.

Here is in front of the smallest hive.








Now granted, it is harder to see dead bees in grass. I did see two bees in a death grip at the bottom of this hive and so think some testing is going on with it but "I think" I have dodged a bullet so far on this one and I did not see testing at the entrance or bees checking out all the nucks and crannies of the whole hive.

I did not take the two bee space off yet but still may before the day is out. It is going to be massively hot tomorrow.

I did not get to the hives before 6:45am cause I could not get up that early. I woke up last night and it took me two hours to get back to bed.

I have read michaels bushes site and remembered most of his advice and also remembered the advice to check before the bees start moving hard. I guess I have a bit of a lacadaisy attitude and sorta figure that what will be will be. I realized all along that I could have made robbing screens and such but the entrance reducers are so easy and I also was thinking that even though some robbing attempts would happen to the smaller hives and it might slow thier progress, I didn't really think the robbers would take over the hive unless something else was wrong with it cause by the end of flow, it should have been bigg enough to take care of itsself. Now I take full blame for the lazyness and sloppyness of having my cappings and extractor cleaned up by the bees and not far enough away or leaving a piece of comb that I cut out near the hive of all the extra entrances the type of wood I use sometime causes or leaky feeders.

It is a wonder that any of them live.

I found your reponce to be pretty insitefull and helpful. I guess time will tell what I really have. I do have some fear of the hive becoming unlivable with such a small entrance and the bees absconding.

I have solid bottom boards and don't offer the bees any ventalation except for what my sloppy wood working some times gives them or the main entrance. Two bee entrance does not worry me at 85 degrees F. but at a hundred, I start thinking 3 inch would be better if the hive is not strong enough to just open it wide.
I am sure robber screen is even better but still doubt I build a bunch untill I have a little more trouble. I am stupid cause building them would not be that bad.

Thanks for reading my updates/rants. 
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

No rant 

gww do you have a piece of mesh to close the bees in late in the evening?

Then you can sleep late and see if some robbers cling to the wire. You can use this piece with some pins to open the entrance for air but still only make a small hole for the bees when you are leaving.

Just wear protection when taking away a mesh from a closed hive late in the day


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## gww

SiW
I could do like I do my traps and just take a piece of window screen to big for the hole and slide it in. It usually jams and stays where you put it. I have missed my window of oppertunity though because I will be leaving the second it is light enough to let my chickens out and driving three hours. Right now I have grandbaby on the mind and will probly not care enough to make any other adjustments till I get back. I will only be a day unless I change my plan for some reason after I get there.

I just come in from sitting on my bucket and drinking a cup of coffee and smoking a couple of cigerettes. I walked behind the hives with nothing and so far so good. I was expecting with all the killing that the bees would pay more attention to me and I might have to run in my flip flops. I did suit up when I changed the entrance but didn't use smoke though I had it (I wanted the home bees to be able to smell the attackers).

I am quite sure I am going to get bit one of these days with more stings then just onsies and foursies but it is just so hot and my bee stuff is not really bee stuff and there is no ventalated suit here yet.

It seems like the small hive (not warre) has a little more traffic then it should have though it is not way way out of line. I could do more, I could move it to mom and dads but for now I am going to think positive and let it ride and if I turn out wrong, I am going to live with it. I don't know when I might take the top off and see for sure. I think all the hives have enough room for some time (I probly should have reduced some). I had been looking at some hives at least every 5 day and so all of them were usually seen inside at least the top every ten day. I was thinking giving them a month or so (unless I change my mind) cause I figure now is a bad time to be getting in the hives for the very thing like robbing. I would really start watching again in late august or early september when I start seeing some golden rod bloom.

If I get back and things look funky, Maby I will look and see if there is a queen and if so, I might cage them robbers and all and move the hive. Moving foundationless in this heat could kill more then save and so I will have to think on it. The big hives that have propolized the frames so they don't move is better but I don't remember how this one was in side except that it was not built out. 

Anyway, I don't always do things as fast as I should and some times it comes back to bite me.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I got into the top of two hives today. It was only supposed to get to 92 degrees today instead of 102 degrees.

I looked inside the hive that I posted a picture of with the most bearding and the one I did a teronove split that I was going to add space to last time but they were not built out as big as I had thought.

I found a coulpe of things funny. On the bearding hive. I had added the third medium and pulled up two frames from the second to it. The two frames that I pulled up are mostly capped but they did not build more comb in that box. The second box may have had another comb built and a partial (I hate the partials cause they don't finish them or start somewhere else and end up making it funky). It was full of honey and 90 percent capped. I think I saw one little area on one comb that looks like they might have had cleaned out for laying that had a very small amount of honey in it. When I looked at it, I figured that maby we were in a dirth and the queen had quit laying.

But then I looked at the other smaller but pretty close sized hive that I had did the teronov split on. It had good stores also and is using all the comb it has and I didn't see any bees festooning but it was now about 70% full of comb.

This hive did have some brood in several of the comb (say 1/4 to 1/2 of the comb). It had went to the end of one frame and then stared building a comb at 90 degree angle at the end and it had a giant bubble of thick comb where it had drawn fat honey storage.

I took my putty knife and cut a bit of the sideways stuff and let it fall to the top of the lower brood box and took the big bubble and moved it to the wall of the hive and smashed it there pretty hard and then found two perfect brood capped honey frames and put an empty between them and just removed one frame from the box. I just smashed the frames down into the comb I had dropped till they were at the right hight. I guess I will see what the bees do as far as cleaning the honey up and if they attach the top frame to the one in the bottom box or if they make thier bee space back. I started with eleven frames and now have nine in the box.

After I got back to the house (sweated wet) I got to thinking of the differances in the two hives. Both had pretty much all the built comb filled and pretty much capped but one had brood in the second box and I don't think it has as many bees in the whole hive as the other. I now am wondering about a honey dome maby being part of the reason the bees have not started working the third box though I do think the second does still have one frame not built out and one partial frame. I am not sure if I am smart or dumb for not going down to the bottom box and maby moving a brood frame if there are any up. It would be a gripe if they have the third box, have bees in the third box working and gaurding two frames and the bees decided to swarm anyway. I was hopeing that the bees might draw a bit more comb come sept when golden rod hits but am not sure how to manage so that the fall flow helps more then hurts. My bees did draw comb late last year. I am thinking they will still make some babies and use some of these stores between now and then and so I might be ok but am not really sure.
Anyway, being the procrastinator that I am, I will probly just watch and see what happens and maby know more next year.

I do say on foundationless that the bees have the ability to draw just the most perfect comb but do have places where they get funny. Mostly it is pretty good but they can throw you for a loop. Hope the honey smell doesn't make the bees want to kill each other though I tried to keep it all in the hive and did not see undue attention being paid to the open hives from the other hives. In trying to judge when I am on a flow or not is like watching a kid every day to see if he is growing. It doesn't look like he is growing all year but then you stand them up against the wall buy where you marked how tall they were last year and he gained a foot. I can't seem to figure out when stuff is coming in or not. I know the comb they have is full.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Update of sorts. Got in a few of the hives today. The bees are not drawing wax. I did not go into the brood chambers but got into the hives cause I caught my first oreintation flight on one of the little swarms yesterday and so thought I would look. It is a hive that has about nine frames drawn out in the bottom medium and about 5 frames in the second medium. This is about what I wintered two hives on last year and I have hopes they will fill the rest out. It looks like the build up is about the same speed as last year though I have a few that are behind and a couple that are two full mediums already. I should have at least one and a half to two mediums of drawn comb to play with later due to the supers that are on two of my hives. Hopefully this will get enough resources on the small ones to give them a chance. I will probly extract any capped stuff in the three supers that are above actual brood nest and then disperse the comb to the small ones and fast feed. I am guessing middle to late sept. as the date to do this.

The real reason that I am updating this thread is because today is the first day in a very long time that I saw the hives bringing in pollen. It was a dull white.

I guess I am wondering the meaning of the pollen? Does it mean that the bees have started to raise the winter brood in ernest? Could it indidcate a possible mini flow starting? I watch every morning and this is the first pollen for I know a good month.

The most amazing thing is. I don't expect anyone to reread this thread but for those who know how many times I have killed my warre hive in this thread by how I hived it and how many times I have let it get robbed and also how little comb the warre has built, I was amazed that it was bringing in pollen today on every bee that entered the hive. It still has a good 50 bees laying dead in front of it from the last robbing insident. Bringing in pollen? Could there still be a queen in there? I know it will never make critical mass that allows it to gain ground but is it possible that it has a queen or would they bring pollen in for laying workers to raise drone brood. I don't care enough to even tip this hive and try and look cause I have already wrote it off in my mind but just found it neat that the bees were still bringing pollen to it.

I sure hope the bees build a little comb yet cause I am down to less then 200 hundred pounds of free sugar for this year and also really wanting to try and have the bare min with a sugar block on. I might help a little but am going to pull back really hard and see what some of the bees can do on thier own this winter. Plus I am going to steal at least a gal of golden rod from them somewhere so that I can see if I like it (or not).

I think it is all doable with out buying anything though I believe I will lose one swarm for sure besides the warre and have one big hive that has had no brood break that will be in its second winter and so will have bigger mite problims maby. The small and the big, I am going to let go on thier own and not do any combining or other actions more then maby a little sugar water at the end on the small one. I am going to let them make it or fail on thier own but also watch while it happens and try and learn from it. This is unless I get scared or see bigger problims spreading to other hives or just change my mind.

Thanks for reading, as always, comments welcome good or bad.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I am seeing white pollen here too. Chicory is abundant here and it has white pollen. I generally only see bees on them when they get a little desperate, and it's very dry here so they may be on it. They do need pollen even if it's drone brood and laying workers. You never know what's in the warre till you look. I am at the edge of my seat, go look inside.  If it was laying worker, they'd eventually fizzle out, though I have seen one go a couple months before I got rid of it.


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## gww

Danial
Is this chicory?









I still see some of this but even the queen anns lace has finaly dissapeared. I am thinking you are correct and there is not much out there.

Though I have not looked in the warre for a while and the last time was when I added a hail marry gal of 2 to one thinking it was a waste of time even when I added it. Everytime I ever looked at it it had about four or five just perfect beutiful and strait palm sized or a little smaller comb. I did not minipulate the comb and there was a small capped honey band (sugar water) blocking my view. The comb looked so new and small that I did not reach up from the bottom of the hive and push it sideways to try and see. Thought it would break off and it was sparsly covered with bees that I had mostly wrote it off as being too small to ever make it. They built that little bit of comb right off but never added a thing to it from that point.

I believe it has been being robbed from day one and also that since there were two swarms a day apart from the same hive and I put them beside each other. I was thinking that I should write it off cause of the robbing and dead smashed bees cause of how I hived the swarm and probly drift. Now I have the feeder (empty) and the seams between the two boxes taped up and it just was not worth looking.

I am thinking if in a month I still see some bees using the entrance, I will look but none of the other hives are drawing comb since the last time I did look at it and so unless a flow starts, I would just invite the bees back to the weak warre to rob some more if I opened it.

The bees were very calm today in the few I did get in and so I was hoping that maby they had found something I was not seeing in bloom. I have almost all the hive entrances down to about a bee space or two and there is traffic but I also have a lot of action at the water hole.

I saw on your other thread that you are back on track now that you have adjusted your top entrances.

I am probly 70 percent wooded around me for the mile to two mile forage pattern and I never get the big golden rod that I can see like I see at dads where there are lots of fields that only get mowed once a year or every two years. I know they made honey last year in sept though and I have started to see the little golden rod in bloom though it is very sparse where I have access to look. 

I guess I will just keep looking at the entrance action untill I see a dramatic change.

You can bet one thing. When I do get back in the warre, I will proby put it here. I see we have about ten days of not super hot wether coming and posible rain on thursday though the weather man is not great at getting it right.

I have my fingers crossed and thanks for the chicory thing, it helps.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

It looks like chicory, but it gets 4-5 ft tall. I see large areas of light blue around here of it. I see it with new blooms in the morning and blooms gone later in the day. It's the common roadside light blue flowers. 

I have a very small colony with a queen that just putters along. Over a month ago I took out a couple queens and didn't want this one. It was on a medium frame with some nurse bees so I put it in a box and set it aside. It's still going and built one 6" dia. comb off the lid next to the one frame. It has worker brood so they are motoring forward, but it would be a long time for them to get to sustainability. I don't know what I will do with it though. It's a queen from last year and not all that impressive so I don't want to put it in a split. 

I was hoping somehow the goldenrod would be later, but probably not. Last year it was early too and a 90 degree week seemed to clobber it, so there wasn't much fall flow. I would need a lot of sugar this year if there isn't enough in the fall. 32 hives right now. I want to make up 20 double side by side nucs for the spring and maybe sell some extra.


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## gww

Danial
I guess even a bad queen hanging around might save you if you caught a hive gone queenless at the wrong time.

You have more ambition then me and I don't yet have my feet on the ground firm enough to be making a lot of nucs and such and wanting to try and over winter them. I built some little medium 5 frame nucs and just can't get up the will to use them. I bet a couple of these small swarms would have did better in them but I pretty much just use ten frame mediums for everything. I doubt I ever use the 5 frame stuff. At least a medium is smaller then starting everything in a deep. When I get a little better at it, I am going to maby try and sell a bee or two. My plan now is to just get them built to about 8 frames in a ten frame and call them a nuc and tell people they need to transfer them to thier equiptment.. 

I am too slow to build stuff and sell it unless I start buying the wood and even then problky two slow. It seem to take me a week to build a stand, bottom board, inner cover, telescoping cover, 20 frames and two medium boxes. I would be making maby fifty cents an hour and giving the bees to fill it for free.

I have not figured out how to make any money yet unless you want to go into it a little bigger then just a hoby.

Small orders and buying the stuff to put the bees in kills you on shipping unless you plan for selling enough that you can buy enough to get free shipping.

If you look at the price of the frames and something to put the bees in, you end up making fifty bucks (which I would not be ashamed of)

I am in the process of trying to figure out out to do the bee selling thing with excess bees but not nessasarily wanting to get into the getting the most bees out of what I have as a base.

I started with 3 hives and did bad on swarm control and now have 7 that might be big enough to get through winter and two that probly won't and did not try to really make any splits that the bees did not sorta force my hand on. I have been building equiptment and have about 5 more two medium hive set ups and several extra medium supers and my gaol is to start with at least 10/12 extra places to put bees till I can decide how to get rid of a few with out having to pay to do it.

My origional goal was to get to around 8 hives cause I figured this was a number that might get me 15 gal of honey and make it to where as hives died I would still have some bees to replace the dead outs. I figure to get there, I will need about 20 hives worth of equiptment so that my bees don't end up in the trees and that with this equiptment and the 15 gal goal, I could get rid of excess by selling. I am a bad seller and so don't want too much honey untill I can use it and The same with bees. I figure the 15 gal could be ate or given away while learning and I would not be totally crazy and too much would not pile up with me having to waste it. I want to sell some stuff if it is not too hard but figure at this as the origional goal, it might not over whelm me or bankrupt me while I learn what I can and cannot do.

You are a little furthure in your knowlage of bees and in what you see as a way forward.

I have a super lazy streak and it is one of the reasons I put everything in ten frame medium and also why I want to move forward figuring out how to cookie cut with as few changes as possible. 

I hope we have a good fall flow. I don't want you or me to have to worry too much about extra sugar. I would also be interested in how you figure profit on making bees and the process for getting them to the eventual buyer. I am really not trying to be too nosy but just trying to put things in perspective. I figure this year that I have more money in just brads, staples, a very few peices of plywood and little things and figuring the 4 gal of honey I got for around $200 (probly low), I still have not paid for the first bees I bought and little things if I discount all my time and all the wood for the things I built. Now I know this is false in one sence cause I do have 8 possible hives for next year but am still having a hard time with how to actually figure it if I have to replace things that I sell with bought stuff so that I could keep repeating it with the time I have. I am not even saying I want to do more but more I would like to know more so any decision I make is based close to what reality is.

I also am a bit curious of what your over all goals are. Do you have a long term expansion plan or are you more like me and thinking this is what I am working with now and what do I want to do with it?

I don't intend to drag you kicking and screaming and feeling forced to do a bunch of typing that you don't feel like and so am just showing my interest in what you are doing more then pushing for an answer. I am happy for the helping with my questions that you have already given with out having to have more. So, I am interested in what you are doing but not pushing you to have to tell me.

Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

gww, up to this summer I really didn't have any set goals, just see where it all goes. I am thinking right now to go into winter with the 20 double 5 nucs and split what's left in the spring for nucs to sell. I also want a 15-20 full colonies for winter. I would need to build up 8-10 more nucs this next month to get there though. Time and distractions have hindered me this summer. Right now I am thinking to keep it that way yearly unless I see another way to go. I have reached the end of my available time this summer having 18 hives in spring. 

Honey harvest has been tedious with the top entrance issue, but much better now. I didn't get what I could have, but it looks like I will end up with around 80 gallons of honey. I could have been looking at 30-60 more if configurations were right. I don't know how hard it will be to sell off all that honey yet, or exactly how to go about it, though I have moved a few gallons. If I don't consider time and even price the honey at just $40 per gallon, I will be ahead of my costs to date. We have honey all over the place. I even have a couple hundred bucks worth of wax. 

I am also at the point where I need more locations for hives and don't know how bad I want to do that. I considered selling off some colonies in the last couple weeks, but it's not really a strong time to do that, so I plan to winter the nucs. The colonies so far have had very little treatment, just late summer last year with OAV in most, but not all of them. It's been 3 years now having bees. My power house colony has had none and are amazing so far. It could be from a neighbor's hive that wasn't ever treated for 10 years, though I have no idea if it is the original colony.


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## gww

Danial
I wonder if you could not find other bee keepers or honey pushers who like to sell to buy your honey at that price. I mentioned at a bee keeping club (I don't attend often) that I was thinking if I ever got any honey, I might sell it for $6 a pint. One guy said that if I did that he would buy it and sell it for $10 a pint.

Of course all that was hypothetical cause I didn't have any honey. He did say that in front of eveyone at the meeting though and there was maby 8 people with bees. I found it to be hard work to extract.

As far as how to count time invested. I don't have the job to get into the way of my time like you do but also am probly a bit lazy and selfish with my time. I want to be busy but don't want another full time job that makes me hustle.

So I don't mind too much not getting much for my time to a point. However, in my case, I am smart enough to know that if I started splitting every hive into 5 hives through out the year with the intention of selling the bees, my skill level in no way is good enough for me to make the stuff I would be selling with the bees. I am just too slow and so the bees would have to buy the stuff and then there would need to be enough profit to make it worth doing the extra work of splitting for the purpose of selling. So I have not figured out yet if that profit is there under those conditions. And even then I am only willing to do enough to keep me busy but not really push myself. I really don't see a way around having to do some selling unless I just let the bees swarm to the woods but I like money and hate waste enough that that option is not a real option.

I am a pretty slow learner and it will take a while for me to get a routine that I can live with. I am not in too big of a hurry but also don't want to flounder forever.

I have a couple of other things that I will have to worry about. Being foundationless with frames that have no swupport, I will have to watch how hives are moved to keep comb collapse at bay. I know you have switched to foundation and so this worry has been fixed for you.

I have a place twele miles away from me where I could keep bees also but just can't get the will power to think it is a good ideal. I probly don't watch my hives as good as I should even when they are in my back yard. I have become such a hermit that I can hardly make my self drive a mile to the gas station to get milk if I run out. Mom and dads place is probly a much better forage area then where I live for bees but I like taking my breaks sitting on a bucket in front of the hives and watching the entrances. It is my theropy. There is some cost associated with having to have stuff off site and that add presure to make more money from what you have. I don't know if I remember correctly but I thought you said you were sorta working towards having a retirement income from bees in about six years and so for that, an out yard might fit perfectly with what you need to do. It would sorta be something I would dred though I am a firm believer in never saying never. My likes have changed as I have gotten older. Things that never would have interested me when I was young now do. Bees were never on my radar till just recently with the life change of retirement. I always wantet to run when I was young and never would have thought that I could be so happy staying home.

I do find hearing about what you do and your experiances help with my mind wrapping around what is going on a bit.
Thanks for taking the time to share.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I do have a guy to sell 5 gallon buckets to locally for him to re sell and don't know if it would be worth the extra work to retail it. There might be a lot of time involved in bottling and going places to sell the honey. I will try both ways for now and see how it goes. 

Yes plastic foundation has made extracting a breeze, but it also gained more production of honey. I spent $1,000 on foundation this year, but it produced more than that extra value in honey easy, saved time, helped with swarm prevention, plus I have drawn comb for next year, which is even better. I was pleasantly surprised in the outcome of the acorn plastic. The bees have drawn about 450 mediums and 200 deeps for me this year so far. I hope to draw out more deeps with nucs. I did enjoy the foundationless use, and it saved money during my startup, but this is a lot more productive.


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## gww

Danial
I dread the selling enough that my ideal of it will be to put a table at the end of the road with a coffee can for people to put thier money in. Or I will just put a sign and let people bug my wife by knocking on the door. My dislike of selling is the reason I am really wanting to move slow. If people hear about me having some and ask, that is fine. If I have to advertize and go meet and greet, I am thinking my basement and closets are going to end up full of honey and so I need to proceed with caution.

So for now foundationless is helping me go slow and do things slow till some need makes me want to speed up. That said, I am glad to know your experiances as you have used both. If I were in your situation, I would probly sell the bulk to the guy for him to resale but would also have some at home bottled and ready to sell at retail and then not turn down anyone who might buy. It is hard to say what might take off. I have never sold anything and I am using quart and pint canning jars with no lable and going to ask ten for a pint and $18 for a quart. I don't care if I sale anything and have not ask or told anyone that I have some I would sale and the truth is, I only have about 6 quarts left from 4.5 gal and unless I get a couple of quarts more in fall, no since in advertising. If somebody ask me what I want for some honey I will tell them the above price. My view is that if someone eventually ask me (knowing I have bees) then I won't be driving off my few friends by pressuring them and if after I tell the person what I would like for my stuff and they buy it, I will think they wanted it and maby they will come back. If not, my kids will eventually eat it.

This give me a year with honey to see what my bees do next year and then it might be an honor stand and an add on craigslist. Then if there are no responces, it will be time to reduce hive numbers and start the cycle all over till something takes.

Things don't always work out like you think though. I remember we started a chineese resturuant in our small town and since we did it from scratch, we tried to sneak open so we could keep buisness down while we practiced. Zero advertizing and just opened the doors one day during the week.

We got mobbed and were not prepared. People were having to wait over an hour for their food and the returant was full and people were waiting to get in.

We should have closed the doors the next day and worked on things that needed streamlined but we kept muscleing through and I am sure we did not help our reputaion much by the long waits our customers had in the beginning. We ended up running the returant for a couple of years before moving on to other things that came up in life. I still have the building sitting there and rotting. I had to move out of state for four years to get my retirement and I just never got back to doing anything with the building and probly never will.

I guess the point of the above is that I am not sure how the selling honey or bee thing is really going to work out but just pick a path and follow it untill something makes me change the path. In the end most things work out good enough in the big picture.

It does make me cautious on going big all at once and so I don't mind taking the slow route and stopping where it feels right. 
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I am having a heck of a time deciding what I want to do. I half want honey and half want drawn comb. I run all ten frame mediums. All the hives are just loaded with capped honey but also small comb wise for wintering. I think I have enough comb to drawn to pull them all through winter barring disiese and mites since I have not treated. Most of them will only be two mediums full instead of the three that I was hoping for even after moving some comb around.

Comb wise, everything is depending on some kind of fall flow. We have had good rain and I have hope. On the other side of the coin, Most of the hives with two mediums will have more comb then two of the hives I wintered last year. I quit messing with the hives last year around the first of october last year. I would guess that our first light frost usually hits us around oct the 15th. It can still be 70 degrees in middle late november or not (I go by deer season which starts around the 15th of nov) (It could be the first dusting of snow or 70 degrees). Last year I wintered one hive with 1.7 mediums and one with 1.4 mediums and they were both full and swarming by 13 of april while it was still pretty cold. They drew some comb sometime in that period from oct to early april.

The hives that are two mediums and above have the second mediums plumb full of capped honey. I am thinking if we have a fall flow, the bees have two choices, build comb or have fewer winter bees or swarm. I believe we will have a fair fall flow but am new and only have last year to look at. I do have two hives that do have Three brood nest plus one has about a gal capped in a super and the other has about 3/4 of the super capped. The one with the gal has no more comb in it to fill unless the bees draw more. The 3/4 full super does have two combs that are empty. Some of the capped stuff was refilled comb I had already extracted once and some is not as fat as the first time they made it but is capped.

I think the honey is still some of the spring stuff though it could have some queen anns lace in it. 

I am thinking about extracting a bunch and then feeding sugar water. I have about 250 lbs of free sugar with out having to buy any and hope to get more before spring for swarms and such. I am thinking of, on the hives that have 3 mediums and a super, extracting down to two mediums unless I find brood in the third medium (which I don't think I will though earlier in the year one third box was pretty full with brood. Then I would put the third brood box that I extracted back on and move the comb that is in the super to a differrent hive).

I am thinking of extracting the 2 brood nest hives down to leaving just two capped honey frames in the second box and the rest being put back wet.

I am thinking on the two brood box hives of fast feeding immediatly when I put the 8 wet comb back on them so they can refill it with sugar water and start drying.

I am thinking then around the 15th or 20th of sept of seeing how much of the wet comb the bees have filled and lifting the hives for weight and slamming on some fast feed. I am worried that that should still be a good time for the flow to still be going on and maby carrying on untill the frost date. I relize many like to have the feed on and processed before the frost date or last round of winter brood and so don't know when it really needs to be done and am just guessing.

What I am thinking about doing is sorta like stealing from a first year hive rather then leaving the honey for them. It is only really even on my mind due to reading a post by richard cryberg where he pointed out that bees actually winter better on sugar then on goldenrod honey. I remember reading a study on this also.

The alturnitive to all this is to leave the hives full of capped honey and adding another brood box and pull a few frames up and hope that if the bees need the room they will still draw. That is what I did last year and I took zero honey and the bees did draw a few combs but not enough to fill a medium. I guess a guy only will know how it works after he does something. Math wise, I can get the honey and end up close to a min of two mediums on most hives with two having three. I know it is possible to winter with that and they may make a few more comb then that if I leave them as they are now but I don't think I will get super more with out stealing and putting them all in one place.

I will get 2 to 3 more gal of honey if I leave the hives alone and probly 10 or 12 gal that most will have to be replaced with fall flow and sugar if I don't leave them alone. Today I condenced the big hives down to where any gaps in drawn comb in the lower boxes were filled with drawn comb. The bees had not drawn out very much new comb and had just capped everything that was there in two boxes with out filling the lower. I even think the tiny bit of comb that might have been draw was in the super. No brood any either of the two top boxes.

They are not so full yet they feel the need to draw and I did not check the bottom two boxes for stores. I just know the top ones are full and capped. I am mostly talking about the five hives that will not have to have stuff added to them but will be the comb donators that will help bring the other three hives up to two full mediums for winter. I will throw some sugar block on the two medium hives and call it good.

It is greed and resources that make me think of doing this. I have the sugar (which I know stays good more then one year). I have to move some of the comb no matter what. The timing kind of screws me up a bit cause I am not sure of the timeing of the last brood raising compared to our wether patterns. We are warm enough for the bees to process sugar water way past the frost date but you want to give enough time to get excess moister out of the hives and not wear out your fat bees and I can not quite put it together in my mind. I have no golden rod smell in my hive yet and would not mind timing anything I take being golden rod but think waiting on it might be too late for the bees to process the sugar water replacement. I could just take the 2or 3 gal in the supers, move the comb and give the small hives sugar water to fill them or I could let each hive live with what they have, give them enough sugar water to fill what they have if they have any room to store it and just take the supers extract them and store them and try to use them to keep any hive that does not die from swarming. I doubt I do that. I have about ten more hives built and so am getting ready for the swarms.

So, some of the hives are full but small. I do have 250 lbs of sugar to play with. I like honey but am not too worried about it though if it doesn't hurt too bad will probly try and get some (at least the supers) even knowing when I put them on other hives, I will have to refill them with sugar water.

Hmmm?

My thoughts are I can have 10 gal and not be hurt but for the work. I might be too lazy to even do it cause feeding is hard and dangerous (robbing) and extracting is not that easy. The equiptment will get dirty and only need cleaned once though. I am using this post to think with, sometimes the typing process slow down my thinking and makes me go a little slower through the issue.

Comments are always welcome even if they are along the line, you are an idiot for even thinking about extracting and feeding back on such small hives.
Thanks for reading.
gww
Ps me getting in the hives today and seeing an odd frank (california) vidio of him blowing out bees from really small hives put this in my brain along with richards comments on wintering on sugar.


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## trishbookworm

I'm in OH, and people freak out about their hives being small. I'd define small as the bees covering 5 deep frames solidly, this time of year 5 frames with brood. Having said that... if a hive is small but full of winter bees, that's way different than a late split which relied on all bees to forage during the late summer/fall - those bees won't overwinter well. Also, people successfully overwinter 5 frames of brood fine... it's called a nuc! 

If I had such asymmetries in who has what, 2 things I would think to do. First, I would want to know what that honey flow says about the queen who made it. Split from the fullest ones, unless I would know some outside event (like a bonehead split  made the bee numbers and honey stored low. So that means writing things down for me! Second, I would remove what's capped, since that can be labelled midsummer honey, and spread uncapped frames around, so everybody has room to store/process any incoming. Maybe favor more space for the larger hives, as they have more foragers to bring in riches.

Also I'm paranoid about doing something that I then can't undo, so I would put off harvesting until after the frost. That way I would have the option of putting resources back if needed. 

I look at the honey as work that the bees saved me.  others would look at it as worth more per pound than the sugar water that you could provide and they could use just as well - if you want to hustle! 

it is funny how typing things out helps clarify! Good luck and keep us posted.


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## gww

trishbook......


> I'm in OH, and people freak out about their hives being small.


Last year I didn't have much choice except maby feed more then I was willing to. I am foundationless and the bees did what they did. So far I have no excuse to be too scared cause they all lived but I still stay a little scared.

I have been to ohio twice for a day here and a day there. I would say you might be a tiny bit colder then me or maby not.



> If I had such asymmetries in who has what, 2 things I would think to do. First, I would want to know what that honey flow says about the queen who made it. Split from the fullest ones, unless I would know some outside event (like a bonehead split  made the bee numbers and honey stored low. So that means writing things down for me! Second, I would remove what's capped, since that can be labelled midsummer honey, and spread uncapped frames around, so everybody has room to store/process any incoming. Maybe favor more space for the larger hives, as they have more foragers to bring in riches.


I will be honest, I think I might have 4 or five comb spread out over eight hives that has empty space and most everything is capped. Now I will say that I have only dug in the top boxes and maby two boxes on the hives big enough to have supers on them. There is a lot of capped honey in a pretty small amount of drawn comb.

So this sounds like you might extract and make room for fall flow storage rather then leave full and hope they draw some late year comb?

Right now I have not been lableing anything or writing anything down more then what is here and I might get by with that a little longer but then again my memory is pretty lose. The problim with my notes is that later when I read them, I don't know what they are saying.



> Also I'm paranoid about doing something that I then can't undo, so I would put off harvesting until after the frost. That way I would have the option of putting resources back if needed.


I am guessing that you mean any new honey stored between now and frost with anything being added to bring up the weight and fill any comb that did not get filled from now to fall. Or am I getting this all wrong?



> I look at the honey as work that the bees saved me.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> others would look at it as worth more per pound than the sugar water that you could provide and they could use just as well - if you want to hustle!


I agree with this some what but am a tiny bit greedy (though I don't need it) and plan on taking a little cause there is a lot there and I have to move some stuff around anyway. I don't mind that what I take is only from the big hives and in the supers and not from the brood nest which would add up to just a couple of gal right now. I just wonder if it might be smart to take more since the bees have to draw comb to put more in and it is late in the year. I do find that the hives seem to be peaking at differrent times and some of the mid size hives are now having more forage action then the biggest ones but all are pretty active. I find it funny that I have a hard time guaging things that are right in front of my eyes. Plus I have noticed that some hives get going earlier and quit earlier then others, I watch a lot cause it is my whined down place for sitting.

I mostly have it in my mind that some more flow is comming and I really don't know the best way for the bees and me to maximise the situation.

I don't really worry that much (or am always a little worried, take your pick) but have these menal exersizes till I just do something and then live with the consiquences.

Typing does seem to help (I am so bad at typing) and your responce helps also cause it helps me decide if I am just being nutty or it is actually worth thinking about.

Thank you for reading and taking the time to respond. I did get one other nugget from your post. It seems that it might be ok to be adding some sugar water stores still after the first light frost and that I might not be hurting more then I am helping.
Thanks
gww


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## Arbol

I don't understand...you have time to waste here on the forums, but not work your beehives???

wtf???

The REALITY is...it takes more wasted time to sit on the comp post on forums than it does to check your hives on a set schedule.

and don't go pulling the "you're on the i-net too crap...I have my hive set and doing their thing. 
Honey harvested, bee doing beyond good, settling in for a fall flow, and winter.

me, being 10+yrs older than you(70+) with way more production colonies and nucs than you, I hnestly just do not understand your complaints.

I work my apiaries alone, but one has to wonder..."Why won't take care of your bees?"


you need to go harvest your honey, bitte it and start selling it. go to your local hardware store or grocery tell the cashiers and workeers you talk with that you have local honey for sale...dude it will fly fast, your excuses tell me you are lazy. 
why keep repeating the same excuses.

go out and take care of your bees now.


This thread is dead for sure it's just going around in an endless circle of repeated gibberish.


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## gww

arbol
I am lazy, of that there is no doubt. I don't mind doing what I have to however, but no, I am not interested in doing more then I have to.

Just how long have you been keeping bees? Myself, I am new. Perhaps if you have been keeping bees for many years you no longer have to think yourself in circles cause you have learned enough to not have to think about it. I get into some of the hives about every five days. I really try to not get in as much as that but get a little worried that they may have filled there space faster then I was thinking they were going to the last time I got in. I am sure if you really did go through this thread that is going in circles you might have seen that as it is mentioned a couple of times and there is a date on every post.

I don't know if I am on the I-net or not because I don't know what the I-net is.

I will also say that when dad was sixty and I was fourty, dad could out work me in the woods. Part of it was he was better at it and part of it was he was just a better worker. I looked up to him and it made me do my best.

I told myself on the 18th that I was not going to get into the hives untill the end of the month or later but then got in on the 24th.

You did give me one heck of a pep talk but unlike the other posters to this thread, you did not say anything towards my hive status and my objectives and what might be best to do and why.

I know I don't know much cause this is my second summer with bees. I put out the things that I am thinking about for comment if someone wants to comment. Partly I am working it out in my mind and seeing what others that know more then me think about my situation. Once I decide I have thought and heard enough takes on my options, I will pick one and do something. 
It is nice to know that people will want my honey if I get any and if I have some to sell. That does worry me a little. So far I have sold one quart for $18 and given all but about a gal of my first four gal harvest.

I will probly repeat quite a bit of jibberish as I decide how to do things cause I do not quite have the knowlage of what I want to accomplish but also what the things I do mean to the bees and thier development. As I said in one of my last post, I have only been through one fall flow with some starter hives and am using that to guess the best I can of what might happen this year and trying to decide if I leave the honey, what might I be losing on gethering and what might I gain on comb building. If I take the honey down into the brood nest, is it going to be refilled and is it worth the time to feed if not and do I have enough sugar to make up the differrance and lastly this would cause me to lose some comb that they might draw if I leave the honey and what is that worth come winter and next spring? You may have the answer to the questions but your post gave me not clue to what those answers are except to tell me that I am to lazy to do it if I knew. This may not have been your intent because I took it well the support you showed in pointing out that I probly can get rid of any honey that I get.

The problim is that I have not dicided what is the right thing to do. I told my wife this morning that I did not think I was going to take the honey and was just going to wait till oct when I was pretty sure I would have at least 3 gal and depending on what the bees did, maby more. I then went out and started making about 5 shims that I can put sugar bricks in for when I move everything around and close the hives for winter.

You could be correct that people are tired of reading as much as I am writing and will not answer a dead thread. This is a forum where people get to make the decission on what they want to read or answer. 

I don't mind post like yours cause this is why I put it out there. I don't need only opinions that agree with me or my philosophy cause even I may change if I get the info that helps me decide something differrent. Right now I am just trying to absorb enough to get better.
You only know what you know.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Well Arbol, you don´t have to follow here. Nobody presses you.

I´m doing an industry job, have an old person to care for, have animals, have a sideline fruit farming, have a tf beekeeping forum where I am moderating, read news, read beesource, am a terrible poster, but:
I don´t use Facebook as a philosophy and u-tube only if linked on BS because there are so much freaks on u-tube.

Ah, and I don´t watch TV. My TV is a nice room ornament.

So sometimes I will check even less than gww. Bad for my curiosity, good for the bees. 
And don´t say "good for the mites" because this situation is the only one I will not be lazy about.

What I really wanted to say is gww is not lazy. He is a family man and builds things. Grows things.
He just likes to socialize.
Flirting a little bit with the term "lazy" are you gww?


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## gww

SiW....


> Flirting a little bit with the term "lazy" are you gww?


All I can say is if you don't believe me you could ask what my wifes perspective about it is.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW....
> 
> 
> All I can say is if you don't believe me you could ask what my wifes perspective about it is.
> Cheers
> gww


Cheers


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## gww

I read that member cbay from Mo had his late year swarm. He was feeding but hearing it still makes me a little worried that I did not extract some of those capped frames but I have my fingers crossed that the bees take the oppertunity to draw a little more comb instead. I have been doing a little winter prep and getting ready for late oct and also spring.

I made five of these. I should have made 8 to be safe but I think I am going to try a few hives with out and see if I can see any differrance in how they live and also how they act in spring.















To get ready for swarm season in spring I am steady adding but really slow at it plus will at some point need to cut some more logs into boards and stack them so they can dry by next year winter building season. I am so slow. I have been working at it and this is my third year of building and I only have about 20 hives built and not enough supers for them if they all had bees in them. My hives have a lot of oak and are heavy. I have my first pine logs to try out if I ever get around to chopping them up.








I will probly look into a couple of hives in a day or two. I think I will be wasting my time but I have a few that are just a few frames from having the brood box full and I will have to decide on if to add another box. Up untill now for the last month they have not really filled them fuller cause they have not really been drawing more comb but the bees are very active right now and I believe are on the start of what I hope to be a decent flow and so I have to keep looking on the ones that are close to running out of room.

I just love those times when the returning bees are coming back in waves that look almost as big as an orientation flight. I have not liked that look when it was due to robbing but it looks great when it is normal foraging. I have only caught a few orientation flights and have not seen one on every hive yet.

I am hoping to have all the comb where I am going to put it by the beginning part of october and I am dreading the possible robbing that might happen when I have to feed just one or two small hives in the bunch to fill extra comb that I give them. Last year I had no robbing cause if I fed one I went ahead and fed all three. This year will be differrent because I only think one or two are going to need feed. I am hoping and believing that there will be a flow on untill first frost and that will help but I am only guessing on that.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I looked in the hives again today. Not much to tell. I think I might have been making a small mistake buy not moving empties into every brood nest and creating gaps. I did that on my smallest hive and it seems like they are festooning now a little. I also have one other hive that may have drawn a frame but did it in sperts and it is now a taking up two frames. It is fully capped on one side and they are still filling too big of a portion on the other side or I would have taken it out and crushed it. It has one other comb in the third box with this one and it is fat enough for two frames also but is all on one frame. It makes it hard to move these around and have a good guide. The frame not being capped yet may be a blessing in disguise cause now when I do extract, I will try and cut the comb in a way that might save at least one frame worth. If I had kept pulling frames from the middle of the brood nest, I might have gotten better comb. I was afraid to keep doing that when they stopped drawing well cause I did not want to end up with empty space that I might over look during winter. I thought about leaving that funky comb untill spring but am a bit afraid of them really messing up a box and filling it with brood. When it is full of honey it is pretty easy to deal with as long as it gets capped.

Does any one have a view of when you have a whole bunch of bees hanging out in the space between the inter cover and the teliscoping cover? Is this a pretty normal thing or does it indicate crowding. I am always short of comb and have always sorta wondered if bees up there ment anything.

I did see a few more SHB but not a lot and the bees corner them pretty good. The hives do seem to be getting fewer bees density wise. They are still covering all the comb but do not look as crowded as they have in the past. I looked at 9am and it was around 70 degrees when I started.

I do not know in my own mind what I want to accomplish. I am pretty indesisive and having differrent philosophies on what people want to accomplish does not help me make my mind up well. For example. All of my hives except two are smaller then recomended for MO wintering. I did winter small hives last year though. So, the one guy I know that raises bees says that the best way to get through winter is with a strong hive. Many people combine in fall the small with a bigger hive. On the other hand, (My take on it) Michael palmer and many others make splits and winter small stuff as support for the prodution hives. My take on this is that the early queen and queen support is a handy thing to have on hand. I have up to three hives that may end up smaller then any I have ever wintered on. I think comb wise I can bring them up to at least as big as what I wintered last year. My smallest (that is now starting to draw comb again) is only about 7 medium frames of bees while on its own right now. Eight frames is the same as a five frame deep nuc.

My origional plan is to allow each to try and survive on their own with what ever help I can give them IE; a little comb, sugar block and insulation on top. 

I am having a hard time deciding if this is the best way to go. I would like to end up with an increase at the start of next year but am not in a giant hurry to fill every peice of equiptment that I have. I read one time that a reasonable expansion rate for an apary is around a 30 percent increase. My instinct says let each do what it will do on its own but may not have had bees long enough to have good instint. The one other thing is the fact that I have not treated and so it seems that I could maby be playing a better numbers game of trying to get a small hive through where a big hive may have had enough babies that it also had more mite babies. The only hive that did not swarm on me was my smallest hive going into winter last year. Genetic wise, My biggest hive going into winter last year did get split and maby also had swarmed cause I did lose a queen somewhere, and it made about the same honey as my hive that did not swarm. It also has one of the strongest splits with the most honey in the split. It was a pure forager split though starting with no young bees except for one frame of brood with no bees attached. It filled the medium with drawn comb and honey before the queen got mated. In fairness, I did steal two brood combs from the one that did not swarm.

It kinda makes me want to see what each hive will do on its own but I don't know if that is dumb or not.

I do know that my weather is warmer then where michael palmer keeps his nucs.
Cheers
gww
Cheers


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## cbay

Looking good gww

Those sugar bricks look like a good idea to have for the bees.
To be fair about the swarm i had it was something that gave me indication (backfilling, lots of bees), but thought i could move them up. Ray Marler mentioned a tactic that would have likely kept that from happening, to put the new box between the other two with a couple drawn comb. That way i wouldn't have been trying to get them above their honey band. I tried to move a brood frame up but they were already established with the setup and then put the sugar/pollen sub combo to them and that was it.

Speaking of moving empties into the broodnest, been doing that a lot and has worked out pretty well but not as fast lately as things slowed down. Maybe a stronger fall flow will help out. But as it sits i can share some of your concern because now i'm committed to going in all the boxes between now and winter and figuring out what to do if it's wonky comb, undrawn, etc,,
If it weren't for the lack of comb it would have been nice to do like you say and let the bees work it all out. 

Enjoy following along with your adventure.


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## gww

Cbay
I did not add feed but your hive swarming this late still made me worried. I had two hives that are only two mediums with the third medium only having two comb pulled up for ladders and guides. When I got in one of them, I pulled the frames in the second medium and it was compleetly full and capped and there was no brood. Talk about a honey band. So I know there was only whatever brood was in the bottom medium. I did not look in the bottom to look for back filling cause in my mind the only fix no matter what would be to extract some frames and put them back in the hive empty. The problim with that is that I still want more comb to be drawn if we hit a fall flow and that is more likily if everything is full. I was a little greedy looking at all that honey also. I decided to take a chance and hope that the bees draw more comb rather then extract but your report scared me a little. I have never fed sub but last year I was in a pretty simular situation and I did slam some really fast feed on and the bees did draw out a few frames. One hive did better on that then the other. I put three gal on the one that did the best and six gal on the one that did the worst. Six gal only got me 3 frames drawn on the small one and in my view the only way that is possible is if there may have been some latent robbing going on. The hive built slow all year even though in june I added another swarm to it and even though it did start smaller, it should have caught up. The point of saying that is that I know even a full hive will in the right situation, draw comb rather then swarm with a full hive but it is scary.

I am just too cheep to feed enough to get all the comb built to have full hives which is why after a couple of gal last year I quit. I just did the math and when I knew I had added enough sugar water and sugar block that they had around 40 lbls in the hive not counting what they might have started with, I called it quits. The came through in swarm mode and with full combs when we hit early april and so I guess it worked ok even not having drawn comb. They must have drawn some comb in that warm spell we had in feb (hard to believe) cause by april when they started swarming the second box was full of comb.

All my hives build up at such a slow pace compared to what I had prethought would happen from reading this site and others that I stay ahead of really bad wonky comb except for this time of the year when the bees act funny. Getting it now hurts more when you have to destroy some but over all I like the foundationless and am just sloppy enough that I have not found it to be too much of a hassle to keep the hives inspectable. I do start with eleven frames and as they draw, I sometimes only end up with as low as nine frame by the time everything is drawn.

It is all good. I think a flow is on of some sort. I don't see bigg additions inside the hives but have seen a pretty big pick up of activity in foraging from the entrance watching.

The sugar block and just poor craftmanship on the boxes leaving air gaps at the seams of the boxes are my only upper ventalation and so this year when I try a hive or two with out the sugar block, I hope the moister does not kill me but I am going to try it.

I watch your post also because I figure management practices aside that what your bees are doing, mine are probly thinking about doing.
Cheers
gww

Ps I don't remember but it might have been ray that advised me last year to put my partial drawn medium with three or four drawn combs of capped stores on bottom for wintering last year but it seemed to work good when I did it and the bees were strong and crowded come spring.


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## gww

Ok, I looked at my dead warre hive today.















I saw them carrying pollen to the hive again today. Believe it or not, they have built just the smallest bit of comb compared to the palm size that they had forever. I am assuming they have a queen cause there are more bees then there was. I could not see up into the comb due to bees. The honey band at the top of the comb is gone and I am surprized they have not starved to death along with all the other things I have did to them. I was really doing my best to put off looking at this hive because I knew if I did what I would do.

What would I do? Why try to kill them again of course. I put a gal or so of sugar water back in the feeder, taped the seams between the feeder and boxes and in an hour or so I guess I will go and see how much robbing I have started. I never did take the feeder off the hive from the last time I convince the other hives to rob this one. I guess time will tell. Even feeding, it would amaze me if this hive got good enough to make winter but what the heck.

Hope you guys find this interesting. I don't know about you guys but I always atleast like to look a pictures.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, if it was me I'd feed them slowly so they build and not plug the brood area since they need to increase numbers. You can feed hard in October if needed. I get good results with a small hive like that if I feed a quart at night. If it doesn't fill the box with bees by winter, a protected place like a garage or barn can help them winter.


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## gww

Danial
Your advice is good. I was taking the lazy way out. I had figured the hive was a goner almost from the beginning. I had watched it for a month or so and it never made gains to making what might be critical mass. It was better today then I was expecting but still going to be hard pressed to do anything between now and frost. I had started this hive slow feeding with pint and quart jars but since the inner cover on it is just a feed bag sitting on the top bars, I had to be really carefull of making sure the holes in the jar ended up between two frames. 

I had built this feeder and so put it on and it leaked (it is so much easier to use if it would work) and I got quite a few dead bees in front of the hive. I took the feeder in and calked all the seams but I just came back and I see it might still have a crack some where.

What I figured with the gal of feed is that except what the bees are covering, there looked to be only empty comb. I don't know if I am going to go to the trouble to keep feeding them or not but thought the gal might give them a one time boost where they can consintrate on the flow. I also hoped that taping the seams made the hive a little warmer and maby frees up a few more bees. I think the feeder is still leaking and so I may have just signed their death warrent cause I am not taking it off now. I believe if they can get a little stores in the comb, that there is a flow of sorts going on. It is about my only hope where robbing is concerned now that I am pretty sure that my feeder is still leaking. 

Maby enough of the other bees will be interested in the flow more then robbing. I just walked down to the hive and I am not confident that they won't get robbed cause already it looks like there is more traffic at the entrance. However, there is also a tiny bit of leakage on the ground (That maby I dumped cause my coffee can was too full to control well) or maby is a leak. The bees are not yet interested in that little puddle and so maby the traffic is from the hive its self. I also put the little bit that was left in the can on its side away from the hive and so far, knock on wood, there is no interest in it yet but maby they just have not found it.

I did this just to guage the flow a bit cause if it is good enough, I have had wet buckets left alone before and that might mean the hive has a chance. If I could get the stupid feeder to not leak, I could always just put a pint a night in it. I am thinking of trying a trash bag in the feeder next. If I could get it to work, I could slow feed or fast feed. I am guessing that I just built it with too green of wood and it has shrunk leaving leakage.


So, If the hive survives this gal of feed and I don't find the front litterred with dead bees. I will probly look to your suggestion of just a little at night to keep them moving.

I doubt very much if I try and winter the hive under cover but if they got close to filling the box, I would probly make a shim and put a decent sized sugar block on them over winter. A warre box is not very big and may be close to a single five frame nuc and so, not saying it is imposible but they would probly need to get close to full. The warre is harder to reduce the entrance on. I am pretty sure I have it down to one or two bee spaces but with the inset and higth compared to just a long 3/8th entrance on the lang, I am not sure. I have put a clay tile in front of the entrance to sorta shade it and my view for this hive is that if they can't protect that, they probly are not going to make it.

I should not have used the feeder but woke up this morning and on spur of the moment just had to look and then act and may pay for it.

I have screwed this up from the very beginning when I hived the swarm in the warre and I can't see getting smart yet. It is like my brain has made me make every wrong move where it comes to the warre. I tell you the absolute truth, I can not believe the bees are still alive at all.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

It's funny how bees can sometimes hang on and survive as a little colony, and they can also crash hard as a big colony. You never know, that little thing may survive winter and be a gangbuster hive next year. Have you ever used a zip lock bag and slice it an inch in a couple places on top as it lays on the frames? Works good if you have a razor sharp knife to cut the slits. they suck it dry and you throw it away.


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## gww

Danial
I have used gal zip lock bags before. That was why I made my very first shim last years and how I fast fed. You would laugh at me if you knew me. You know how the movies will have a 6 year old kid empty his pockets and there will be a couple of marbles, a bottle cap, a piece of sting and so on and so on. I have carried a folding drywall knife in my pocket since last fall. I carried lemon grass oil all year and just recently took it out of my pocket.

It was lot easier using the baggies then it was quart jars. I still have to make a shim for the warre and also have filled all my shims for the langs with sugar for blocks. I read abby warres book and he was saying that with the feeders that hold a couple of gal, you could have just one for every ten hives for fast fall feeding. I have one built for the lang hives also.

I think I got lucky so far. The coffee can that I layed on its side with the residue in it is still being ignored by the bees and the little puddle under the hive I am feeding is only being visited by ants to this point. I hope it doesn't change and it leads me to believe that there is something out there that the bees like better. I could be wrong though. I will say that all my hives are plumb full of stores in the little bit of comb I have drawn for each. Not only full but most of it is capped. The comb in the warre looked compleetly dry to me.

I am hoping that my timing saves me on the feeding of the small hive.

I am thinking there is only 40 posible brood rearing days before the first frost and so two rounds of brood to make winter bees in. Is it enough time and do they have enough comb to even have a prayer?

I figure this winter will be interesting cause I have fair down to little hives and like you said, who knows which will live or die. I would think a certain amount of too small is a bad bet though.

I really liked baggie feeding better then the quart jar but if I was not so cheep, I would like to get a bunch of gal paint cans and try that. It might be more hassle then it is worth due to having to use two empty mediums to cover the paint cans though. I really like the ideal of finding a way to put 3 or 4 gal on a hive in one feeding and then being done. I am here at home with my hives now and so there is no excuse to need to do that but someday I might put a few hives at dads and I would like to have my process of keeping bees down to just the fewest possible acts if I ever do put some there.

Cheers
gww
Ps
I did not think slow feeding would be good with baggy feeders cause if the bees are still drawing comb, I was afraid they would draw in the empty space in the shim where you put the baggie.


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## DanielD

Here there's a fair flow, it seems. The bees aren't out hunting all over for something like they were several weeks ago. If they don't mess with the sugar water, you could have something coming in. I started using a few jars with a brass nipple soldered into the lid so it can stick in a small 1/4" hole in a hive lid with the jar upside down. The hole in the lid gets plugged with a screw tapped into it when not in use. Someone on BS had a thread doing that so I tried it. So far I like it since I can stick some food on a nuc without opening up anything. I use a single migratory type lid that has an aluminum cover on it. It also has a notch with a filler block if I wanted a top entrance for anything, like venting in the winter. 
If you could spare it, you could take just one frame from a strong hive with brood and drawn comb and put it on your small hive there. It would give them a boost of bees and brood space that can help a lot, and the stronger hive should pull an empty frame in the brood nest fast enough. You could even put on a bit of food on the stronger hive to make it up to them. 
My first swarm in mid September wasn't much more than that many bees, but I had drawn comb, and they filled the box with bees before fall was over. It wintered inside though at 40 degrees all winter.


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## gww

Danial


> If you could spare it, you could take just one frame from a strong hive with brood and drawn comb and put it on your small hive there.


Yea, that is the issue, this is a warre hive with fixed frames and I would have to do a cut out to add comb. Just to show the stuggle that these bees have had, they were hived way back on may 5th. They have had a very hard time getting close to critical mass. It was actually a decent swarm but I killed a bunch of bees hiving it, I killed more feeding it and there was probly some drift as this was a secondary swarm after a secondary swarm and the origional hive and both swarms are really close size wise to each other. So I put the three hives really close to each other. Even though the two secondary swarms were pretty close in size, I just added a bunch of extra stress to this one.

As far as getting one in mid sept, I am a bit ahead of that but also won't winter inside. My basement is finnished and my garage is heated a lot cause I play with building out there during winter. I have a pole barn structure but I would doubt that is is warmer where it is then it is where the hives are. The hives are actually in a pretty good spot cause there is a good cedar line behind them to the north and a big cedar that juts out to the west (where all my swarms land).

I have one migratory top and I have to keep a part of a brick on each corner to keep it from warping. My telescoping lids probly also warp but the skirt hides it and so I pretend everything is perfect. I saw the thread you are talking about on the little tube attached to jar lids. I actually built all inter covers just so I had an easy way to feed. I would just use a migratory and a plastic feed bag for and inter cover except for feeding. 

I will be doing some winter feeding before it is over cause I intend to extract two supers and then disperse those comb to my other hives so I can get all of them to at least two mediums (or real close) and full. I could just move the honey but I am greedy and want it. Right now they are most capped with summer honey but I hope they draw another frame or two cause I would like to taste fall honey at least once.

I have around 3 gal worth capped right now that I am going to take no matter what since I have to move comb around anyway. I have not decided when I put it back wether I am going to disperse the comb and then feed all the small hives or if I will put them back on the big hive and feed the heck out of it and then move them. Even though it is more work, I will probly feed all the hives except the big ones (if they are heavy) so I know how much for sure is in each hive. Last year I just gave each hive 3 gal and then put a 15 lbs sugar block on them. I read a MO tutorial that said a hive needs 40 to 60 lbs to winter on and so not counting what they already had I just made sure I knew they had the 40 lbs.

I am going to not be so sure this year and so it might only add up to two gal of given sugar on the smaller ones and a ten pound sugar block with a few with out sugar blocks just to see the differrance in spring build up. Of course, I might get scared and give more.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Oh yeah, I wasn't thinking on that compatible issue of hives. I did catch a swarm in maybe June one year that was so small they surely weren't any larger a cluster than a baseball. They puttered all summer and finally ended up an 8 frame medium and maybe another half box, but I didn't really feed it along the way much. They wintered in the old house. That was last year, and the hive was re queened this year in July with a better line of queen, but it did pretty fair with the original queen this year.


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## gww

Danial


> That was last year, and the hive was re queened this year in July with a better line of queen, but it did pretty fair with the original queen this year.


Shows that there is always hope. Thanks for the helpful comments.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

First time I have seen this.









I have a couple of other hives that the dead on the board in front of them has increased the later it gets in the year but nothing like this.

My other hives have grass and so it is harder to really see what is going on.

I had one hive that looked like it was carrying out a moth but I just caught the end of the action and could not be sure that is what it was. I have not seen any problim inside the hives moth wise.

I have my hopes that this is just the time of year that the bees are carrying out the extra mouths that they don't want to feed but admit that I don't know what is normal.

Any ideals out there. I don't think starvation is an issue cause last time I looked at the hive that the picture is of, it had a full medium of capped stores. I picked one of the larva up and did not see a mite on it though I don't see well and it seemed to have a little blob of what looked like puss coming out of its tail. I need to go down and look at one or two more just too see.

Does anyone have any opinions on what is going on with the picture?
Thanks
gww

As a side note. The bees are foraging like crazy and coming and leaving the hives in droves but over 5 days from the last time I looked at a few, they did not seem to be gaining or losing in stores.


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## 1102009

Chilled or mite diseased brood pulled out looks like that if it´s not starving.


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## 1102009

gww I can´t really see pict is too small. Maybe just drone pupa pulled out this time of year.


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## gww

SiW
Yes, my picture taking leaves something to be disired. I went down and watched the entrance some more and the bees are still pulling out a dead one here and their. My eyes don't see that well and I am sitting about 10 feet away. I did walk around to just a couple of feet from the entrance. To me the bees that are being drug out seem to be a bit bigger then the bees doing the dragging. I did read that they can have extended abdominim caused by mite. 

I am pretty sure the one I picked up was unhatched larva/bee. The could just be white from the sun bleeching them cause the other one I picked up did fall apart. It is hot out today though I think it is going to only be in the mid 70s F after today with rain maby tommorrow and so I probly missed my window to dig a little deeper. I did smoke them and started to get in the hive but I had just got in it 5 days ago and decided that I would let it slide for a bit. I had read this morning that chalk brood or poor ventlation could cause the bees to pull unhatched bees out. All I do know is that the hive has a lot of healthy looking bees comming and going also and so (since I am not going to treat anyway but don't want to not learn what things look like if I do have a failing hive) thought I would let it ride a bit. I am doubtfull that the brood got chilled at 60 degree night temps even if I had split some brood some how. 

I would rather be lucky and not have a sick hive that is bad enough to fail but I don't want to miss going in alot deeper then I normally do and paying good attention if it does happen so I know more next time. My last few inspections of sort have not involved pulling any comb except maby to see how capped they are and if any comb is being drawn. I will go a little deeper right before I button up for winter to assess thier stores and make adjustments if needed. I am thinking it might be drones (though even if that, I wonder what that means as for as brood rearing goes). I would take another picture but am not sure just using my phone if they would be any better. I could get closer but that does not mean they would be any clearer.

I thank you for making an effort to help figure out what might be going on and don't be shy if anything else goes through your mind on this.

I did see a differrent hive carry out a dead bee also but this hive seems to be making a better effort. While looking closer to the entrance then my normal sitting place, I did see some thurow grooming of one bee to another. The same kind of grooming I have seen at the water hole. One bee will go over another bee really well. It reminds me of if you were to brush your dogs hair with a brush. Not every bee to each other but just a bee here and there. This was at the hive that the picture is from.
I will go back down to the hive and sit on my bucket till I start sweating a couple times a day.

Today made me look up the book named "At the hive entrance". I skimed reading it a little but think I am going to try and get it read one more time today. I think it is only 60 pages or so.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I took a couple more pictures that I am sure are not much better then the first. I do know that some of the bees are carried out of the hive are already white and so they are not just sun bleached. I watched them carry one out but was not fast enough with the camera.
























I don't know how I didn't get any flying bees but this is the entrance and the bees you see standing are about what seems to be coming and leaving with no lull in the action. The picture does not show the activity well.








Willing to hear any thoughts.
Thanks
gww

Ps It is defanatly bees being pulled out of their cocoons cause I can blow them up a little better on my lap top and some have the cocoon still hanging on part of the bee.


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## gww

These bees in the links picture look close enough to what mine look like in real life to kinda give me some comfort.
https://honeybeesuite.com/bee-abortion/
Of coure the hive has plenty of honey and the bees are bringing in pollen and so lack of resources being the cause of drone eviction does not really seem to fit.

I also read that poisen pollen can cause the pupae to die.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, I'd think it's taking out drone brood this late in the year, especially if they look larger that the worker bees. They probably concluded it's not going to need them any more this year. You'll probably find some live drones clinging to the sides of hive bodies after being kicked out soon.


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## gww

Danial
I am hoping that it is drone brood. I did see the thread asking if any one still had drones and saw where michael palmer (much colder) said they were draging ou drone pupae and so I am guessing I am on the right track.

You know with me not treating that I am looking for what I am pretty sure I won't be able to avoid at some point in time and so everything I see keeps me wanting to know what it is. I really thank you for taking the time to give an opinion. 

I also saw your honey harvest post and that is pretty immpressive to me. Make you wonder if your one hive was not doing a little latent robbing of the others doesn't it? 

You mentioned fall flow. My bees are out there getting it and I saw them on some yellow flowers and they were not filling their pollen baskets and so I am guessing they are getting some nector. They must not be getting too much though cause they are using a lot of water from my little bird feeder and I would think that would slow down with good nector flow. 

Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, I usually think of robbing when someone else writes about a particular hive doing much more stores than the rest, but this colony has been exceptionable in many respects. It had a huge brood nest, stored much for last winter, good laying pattern, earlier buildup than the rest, and the traffic in and out was much different with its very large population. It's a swarm I caught locally in mid summer last year, so it's a different genetic line than the rest. It grew surprisingly fast last year and needed nothing form me. I split it or added queen cells from it to other colonies bout 9 ways this summer and I can see some of the same characteristics in some of the splits already. I am confident there wasn't robbing going on. There were a couple other hives that broke 100 lbs easy as well.


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## gww

Danial
Ha ha, none of my swarms acted like that. I would say adding those genetics nine ways gives you pretty good odds of having a few good queens to work with and keep it going. Cool.
gww


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## DanielD

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next year with them. They haven't had treatments either and with the splitting and brood breaks, I probably won't this year. Just keep collecting new swarms outside your apiary when you get a chance, and see what other potential you can come up with.


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## gww

Danial


> Just keep collecting new swarms outside your apiary when you get a chance, and see what other potential you can come up with.


It aint like I aint trying. I got 16 traps out and have picked on most of my relitives to help watch them and I got two swarms this year and both were super small and might not get big enough to make it through winter. I had lots of scouts looking but not many takers. Two is better then none though. So far the one hive I bought might be the best genetics I have cause even swarming and being split, one side made as much as my one hive that did not swarm this year.

I still intend to get another 3 gal cause that much is capped in supers right now but I don't have any more comb unless the bees draw more to collect the fall flow. I will have to feed when I take the honey cause I am going to give the comb in the supers to other hives after I take the honey. I could probly get by with out feeding if I just moved capped frames but I want what should have been my honey supers. But I also want to give the small hives a little edge after I extract. It is a little extra work but I only got about 4.5 gal all year and I have decided I am greedy. I only have about a gal left.
I kept the small hives and tried to keep some of each queen, just to see how they add up in the whole picture. When I get my feet on the ground and get a little more experiance, I will try and pick the best and get a little more control over which queen I use. I had some not build up as good as others and not keep as much extra stores in the hives an probly should have switched those queens but am going to give it a bit more time first and just try and learn the differrances good and bad.
I do have about ten more hives built and I did start cutting a few logs and stacking for dry wood for building more next winter and so I guess I am not done yet.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww,
you will always see some brood, diseased or not, chilled or not, of no use anymore or whatever with your hives.

As you are tf you will always have one or two hives which reach a threshold and make it or not. So relax, because nature will do the selection and if they are still having healthy traffic they will crash in winter ( if they do but they could survive this being stronger than before  ) and not spread the mites. Just watch out for drifting or robbing and try to avoid this as much as possible.
In my yards I see that a space of 10m and robber screens will prevent this.

Here are some picts of what happened with my *TREATED* hive :
- the floor board full of mites after the treatments did not work ( they were done by my mentor), taken 2 months later
- the entrance, you see bees which had died in the cells and were pulled out, a very bad sign, a healthy drone pupa, crawlers and healthy dead bees
















One pict of brood pulled out after a cold spell this spring with one of the *tf* hives ( which have no mite problem), this looks like mite damaged brood but is not.


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## 1102009

And this is how healthy brood looks.
One of my samples when I pulled out brood and counted the mites.
There were mites, especially on the drones but the pupa is healthy.
Compare!


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## gww

SiW.....
I am relaxed as I can be with the pressure that wanting to know allows. I just like to muddle through an issue till I am comfortable knowing enough of what I need to know. I don't even care if I know it all, I just want to know enough. I see dead bees. I saw a couple of young larva pulled out once but I just had not seen this. From your pictures, you have. Those were nice pictures and thanks for posting them. I feel good cause I think I have a clue of what is going on that I feel comfortable with and it is not AFB so all is good. I did actually stick the first one I picked up to my nose and smell it. I probly have too much time on my hands.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I´m too serious about such things, am I ?
Yes, everything is better than AFB.


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## gww

SiW
I just read your thread and so "IF" you are too serious, it sure seems to be paying off.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Thanks, gww, I´m trying.
But..you never know what you will find in spring.

The work with bees is so nice it will be no matter. Go on I will.


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## gww

SiW.....


> The work with bees is so nice it will be no matter.


However, it may turn out real good and real good is real good. I am like you, I am not going to forcast success but I do have my hopes. I have not yet had the displeasure of losing a whole bunch of hive yet like you have but this may be your year of full success. I wish the best for you.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Many thanks gww I wish the same to you. 

What´s important is to keep the joy in beekeeping in spite of some failures. 

Saw that yesterday. Watching the bees doing their jobs so enthusiastically on the combs makes me smile. I hope I do my best for them, they deserve it.


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## gww

Getting ready for my year after next hives.







I would say every board you can see in the picture may add up to about 5 hives. Nothing is easy or quick when you do it all yourself.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

How nice!
Well, you will be occupied! 
I love that tractor.

gww, think about placing your hives apart some distance. Not much. I observed in my yards that this will prevent drifting (mite) much more than I ever thought possible.
I started to place the hives with entrances in different directions, too.


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## gww

SiW.....
I am going to cry like a baby when that "tractor" eventually gives out. I can't afford to buy another one and I am kick starting it now cause the starter needs brushes. It is only a 300 and should have been dead years ago cause most of my use with it has been tractor like.

On the hives, they are just so sheltered now where they sit and after next year, I will have to either make a double row which will cause terrible drift compared to now or use mom and dads place which means driving or decide I have enough and start selling to keep my numbers low. I don't know myself and so don't know what I will end up doing. For all I know, they may be spaced differrent depending on how many die over winter. Thanks for the suggestion.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Hey gww,
do an update on your hives?


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## gww

SiW
For the first time, I have by passed looking in at least some hive every five days. I am putting off my next look at around the 20th. I had looked on the tenth and every thing was like it was 5 days earlier. I think there is a flow back on for the last 3 or 4 days after about 4 days of not much real activity. Some of those observations could be how I am feeling rather then the truth although it does seem the bees are working quite a bit harder now and bringing in orange pollen now. I still have hopes of them drawing a little more comb this year. They only have 20 or 30 days to do it though. It has heated back up and so that may account for the activity. We are very dry and it is supposed to rain for the next three days. I am thinking this is going to help. It is supposed to stay in the upper 80s ferenhieght and not cool down and so I am excited even if later I am proved wrong.

So my report is that every hive including my dead warre is still alive and active. Some are too small to make it and at some time during this month, I will extract the last of my capped honey in any super and then move those combs to smaller hives and feed.

The dead drones or what ever that were in front of the hive are slowly melting away or being eaten by wasp and ants and so it is looking cleaner in front of the hives. I am not seeing enough crawlers to scare me. I have only caught a few of the oreintation flights and so have not seen every hive have one but have seen every hive bringing in pollen. A couple of the hives do wake up later then others but I don't think it indicates anything. Except for the size of some of them, I am feeling good about them.

I made a couple more shims so I can feed with baggies the hives that I give wet comb back to.

I will have a better ideal when I start moving combs around around oct. The biggest mistake I might be making is putting off the feeding for weight gain to so late in the year. It could make the moister issues worse and affect the fat bees but I am going to run with it and see.

Now you know as much as I do. Thats not much is it?
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> Thats not much is it?


To me it´s much and thanks for telling.
I see some things I have issues with also.
I fed too late and harvested too much. Now I have to feed with syrup instead of donating honey combs. Next time I want to store the capped honey combs longer in case of emergency, or feed earlier.
Our weather is more like in october or november and my fed hives are very wet too. 
I see those bringing pollen in big amount so I fear I propagated too much breeding. 

I saw your warre combs in the warre subforum. If I have had a course in warre as a beginner I would have started with such an arrangement. I´m convinced this kind of broodnest is better for the bees, survivability concerned.
Maybe I will build an observation hive sometime myself. Not with mobile frames but with opening front like I saw Lauri has. Natural comb, bee space arranging left to the bees, that would be my experiment.


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## gww

SiW
The warre is a little harder to adress issues on even for a guy like me that has not did many deep inspections. The other maby bad thing about them would be the saving of the comb when you do harvest. Though as strait as they are building in mine, I could pull them, cage them and spin them and it would only mean building a little cage for the comb to ride in. I doubt I do that though. You made a comment one time that you would get what ever honey you get by getting less from each hive and just having more hives. My view is that that is how I would probly run warres if I had more of them. I would have built more but since it is hard for me to cut boards that wide, my stuff fits building langs better. I know some have said just use two more narrow boards and put them together. My mind likes one board though. 

In a way I would like a few more warres and in a way I know langs are easier to work with, expesially if at some point you want to sell nuc and not give your equiptment away. You could sell packages like member nordac does with his long hives though. Don't get me wrong, I am not convinced that I want to sell any bees but I also know that till mine start dieing that I could not get eight hives off of two every year and keep all of them. I would have to sell some or something.

I doubt the warre makes winter but I did make a shim to put a sugar block in if I decide to try and help them. I have wasted some resources on it already and mostly just cause set back due to the robbing I started twice but I am thinking on it and they did make tiny gain even with me messing them over.

I am not sure if I remember lauri's front opening or not. I remember seen some things but my mind is not pulling it into pure focus. Myself, I am into just the very minimum type stuff to raise bees in (except for my slatted racks) and doubt that I ever do the extra to put windows or even build frames for the warre. I like the ideal of just adding boxes and taking boxes away and I like crush and strain better then extracting but with the langs I am greedy for comb.

I don't like the not being able to adress queen issues as easy but having a few around and letting them live or die on thier own does appeal to me.

On your stuff, I bet it works out. I don't know how you feel about using dry sugar on top but it seems like a pretty good emergency thing even though a goal might be to be to weight before cold wether might be better. When talking better, my mind tells me that if it works and does not cost too much money or work, it is still better even if not best.
Good luck
gww


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## 1102009

Fingers crossed that your hives will not die and you have stuff to sale even if you are a lazy one 

Your arguments are good but i would use one or two warre or observation hives only to compare the health of the colonies.
I still wonder what will keep my bees more healthy if they have to struggle with the mites. Give them all help I can.

Yes, I will use dry sugar too, filling this into my feeder box in the feeder, which I use as a lid. When they take no more syrup. The condensation will melt it a little bit and the warmth on top will allow the bees access.
Two years ago I put some moist sugar in ( read that in MB´s book) when I did first food check in march. One hive was light, they took it in two days.
They will not take it if they are content with stores.
What I´m trying to avoid is to start brood early. Sugar is no danger in this situation. But pollen patties are and they are a nono here.
Too much brood in march and a cold spell: say goodbye.


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## gww

SiW....


> Too much brood in march and a cold spell: say goodbye.


Dry sugar and warm spells in early febuary can also build brood early and you still have to say by by while half of your bees fly to the trees in early april.

I don't do pollen in the hive but they seem to make up for that at the chicken tray on the cracked corn. I don't do pollen cause you have to buy it to have it and I have been too lazy to collect and feed and too cheap to buy. My wife really wants some pollen out of the hive and really wants some royal jelly. I may someday get around to making a pollen trap but even though I love my wife, I am not sure about the royal jelly thing.
I don't do the add pollen and I am trying to figure out how to raise bees with out adding sugar some day except for real emergencys. I think that will be a little easier with a few more hives so that I still get a little honey but can also not be pressed to take it all and can then move stuff around where it is needed.
Good luck
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> Dry sugar and warm spells in early febuary can also build brood early and you still have to say by by while half of your bees fly to the trees in early april.


Sometimes they go out in january here fore hazel pollen but then they build up constantly. If they have a first brood hatching before middle february or march it´s not as dangerous because they can warm the next brood circle and reach the stores.
But not if the brood is forced with patties.
Or if the first brood in january is mite infested and short lived. If there are no winter bees left, that´s it. Bees die in early spring here.

But let´s talk about the good things in beekeeping. 

Well, I´m glad I´m using pellets as food for my chicken now so it should be hard to eat such for bees. 

Good luck to you too, gww.


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## gww

Siw...
I use the pellets for my chickens but mix it half and half with cracked corn cause the cracked corn is half the price. It is not as well ballanced of a diet but does give a little extra energy. My chickens have the run of the place and so I leave it to them to eat enough other stuff to bring thier diet back in line.
Did I mention that I am cheap?
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I have no problem with you being cheap 
It´s off topic but my chicken are behind bars so I must be careful with feeding or I will have no eggs.
Well, they are my first chicken ( and one even outed itself as a rooster) so if I need as much time to learn about them as about bees they rather will be soup chicken until laying the first eggs 

By the way what´s the use your wife makes of royal jelly? She wants to be queen? She is.


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## gww

I looked at a few of the hives today. The first one was the smallest lang that only has about 7 drawn comb. They looked like they might be starving even though all the bees are busy as heck foraging. Most of the cells were empty and they has raised so little brood that you could only find a few very small capped brood and that was spotty. What is funny is that this little hive was about the only one that had just a few bees festooning to draw more comb. I was so worried that I did something that I don't do very often. I looked for the queen. I found her and she is a little scroney thing. I put a little less then a quart of sugar water on them. I hate slow feeding and will probly put the hive top feeder back on or use baggies and just give them a gal and ler them do what they do, I had just made the quart as a boost based on watching the entrance and figuring they needed a little boost. Instead, they may need a big one. My reasoning is that they have 7 mostly empty comb and a gal would allow them to fill most of it and still leave a little room if the queen decides to lay and they will either have enough to give them a little room to go get more or die.

On the other hives I looked at, they still have not drawn more comb except for maby a few little humps here and there but also have not been uncapping and using what they have. I have the biggest hive with a couple of extracted combs in a super (the only empty comb that I have) and so I just watch that to see if they ever start using it to decide if they are really adding to the weight or not, so far, not.

I am pretty sure that I saw a tiny oreintation flight from the warre yesterday and so I guess that is good news of sorts. I may give them a little more sugar water as well cause it is easy to do and they also are pretty low on foragers. I had given them a gal and a half since I took the pictures of the comb in it and that did seem to perk it up a bit. 

We got less then 1/2 inch of rain and that seemed to really get the bees working really hard on the frost astors in my field.

I had let ten days go by from last look and not much has changed for good or bad except of course the little lang not having new brood and being close to starving to death.

That is all I have till next time. I am really going to push things to the edge this year. I will take what ever honey ends up in the super and close the hives up except for feeding a little around oct first. I did this last year also but had done all my feeding I was going to do before oct the first and so I will be doing the feeding really close to the average frost date this year. So plan is to move combs around to support the smaller hives around the first of oct. If I kill a queen while doing this an hive will die.

Time will tell how it goes come april.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, your description, bees working as heck and they have little brood and mostly empty cells. My first thought is that those bees working like heck could be robbers. If nothing has changed in 10 days you are most likely having a weak fall flow, which encourages robbers.


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## gww

Danial
I do not think it is robbers. I do think the queen probly sucks and should have been adressed much earlier. She was the sickest looking queen I have ever seen and the tiny tiny bit of capped brood is not spaced well. Not too long ago I saw a small oreintation flight from this hive. I admit that empty comb but yet seeing bees festooning to draw more makes zero sence to me. 

I do think there is a flow on of sorts. I see the bees coming and going like crazy, they have slowed down on the watering hole visits quite a bit and I see them working the asters really hard. Now they may only be getting enough from those asters to stay even but they are working very hard. The other thing is that I have stood at the entrance of every hive to make sure they all are carrying in some pollen.

I am sure something is wrong and I don't doubt that maby robbing pressure of some sort has kept them from being able to forage as well as other hives but do not believe that robbers are in the hive. 

Getting away from that one little hive and adressing the other hives that have not changed for ten days.
My report could be skewed due to not going in the hives very deep. Like you said earlier, the brood nest could be contracting and the bees could be putting the nector there. I have only been going deep enough to see if all the lower is filled to the point where they are adding on to the hive. I do this by seeing if they have taken anything from the top or added anything. I know the other is important also but have been puting off lifting each box to see if I have to feed untill the first of october. I am going to do it but at the last minute when I actually am going to do something about it. I think there is some kind of a flow but not yet the kind that actually helps expand a hive. The bees could be gaining weight and I was too sloppy to see it. They are not on something that makes them full enough everywhere to want more comb.

If the way I do things and write about them is confusing, I do apoligize.

If I find that I am wrong and it is robbers, I just lose a hive but I am pretty sure that is not the case. If it is, it could be the same with the warre which I did cause a lot of bees to die with robbers. The time I fed them the gal though, I did leave the coffee can with wet sugar water outside on its side and not one bee looked at it for two days. It makes me think flow.
Thank you very much for your responce.
gww


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## DanielD

That makes sense about the lack of anything new in 10 days, if you haven't gone past the top box. They are reducing the nest considerably here, and they will fill the empty space they have below before they go up and build more comb. You might be surprised when you look lower sometime. I did that several weeks ago, not looking past the top, and was a bit disappointed. We were gone for most of a week a while back, and when I opened up hives in detail, I found piles of honey being stored in the upper parts of the brood nest. An interesting thing this week, I went to check on 3 hives I have 10 miles away, and they aren't gathering nearly like my 20 plus hives here. They should make winter weight, but slower at it. Some of my hives here have nearly enough for winter already. Location does have a lot of impact sometimes. It's a location that is half timber in the colony's fly range, the rest mostly pasture and a conservation area. 

You're not being confusing so much as I am a bit of a shallow reader sometimes and miss details written. I can be a lazy reader I guess.


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## 1102009

gww
The smaller hives of my bees shifted honey from the outside to nearer to broodnest area which they slowly reduce.
They did that in a period of mostly rainy weather, some foraging but not much.
I still feed half to one pint every second day into the weak. In spite of the cold such small rations are taken.
Now weather is better and they all do orientation flights and pollen and nectar is coming in.
The bigger hives already reduced and are in a lazy modus, being surrounded by stores.

Could be your bees shift the honey too and store it around broodnest area.


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## gww

Danial
I am lazy which is why I don't have better reports. I am however long winded in trying to say something and I don't consider anyone lazy that does a little skim reading. I find on long post that if there are not some white space between every so often, that I don't have the ability to even read them at all. I thank you for what I get from you.

SiW....
Too the point you make about moving honey. That is why I am watching the top boxes. I figure if they uncap and move that there is nothing out there. If they leave it capped but don't add, I figure substaining flow. If they ever get to the top and are adding, I figure probly good flow. My bees have a lot of honey and could be lazy but the hives are small enough that you would think that would be enough for them to still esxpand if enough is coming in. They did last year. It might not be as good this year but for some reason I think it is but I also have more then 3 hive now on that same resorce. Now I had read that more bees (to a point) can make the bee forage get better each year but I don't know that. It does sorta make sense though. I am like danial as for as wood to field goes though I would say that I have a bigger portion of woods than 50 percent. I do have a very small town 7/10th of a mile from my place. I mean small in one gas station and some antique stores. It says it has 400 people though and so surily someone waters thier lawn.

I did see some honey bees a couple of weeks ago at the trash cans at the gas station.

The small hive was a tiny swarm caught at my brothers house way back in early may. My biggest splits have only built out to two medium 10 frame boxes and the smaller ones have did worse. It could be genetics but I don't care so much yet if some live, I will learn more and try more stuff later as this bee keeping thing goes on. I have done figured out that I am a pretty slow learner and nothing is pushing me to get the learning done all at once. I do hope I make a little progress as time goes by and maby I will be pretty good about the time I die.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Well, it´s not helping much to feel too much apprehension.
Splits and swarms are not comparable with an established production hive, but they might have less mites.

The colonies might change in their behavior becoming more locally adapted. My AMM are now in my care for 3 years and it´s the first time I see they have some stores, never had surplus.
Being splitted once in spring the last 2 years they had huge areas of brood but no stores. I did not harvest but had to feed. Good flow. The strongest died the first in winter.
The race, it probably was and too big a split.
The others are the "honey" bees, bred in germany and more adapted. But it´s the first year they make honey domes, because I changed methods.
Well those which survived last winter do. The others died because they were less resistant.

And now I started with a new race I don´t know what will develop. One queen`s colony is still there after one winter but what with the descendants? Will I be successful following fusion_power, flooding the area with drones?
And will the swarms I set free settle or do I condemn them to a sure death?

So, gww, after 4 years of tf beekeeping I feel I´m still at the beginning. We will find our way.

I don´t think your bees starve because of a foraging problem. 10-15 hives must be ok in your yard. I rather believe they are adapting.(Adapting to you also )
Your mistakes you are aware of, so as I know you being a very good observer, will not make the same mistakes again. Or rather not the serious ones


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## gww

SiW....


> Your mistakes you are aware of, so as I know you being a very good observer, will not make the same mistakes again. Or rather not the serious ones


I was going to write ha, ha, you are funny but then you added "Or rather not the serious ones " And I decided, maby?
Cheers
gww

Ps though my bees were caught over a 30 mile radius, all of my queen colloring looks the same and so I am pretty sure that my bees are all close genetic wise.


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## gww

I put another half gal of sugar water in the leaky feeder on the warre today and put a shim and two gal baggies of sugar water on the small hive that danial thought sounded like empty comb and busy bees might be robbers. I do think that I started some robbing today. I still hold that it was not robbers in the hive when I opened it. However, I could be wrong, just don't think so. What I do think is that their could have been some latent robbing going on all the time and that might be a big part of why those two hives have never prosperred beside one being super small when I hived it.

I am talking about the kind of robbing that grabs the resorces as they are coming into the hive and not the kind of robbing that kills the queen and destroys the comb. I do think I had the queen killing comb destroying kind of robbing twice on the warre that I caught and stifled enough by reducing the entrance down to about two bees or so.

So I put a quart on the little hive yesterday and watched the entrance and did not see any major change in the traffic. Today I went out around seven am or maby a little later. I find my bees are not all out and about at that time of the day. You will have one and two coming and going but not major traffic like around ten am. The bees had emptied the quart. When I opened the hive and placed the shim and baggies, everything looked pretty normal. I smoked the bees that were on top of the top bars of the frames and they ran down into the hive long enough for me to put the baggies on. I had also moved the frames in the hive around yesterday and basically checkerboarded a few empties into the middle of the brood nest. It is not like I am going to chill any brood cause there is none to chill.

When I was done with all of that, I just watched for a while. I saw the traffic slowly increase past what has been normal for that hive and so I changed the 3 inch openning back down to just a couple of bees worth. Now there is a small amount of back up and maby a little fighting and a little gethering on the hive around the entrance. Now my thoughts on this is that there were bees from other hives going in this hive at will and now they have told a couple of thier friends that there is more there then there was. I still have not bought the vicks vapor rub though I did mention it to my wife again today, just in case they go to the store. So now there are more bees then there were putting pressure on this hive at the entrance. I don't yet see bees gethering all over the box and looking at every crack like I have seen with robbing. The rest of the hives are back out on the frost asters and flying like crazy and I am a little perplexed at the interest in the hive being robbed cause I didn't try it but I bet that if I layed the coffee can that I carried sugar water in on its side and open that there would be no interest in it. I am thinking the interest is coming from bees that have been robbing all along and now see more to rob.

I did make one more sugar block this morning that I used a little red vinagar in and then used the same bowl to mix up the sugar water and maby that was enough to stir extra interest. I try when I feed to add nothing but sugar to the mix to control smells. Either way, I probly have a bad attitude cause I still am relieing on reduced entrances rather then making a robberscreen like I have been advised to do. It they can't defend a couple of a bee space entrance, I guess they won't live. It could be that danial was right and it was mostly robbers in the hive all along although I doubt robbers would be festooning and building comb which still does not make sense to me with them having all that empty comb. This is kind of interesting trying to figure out what is really going on. I did read another artical on randy olivers site today that another member posted about what starving bees do and it sorta makes sence that me not having brood but seeing a pretty skinny queen that maby the bees ate the brood. Then maby the flow got just good enough that the robbing eased up a bit and give the small hive a chance at the flow and them seeing it thought it was enough to fill what they had and also start drawing comb? I just don't get it. When I looked, I saw maby one comb with about a finger length and depth worth of capped honey on one comb. I had seen them bring in some pollen over the last few days.

I type this cause it is fun to think about and not cause I will die if I have lost a hive. Don't get me wrong, I would rather not lose it but then again have still not made a robber screen. If my wife end up getting some vicks, I will add that but probly won't go myself to get it. If the bees can't defend a few bee space worth of opening this late in the year, odds are they are to small to make winter anyway plus I have seen much worse robbing then I am seeing here and most of the bees are interested in the flow.

Time will tell.
Thanks for reading and comments are welcome.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

The excitement has calmed down for now, what ever that means. 
No dead bees that I can see in the grass and so I guess either the doors are wide open, which I doubt cause it would mean even more traffic I think and is has slowed down just a little..
Or the would be robbers dicided that frost asters were easier.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I have often thought I had robbers and it ends up being nothing. Even today I was just in one and it sure seemed like frantic robbing was being attempted, so I screened them, and not sure what it was/is yet. After inspecting a hive, the bee traffic does get backed up for a while, which could get a bit frantic looking and cause a panic. Very early I lost a hive to robbing, so I may be a bit jumpy about it.


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## gww

Danial 
I also did smoke the top of a single hive body hive and maby I drove some bees out. I did notice the warre the first time I added a gal when I took the picture of the comb in this thread. It too seemed to have a lot of extra trafic. I wonder if it is just not excitement from having the extra food all at once. I had one hive last year that I had combined two swarms in and it built up slower then the one with only one swarm in it and I ask the guy I bought my bees why that might be and he said who know but maby they just had more robbing presure then the other hive. I had given it twice the resources of sugar water at the end and it drew half as many combs also. It was my one hive that did not swarm this year but did not really meet mo average honey production either. 

I had a hive in my back yard the year before I really started keeping bees and it was getting robbed really bad and so I do know what it looks like when it is bad enough and have watched the entrances hard and with fear every single time I have fed and so small differrances can make me a little paraniod.

Some kind of pressure has kept this hive from gaining though it might just be how little it was to begin with. It does seem funny that it would build to about 7 frames and quit. The queen seems very small and skinny to me. I do see all these other people getting two deeps drawn plus supers in a season but find my average is less then two mediums even when I get the bees early in the year. I know you now use foundation but was that kind of average when you were foundationless? I am not complaining cause I still have not killed a hive yet (though it is about to happen) Just trying to find what is a normal base line so that I can judge things I do from that base line to tell if I am making things better or worse.

Somethings you see at the entrance of the hive are subtle. You don't know if you really seen it but feel that something has changed. I just keep watching.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I have humble experience but I have had:

-hives I thought dead with no traffic but checking the box was full of bees ( seems they enjoyed the holidays, being content with stores)
-orientation flights that looked like robbing when the bees entered the hive ( they were checked by more than one watcher)
-normal gentle hives suddenly becoming very defensiv after putting syrup in ( that´s happening right now, they come out in clouds and attack)
-foraging changing abruptly to pollen brought after syrup was given ( priorities changing)
-orientation flights looking like swarming ( many bees bearding at the box, a temperature effect probably)

never had latent robbing though, only a dead hive in spring killed in short time by robbers
the screens, combined with smaller entrance worked fine, even the smallest hive was not robbed which was provided with honey combs and syrup when started


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## gww

SiW
This little hive I have is a puzzle. Empty comb, small queen, only very few capped brood but building comb. Go figure. I read a book where it said bees would land on the landing board and as the foragers come in, it will unload them. Also that sometimes the guard bees will let just a few through all the time with it being worse with bees like carnies. I would not like feeding and making bees aggressive. I have had it when I was feeding that the bees would come up and check out my smoker evertime I lit it. I always figured when I had a few bees checking me out that it was probly a derth and they are checking everything.
Thanks for the responce.
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> SiW
> This little hive I have is a puzzle. Empty comb, small queen, only very few capped brood but building comb. Go figure. I read a book where it said bees would land on the landing board and as the foragers come in, it will unload them. Also that sometimes the guard bees will let just a few through all the time with it being worse with bees like carnies. I would not like feeding and making bees aggressive. I have had it when I was feeding that the bees would come up and check out my smoker evertime I lit it. I always figured when I had a few bees checking me out that it was probly a derth and they are checking everything.
> Thanks for the responce.
> gww


gww
Sometimes it´s hard to evaluate a colonie`s behavior. When I lodged the swarm from the tree ( my first swarm) I put in empty comb, empty frames with starter stripes and 4 combs of capped honey.
Still they followed natural instincts and build natural comb first,started small areas of brood filled the area around brood nests with nectar. Later the interior looked more and more like the splits I do.

Yes, in all my hives they hang in chains if flow is good and move over nectar at the entrance. Only the pollen bees go inside and move to comb.

i believe the defensiveness is because of the race. The AMM are much more defensiv even in third generation. 
I have them for 2 years now and they are acting feral. Sometimes they are content,sometimes I close the hives two seconds after opening.

But, the AMM hive I feed is special. So far I have had no colony which attacks just because I pull the floor board. 
Either it was the Ultrasonic Unit which changed them or they cry for a shifting of queen next year. After taking off the Unit they seem to be much more strong so I believe they overcame the crisis. But, they must survive winter before I`m sure.
I feed three hives of other race too, two carni ( russian) and one elgon.
Strength is the same but their only interest is in sitting in the feeder and slurping honey syrup. No attacks.

The elgons are very curious of people. They are landing on you tasting you and munch on your arm hairs.


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## gww

SiW....
I don't like when the bees land on me. I had one land in two places on me today. I lost my nerve and shook my arm on the second landing. I have had a bee end up under my shirt and then get pinched and sting me. I like it better when the look at things other then me. Langstoth in his book felt that if a bee was away from a hive and took interest in you and stung you that it was almost sure that that hives bees had some sickness. I would say that would not pertain to you cause you are messing with the hive. I have seen many people post that they make thier bees nicer buy feeding them. I have to admit that I did not see this and when I fed it seemed that the bees paid more attention to me.

I would not like a hive that has ill will toward me and would proby change the queen. I spend much too much time sitting close to the hives. Even now I will have one once in a while run me off my bucket. Most time they leave me alone. But like I said, I did have one land on me twice today and have had a few fly all around me checking me out and I am feeding and I have seen that more when I feed. I had before thought it was meaning that the flow was drying up but thinking now and putting it all together, I am not sure or it could be a little of both.

I don't know if you are using smoke when you pull the floor boards but I usually smoke them if I am going to cause any real viberation to the hive. I usually work from behind the hive and sometimes when I am feeding with quart jars, I will only smoke the top and not the entrance when I change the jars. Some of that is to keep the bees from coming into the empty space where the jar is and getting traped up there but I like smoke if messing with the entrance (though I have remove reducers and put reducers on with out it due to being too lazy to get the smoker).

I find it interesting that your bees draw a little comb due to it being a flow and not just when they need space to put stuff. That would explain my little hives actions.

Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok. I am pretty sure the hive in my last post has lost resitance to the robbing and I finaly do see dead bees in front of the hive. It was doing fine but I added another gal of sugar water and yesterday again in the morning it looked like bees were gethering at the entrance. I could not tell which hive and it almost looked like they were comming across my field to rob. Either way it calmed down after an a coupe hours and I saw bees bringing in pollen. Same thing today. A little gethering in the morning till the hives really got flying and then small traffic with pollen on most incoming bees but then around five when it clouded up and the bees in the rest of the hives slowed down a bit there was just too much traffic going in the hive in a continual flow and a spattering of dead bees in front of the hive.

My wife and daughter did go to the store but forgot to get the vicks and I did not make a special trip. I am not one hundred percent sure cause I only looked when I added the baggies of sugar water but they may have drawn some more comb and so there is that.

I guess it is a good things the supers I want to extract were already capped cause if it is my hives doing the robbing, I am going to gain two gal of sugar water some where. I have a feeling it is the hive earlier in this post that was bearding that is doing the robbing late day but it sure did not seem that way early morning when most of the bees were flying to the hive early from across the field.

On a side note. Still no rain and I took a short walk today and there is nothing but those frost asters that I mentioned earlier. The blue asters are spaced so far apart and the browneyed susan type of flower(but not) are all gone the faulse foxglove is gone. The golden rod is dry in places and maby a tiny bit still around. Early morning the bees were just killing the cosmos that have not dried up yet (planted). I have decided I just love cosmos. Middle day the bees are killing the little white asters. 90 degrees F for one more day and then a ten degree plus drop on the high and low after that. 30 percent rain is the best chance over the next ten days. I think depending on the wether it is time to extract what I am going to and move stuff around and maby feed. I am a little scared cause the bees are foraging well at 90 degrees and I am afraid they will do the same in 75/80 degree and I have never been here before where I am actually reducing hive space and so am scared of the effects I may create. If it was after nothing was coming in, I would feel more comfortable but I also want the hives to be able to process any serup I give them to fill the extracted comb.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok, I got the bees about as mad as I have seen them but not too bad. I was moving comb around to get all the comb that will be extracted into two supers and on one hive. This ment leaving the hive open pretty long and sometimes more then one hive. Long enough that the bees were gettin interested in the exposed honey. I also did not worry too much about getting rid of bees from differrent hives when putting the full honey in one place or the empties I was putting in there place. I still have not did weighing of hives of any kind but did go below what I normally look at and saw that the hives are not packed full and have even used some stores where they had capped honey. They did not take from the top first.

It was not my plan but since I had every thing open, I went ahead and put the bee excape on the hive under the super and a half of honey that I had put together for that purpose later in the week. It is only going to get down to about 62 degrees tonight and that may not be enough for the excape to work well.  I was going to wait untill friday when the low was going to be 50 degrees but just did it now cause the bees were getting flustered and I figured why put them through it again.

The bad part is that the emptys are still not moved to the hives that need them and so I still get to do this again at some point and will probly have several wet frame for the bees to really get interested in while I open a hive here and there to place them. 

I did all this from about 8 am to about 9;30 am. I would probly do a little better if I let the bees get going on the asters about noon but it is just so much cooler in the morning even though that means more older bees around to get interested in the open hive rather then what they are foraging. Middle day they are flying and don't care about much of anything.

I figure I will be taking another 3.5/4 gal. I should leave it but think I am going to have to feed anyway. I will probly feed every hive individually and not all at the same time and so may really cause myself robbing problims before this is all done. I only have one top feeder which will hold about four gal and will probly fill it, leave it on a hive for two days and then move it and do it again for two more days and move it and do it again till I reach eight. I could do the baggies but you can only do one gal at a time.

So I am going to be putting forien bees into every hive by just moving the feeder. I decided I would do it this way and it has been my plan since reading abby warres book "the peoples hive" where he said one feeder would take care of feeding about ten hives.

I just walked down to the hives and they seem relitivly calm and even the little hive being robbed looks normal with no extra travel, bet it has extra at end of day though. Since the bees seem to have not added much but maby used some, I am guessing this is still sumer honey that I am extracting. If it taste like carrot, I will know I am wrong. I could leave all the honey but would still have to feed some so what the heck. I have one hundred and fifty lbs of sugar left and am going to give them no more then that no matter what. If my sugar guy lets me down before spring, I will probly be buying some for splits and swarms but am going to be cheap. I was hoping to have about 50 lbs left for then but think I am just going to use it and still will not be able to give every hive 3 gal. I may just starve all new stuff and do my best to make splits happen during flow, though I do like splitting by age and that leaves part with out foragers. 

My hopes for a little more comb are pretty well dashed and so I hope I don't ruin many while extracting. I am really dreading the moving of all the combs so that all the hives have a place for winter stores.

It would be neat if my excluder would work better then last time. I used painters tape to cover the seams just in case one was big enough for bees to get through. It is not wanting to hold very well and I am hoping it does not fall off before I need it to. I could leave it on two days as the next night will be 56 degrees but I am not sure if 56 is enough colder then 62 to make a differrance. It would be 48 hours instead of 24 hours though. I will probly wake up in a new day tomorrow and then do what I do. I could not say what that might be. If it is real cloudy tomorrow, I might be scared of my bees. The next day is not supposed to be as cloudy. 

Cheers
gww

Ps, I only saw about seven to ten dead bees in front of the hive that had the combs put on it that may have had some forien bees and that I am sure I closed in some of the robbers that were starting to mob the comb in the super. I could have smashed that many moving stuff around.

Ps Ps All my new hive tops have two inch of foam incorperated in them and so I also need to change all the tops on the hive and replace with the new ones. I believe bees in our area would do just fine with out insulating and most of my current tops have one inch but what the heck, if you got it, use it.


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## gww

My home made bee excape copied off of dave cushmans site has not worked for me yet. As a disclainer. I have never used it at a time that it has gotton colder then 62 degree F. and I have never left it on longer then 24 hours.








I extracted and got about 3 gal. I did destroy more comb this time then I did last time even with rubber bands. I can not believe how hard of work extracting is. I also need a better way of clearing comb of bees then My air compressor.

Yesterday I put my extracting stuff out for the bees to clean up and they worked it hard. I did this only around a hundred yards or maby a little more away from my bees and so I am sure I have them on high alert to check each other out and try for more robbing. This is expecially true since I opened every hive and put enough comb on all but one to give each two mediums worth (or close) of drawn comb. It did not take long for the bees to notice every open hive and put pressure on them. The one maby good thing is they all got opened and so also all had to worry about their own defence. I though about moving a couple of buckets of open feeding away for the hives to draw thier attention but decided to stick to my plans of using the top feeder and moving it from hive to hive.

One of the hives had about 4 frames of only about half of a comb built on it and I left that on top but made sure that it had full combs on each edge. I had about three combs left and so put it in a medium and put it under a pretty strong two medium hive and so the bottom box will almost be empty. I did find on this hive also that one of the combs that I had pulled to bait the next medium that I had put on in summer had never been drawn out. I did not pull that but left it which is going to leave a little empty space in a pretty packed box. The hive was heavy enough in the bottom two boxes even with the one empty frame that they could probly make winter. If I don't run out of sugar, I will still give them a bit.

I replaced all the tops with the new tops that I have two inch foam on them. 

Here is how sloppy I am with my stuff when doing all this, which included reducing a few hives that had not drawn out there frames.








As I get the feeding done, I will probly add the sugar blocks so the hives have some warm weather to carry some of it out as trash.

Then I won't have to do anything but sit by the entrance and watch bees till spring.

Cheers
gww


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## gww

This aught to be interresting. They changed the weather over the next ten days that was in the upper 80s with the lows in the high 50s to middle sixties. Now in a couple of days the 60s are going to be the highs. So I decided that waiting to be done with feeding that would take 12 days, I would speed it up with shims and zip lock baggie feeding a gal at a time. 

I must have got a defaulty bag or the hive just leans too far forward for baggie feeding to work on it. I now have from half a gal to a gal running out the bottom board. Not very inconspicuous huh?.

Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

I think you just like to watch robbing  

Did you wear the flip-flops while doing your work day before yesterday?


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## gww

SiW
I will admit that I did not wear my flip flops the day before yesterday. A couple of bees did fly to my viel and try to bit the screen but never more then one or two at a time. I still see the bees on my asters even as dry as it it but my wife came in and ask what I dumped on the porch that made the bees so mad. The food has the bees wound up and they are associating humans with food. They have been buzzing me and landing on me (probly a few drops from feeding) and so are searching hard for food. We still have lots of flowers in pots. I think it is a pretty good derth due to dryness but yet being warm.

I did wear my crocs today when I fed. Not trying to jinx myself but I have not been stung for some time. I also wore hospital gloves the day in question but today did all the work with bare hand.

The bees are funny. So far I have one hive that has had no food put on it yet and I saw a tiny bit of fighting at the entrance of that hive. The bucket I carried the baggies in was getting mobbed but the hive that has had all the stuff run out the bottom board is not, not even where some of the sugar water is puddled.

I really didn't want to use the baggies because I have to make more then one trip to get a couple of gal on a hive.

I don't doubt that the bees will cause me a little trouble over the spilt sugar water under the hive pretty soon. I also don't like the spill because I don't know how much will end up in the hive that I want it in and I don't weigh hives but just guess and put what I know should work with what I saw when I was in them last. I don't plan on pulling any frames for the rest of the year.

I looked in the feeder that is on the warre to see if they had it drained yet and it had quite a few dead bees in it (not enough to hurt even a small hive though). I don't know if they some how got in from the top or crawled under the board that the serup goes under. I am beginning to think that bees are like mice and can get just about anywhere. I did mix a gal of thick sugar water and put it in a bucket with some straw in it and put it where I had let the bees clean up my extractor. I hope this draws there attention away from the stuff spilled at the hive (Though there are enough bees to attack both at the same time). I just love watching the line of bees in the air flying from the hive to the bucket and back. It is impressive. I have seen some bees flying around all the hives and checking out the cracks and such but think so far that I am still dodging a bullet and that the hives are still intact. Even the small hive that was getting robbed and also even the warre though it won't get big enough no matter what. The warre has the least traffic in and out but is still carrying pollen.

After seeing all I typed, I bet you wish you had kept your typing fingers quiet.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Well, you learned to leave some empty lines between your text, so it´s easier to follow 

I´m fascinated by your telling because I feed with honey syrup and this would start immediate robbing for sure if done your way.
So I´m very, very careful about that, only feeding in the evening and never spilling anything.

Sugar syrup smells not like that. I once did an experiment, filling a cup with sugar syrup and placing it in my garden ( then without bees). My neighbor`s bees tasted this but were chased away by wasps.
If I spilled syrup the wasps are much more interested, but my bees were never starving, so I don´t know what they do if they are desperate.

Today I saw a bee sitting on a blackberry sucking the juice. The blackberry was moldy. Made me wonder if they need some microorganisms.


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## gww

SiW
I can tell you what your bees would do even if the hive was full. If it is warm enough to fly and there is no easy natural forage, they would mob the sugar water if they found it. I find in my area that on the very first few flying days after winter but before the trees really break lose that a half a cup of weak sugar water will draw thousands of bees. Just two weeks ago, I had some sugar water in the bottom of a coffee can that the bees just ignored. Now is a new game.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Siw....
Well, it looks like I did jinx myself saying how long it has been since I got stung. Now I get to see if my eye swells shut:lookout:. I added what will be my last gal of sugar water (per hive) to the bees today. I knew messing with them three and four days in a row and also making it where the bees were going to put robbing pressure on each other might get them a little more excited. I got stung once on my ring finger cause I am spastic and my hand backed into a bee when I was trying to hold the bag so the carpet knife could cut it smoother with out going too deep. At least I didn't get stung on the toe. I did have shorts and crocks on. 

I got stung in the eye lid when I went back down to the bucket (now replaced with a chair) I set on. I had a bee checking me out and then he bumped me three times in the head convincing me to come back later but I moved too slow.

Oh well, I have did all the feeding I intend to untill a little later and then I will put sugar blocks on some of the hives.

I guess it is time to switch from bees to fishing and then rifle season for deer.

Well, I got the typeing done before my finger swelled up to much and while I can still see.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

If you are stung, immediately heat a spoon with your lighter ( 140 F ) and press on.
Later cool with ice or fresh cheese or half an onion or vinegar.

Beware of your rifle, on our property a hunter once shot himself accidentally


----------



## gww

SiW...


> If you are stung, immediately heat a spoon with your lighter ( 140 F ) and press on.
> Later cool with ice or fresh cheese or half an onion or vinegar.


I thought it would be more interesting to just let it swell up and then skype with my grand childred so they could laugh at how grandpa looks.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

Nice idea but if you want them to follow in your footsteps to keep bees I would rather not


----------



## DanielD

You're making the most of the bee sting there gww. You never know, if you make the swelling cool and fun, they may beg you to show them how to keep bees. Hopefully, they don't go to the hives to make their own funnies.


----------



## gww

Danial
Whats funny is they bought this bug catching kit from the dollar store and we spent a couple hours collecting rolly pollys and japaneese beetle and then the next time my oldest girl (around 5) was scared of bugs and afraid to walk by my bee watering hole to get to the swing set. I did skype and today she said she had a dream that she got stung by a bee. Who knows what direction the little buggers will take in the end. I know when I was a kid, I hated gardening but now I have a garden. In my defence, I still hate mowing grass.
Cheers
gww


----------



## DanielD

gww said:


> Danial
> Whats funny is they bought this bug catching kit from the dollar store and we spent a couple hours collecting rolly pollys and japanese beetle and then the next time my oldest girl (around 5) was scared of bugs and afraid to walk by my bee watering hole to get to the swing set. I did skype and today she said she had a dream that she got stung by a bee. Who knows what direction the little buggers will take in the end. I know when I was a kid, I hated gardening but now I have a garden. In my defense, I still hate mowing grass.
> Cheers
> gww


I remember how tortured I felt in my dad's garden when I was young. Now, gardening is delightful. That might be because my 3 daughters do most of it though. I don't think they feel tortured, since they wanted one. Our unique item of the year in the garden is peanuts again. With 4-6 hours of work, and $5 worth of seed, we may get $6 worth of peanuts. Mowing is a good time for me. Ok, the girls do most of that too.


----------



## gww

Daniel


> Mowing is a good time for me. Ok, the girls do most of that too.


Well..... I am guessing they are older then five, thats cheating.
Cheers
gww

Ps truthfully, my wife does most of the garden work. I run the tiller and put the fences up and build the raised garden boxes and such. If not, I would still hate it.


----------



## DanielD

My youngest is 14, and she likes to 'drive' the mower. I am wondering if your wife does most of the mowing too now.


----------



## gww

Daniel


> My youngest is 14, and she likes to 'drive' the mower. I am wondering if your wife does most of the mowing too now.


My wife does not do the mowing now because I have a big zero turn that she is scared of but when we lived in town and had a push mower, she mowed more then I did cause she could not stand to let it get as long as I could.
Cheers
gww


----------



## DanielD

A different mower would solve everything then.


----------



## gww

I finaly got off my butt and started some more bee hives and some fire wood to make it pleasent building them. I have been spending most of my time in the lazy boy.

Proof of work.








I will open the hives very soon for one more time to put sugar blocks on the ones I am going to use them on. I made a sugar block for my dead warre and it will be interesting to see what is there when I open it to place the block. The robbing testing of the hives has been over for a bit and even the smallest hive and the warre look normal at the entrance though the warre has the least traffic. They should both be dead but I am not sure they are.

I know most wait till colder wether to put thier blocks on but I put it on early last year and so will again this year. I am alway afraid that deer season will side track me and then I won't remember to do it. I think they do carry a lot more of the sugar out as trash doing it this way but I find comfort when I know my work is done and so kind of rush things.

Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww,
I enjoy so much looking how you process what you have and at those wonderful tools. We had 5 trees the storms fell, no saw machine and to give it to a company would have been too expensive, so we made fire wood out of 2 big beeches.
If I would live near you we could have made the greatest boards out of it using your saw. Shame.
At least I started a mushroom breeding on 3 pieces of wood.

Well, coming from an academic family has its disadvantages in knowledge of how to make things happen, but we try.

So now we have no boards but we keep warm with our tiled stove.











> but I find comfort when I know my work is done


This feeling is exactly ours!


----------



## gww

SiW...
Well, you are ahead of me if you can grow mushrooms. I have been looking for these wild.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=coral+mushrooms&qpvt=coral+mushrooms&FORM=IQFRML
I have walked in my little woods three times and I guess our dryness is going to stop it this year. These are the most consistant fall mushrooms that I can find and that we really like.
I have never tried growing anything and honestly never tried to expand my knowlage to learn more then I know of what can be ate. With mushrooms you don't want to take any chances and so rather then learn, I stick with the ones I know.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

I don´t know anything about wild mushrooms, I purchased little starter sticks and pushed them into the wood.
It´s actually a trend here.

I like your mushrooms, they look great to eat. 

I have started a permaculture project which allows me to use the chicken poop for my plants, a cistern for water, compost made and such things.

My bees take part as pollinators, my berry harvest is much improved since they are around, and the nettles I let grow I use for chicken food. The nettles are in symbiosis with the berry bushes and will force a higher harvest. The hasel groves and other bushland we make chaff to use in the chicken coop, the saw dust as fire starter( mixed with wax) and so on. I try to have a use for everything. Sheeps wool, having it for free ( the dirty wool from bottom of sheep), is the best fertilizer in my vegetable bed, the earth is much warmer in winter because it´s mixed with this, and I´m able to plant salads even when it´s cold.

Our apples are not sprayed so they are looking bad and cannot be stored. I make juice out of them every year as from the berries. The remnants of the apples I dry and use in my smoker. Very good and nice smelling.


----------



## 1102009

A link:

https://gluckspilze.com/Austernpilz...2007-und-889-2008-AT-BIO-701-Strain-Nr-101001


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## gww

SiW...
In the picture, you can see how I handle my chickens. For fertlizer, I buy cow poop. Usually three pick up loads a year though I went on strike this year and bought none cause the guy got a dump truck and then ended up being too busy to deliver. My wife has griped all year and so I guess next year I will be unloading the truck with a shovel.

My apple threes have not bloomed since planting them a couple years ago and my two that died after 18 or so years gave me maby three apples. It might be the dirt. I do not have good luck with trees but the asian pear and peach and plumb at least try. This year the animals stripped the trees way before the fruit got close to human consumption. Grapes are very hit and miss also. I have read lots of books and watched quite a few vidios but still don't do well and so mostly I just let them go and on banner years every so often, I get some.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

Love your tales, really do!

Well, you got some honey so the bees should be good for you and I bet your chicken lay eggs and are nice to eat. They live in paradise.
Ah, I forgot, you don´t eat your pets.


----------



## gww

SiW..
I have ate my pets but had to do it by myself cause my wife don't eat our pets.

Plus I am lazy.
I do like my pets around though.
Cheers
gww


----------



## drummerboy

Did someone say mushrooms? We harvest Morals almost annually, and have been growing our own ****ake for several years. Yum-yum.

Planted one of those Asian Pear trees about 30 years ago. This year it finally flowered!!! We assumed it would go back to its original root stock (likely an apple), but its a PEAR tree after all, wonderful round pears, maturing right now, after our killing frost. Apples have been picked for a couple weeks already???

Cannot explain what took it so long to flower (maybe its typical for this species?)...except that we're in zone 3....and have only recently been experiencing some of this alleged 'climate change' everyone seems to be talking about lately


----------



## gww

Drummerboy
I am surprized your asian pear is alive in such a cold climate. I have tried planting quite a few warmer weather trees that I have seen others have luck with but must not have a green tree thumb. I have tried chestnuts and the big persimmon trees. I have a fig tree in a pot that I am just dieing to find a spot for but for now just drag it back and forth to the green house in a pot.

I have killed more trees than a normal human and my wife blames it on our dirt and not the wether. I blame it on the wether hoping the cycle of planting and dieing will end cause the planting is hard work when everything dies.

I have thought about growing mushrooms but usually just find enough morals in spring for a taste and field mushrooms or the antlered mushrooms in fall.

I have ate the puff balls in the past but mostly don't. The small amount of stuff that I do find keeps having them seem like a real treat though.

Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

Drummerboy, you mean Nashi, I´ve never tried them.
****take, what do you use as a substrate? I would love them.

gww and drummer, you got me going to visit a wild mushroom expert to teach me. We have many deadly mushrooms here which could be mixed up, every year some people die.

Let´s mention the bees at least once in our posts: BEES! THEY ARE WONDERFUL AND TODAY THEY WERE BUSY!  20°C


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## gww

SiW.....


> Let´s mention the bees at least once in our posts: BEES! THEY ARE WONDERFUL AND TODAY THEY WERE BUSY!  20°C


Really soon all we can do is mention them and think about them till feb-april.

We are going to have to switch to bee things, like how much time or money we spent on equiptment getting ready.

Now we will find out if we are worriers or calm and patient.
Cheers
gww
Ps I am probly a worryer.


----------



## 1102009

gww said:


> Ps I am probly a worryer.


No, this is my privilege. I´m the worst worrier you have ever met and my husband


----------



## drummerboy

gww said:


> Drummerboy
> I am surprized your asian pear is alive in such a cold climate. I have tried planting quite a few warmer weather trees that I have seen others have luck with but must not have a green tree thumb. I have tried chestnuts and the big persimmon trees. I have a fig tree in a pot that I am just dieing to find a spot for but for now just drag it back and forth to the green house in a pot.
> 
> I have killed more trees than a normal human and my wife blames it on our dirt and not the wether. I blame it on the wether hoping the cycle of planting and dieing will end cause the planting is hard work when everything dies.
> 
> I have thought about growing mushrooms but usually just find enough morals in spring for a taste and field mushrooms or the antlered mushrooms in fall.
> 
> I have ate the puff balls in the past but mostly don't. The small amount of stuff that I do find keeps having them seem like a real treat though.
> 
> Cheers
> gww


When we purchased/planted these Asian Pears, they were advertised to survive our winters. They never flowered (that we noticed) until this year, and never gave us any fruit, just a scrubby looking tree.....that fortunately we didn't decide to cut.

We go moral hunting after every rain during Spring and Summer. The only trick is knowing where they are and not picking too much. I grew up in Southern Wisconsin where picking/harvesting is plentiful (both morals and puff balls), not realizing that they grow very well in the North.....just have to find them. That's the hard part...until they are located, then remembering that spot until next year.


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## drummerboy

SiWolKe said:


> Drummerboy, you mean Nashi, I´ve never tried them.
> ****take, what do you use as a substrate? I would love them.
> 
> gww and drummer, you got me going to visit a wild mushroom expert to teach me. We have many deadly mushrooms here which could be mixed up, every year some people die.
> 
> Let´s mention the bees at least once in our posts: BEES! THEY ARE WONDERFUL AND TODAY THEY WERE BUSY!  20°C


We purchase ****ake spore sticks (700 sticks for around $35.00) that we pound into pre-drilled holes in 'green' (Spring cut) hardwood, mostly oak, our most prevalent tree around here. One six inch (diameter) log will produce 2-4 years of Mushrooms, as long as they are never allowed to dry out. We stack our 6' long treated logs cabin style, about 4 feet high and hope for rain....or we'll have to water/drench regularly..

Once harvested we usually eat some 'fresh' that day and dry the rest for winter meals.

Mushroom identification is extremely important. However, the really bad ones, as well as the really good ones are pretty recognizable. We've got an old Mushroom Book published by the Audubon Society with great pictures, don't know if its still available but the internet must be full of pics/info....if it can be trusted....which it must when trying to ID mushrooms.


----------



## gww

drummerboy


> We purchase ****ake spore sticks (700 sticks for around $35.00) that we pound into pre-drilled holes in 'green' (Spring cut) hardwood, mostly oak, our most prevalent tree around here. One six inch (diameter) log will produce 2-4 years of Mushrooms, as long as they are never allowed to dry out. We stack our 6' long treated logs cabin style, about 4 feet high and hope for rain....or we'll have to water/drench regularly..


How close together do you drill your holes, how many logs will 700 spore sticks do and how much shade?
One never says never on what he will do when it comes to growing food.
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

drummerboy said:


> We purchase ****ake spore sticks (700 sticks for around $35.00) that we pound into pre-drilled holes in 'green' (Spring cut) hardwood, mostly oak, our most prevalent tree around here. One six inch (diameter) log will produce 2-4 years of Mushrooms, as long as they are never allowed to dry out. We stack our 6' long treated logs cabin style, about 4 feet high and hope for rain....or we'll have to water/drench regularly..
> 
> Once harvested we usually eat some 'fresh' that day and dry the rest for winter meals.


Ah, same as I did with my sticks, same wood. I once tried other species on straw but different species growed and I was afraid to poison us. No death cap though.
gww, I believe this would be nice for you to do.


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## drummerboy

gww said:


> drummerboy
> 
> 
> How close together do you drill your holes, how many logs will 700 spore sticks do and how much shade?
> One never says never on what he will do when it comes to growing food.
> Cheers
> gww


1/4 inch holes drilled 4-6 inches apart, all around each log (50-100 holes per log is common). I've got an adaptor boring drill bit that is fastened to my grinder and I can drill a lot of holes pretty quick with it.

Glad you mentioned shade, cuz I forgot to . Our log stacks are in the woods behind the House, getting 'some' filtered sunlight....but mostly shade. 

Recently, Chipmunks have taken a liking to the ****ake, so we've been experiment with different methods to fence them out. Next year is always gonna be better.


----------



## gww

Drummer boy
I spent a couple of hours looking and watched a few vidios on the growing.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

I sorta did my last look and minipulations today and things don't look too promising.

The warre hive is perplexing. The bees have pretty much fully built out 6 of the 8 frames in one box. This amazes me a little and expecially when I look at the bees. It looks to me with all that comb that I actually have less bees then before. There is defanatly not enough bees to cover the comb but the comb seems to have good stores in it and so I guess the robbing stopped and I am pretty sure robbers don't build comb. Laying workers might for a bit but you would not think for a couple of months. Yes, I won't figure that one out. Me being me, I went ahead and put a eight or ten pound sugar block on it anyway.

One of my smaller hives that I had put some not full comb on now has three fully empty frames in the top box and one empty in the bottom box. When I had put the empty frames in it after extracting, I had put the full frames of comb on each end and the partial combs in the middle and so now the brood boxes have empties in bad places and not even all together.

On this hive it makes me think that the bees stripped the partials and got rid of them or used it some where else. Or it is full of robbers that stripped it. It looks fine at the entrance but was way too light weight wise in the top box and the combs were not full and the box not heavy. I put a sugar block on it and left it. It almost makes me wonder if I forgot to feed this one some how but I am pretty sure I did not but also it is not immpossible. I had pretty much give all of them a little less then 2 gal for fall wieght gain.

I have one hive that is only two mediums full and it has a basically empty third medium on bottom that had had three or so combs drawn out and full. It is the hive that bearded so bad earlier compared to the rest of the hives. 

I has dead bees in front of the hive and it had about 20 dead bees on the inter cover. I really couldn't see the bees well in front of the hive but the ones on the inter cover looked like they had short abdomens. The wings looked perfect but the abdomens were short. This hive at least seemed to have decent stores in the top box though not super heavy but at least I could see a lot of capped stuff.

I have the one hive that is the single medium that had had about three combs to still draw and that I had thought was getting robbed at one time looks about the best over all for its size. I has drawn the last three combs, looks full all around. I put a sugar block on it and that is it. If it doesn't die, it should be ready to swarm very early due to space.

I also saw more small hive beetle then I have seen before.

I have a feeling that if any of the lang hives live, I am going to have some drawn comb to work with for swarm control from the ones that don't live cause the stores are just not there. If I don't get scared and give them a bit more by open feed method, then I have my doubts. I doubt I give them more cause whos to say on open feeding that it would even go to the correct hives. I also am not going to feed the small one with the open frames in the two brood boxes or move the frames together and maby put a spacer in to get rid of empty space. 

If it were robbers in the hive (which I don't believe is the case though I can not explain dissapearing comb in hardly any other way) I would just be putting good food after bad. I did give them the sugar block. Since I am going to leave this very substandard set up just to see, if by miracle they live, I will use that empty space to judge what might be early comb drawing. I would think they would work to fill the space quicker then just looking for new white wax on top of frames (though if they don't have the work force and have empty comb space this might not be true). I think it still might be able to tell me something even if what it tells me is that SiWolke's mentors advice is really good as for as empty space on top goes cause it kills hives.

I doubt I get back in any hive this year to correct any problim. If I decide to do anything, it would be open feed away from the hives.

I did not put sugar blocks on the two biggest (3 medium brood) hives and on one two medium brood box hive. So I have three hives with nothing. I don't know if this is a true test of anything cause these hives are my biggest ones but I am curious on the line between starvation and coming into spring too ready to swarm.

Got my fingers crossed that there will be something left to play with come spring.

Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

Yes fingers crossed and good luck to you, gww


----------



## gww

It is 53 degrees out and sunny. I seen quite a few dead bees in a coffee can and they were out gathering water from it. I put a little more straw for them to land on in the coffee can. It was actually there to let the chickens get a drink away from thier house and the bees just started using it. 

So I walked down to the hives and all the hives had small traffic at thier entrances. What surprized me was even the little dead warre (or hive I expect to die and can't believe it hasn't happened yet) had bees coming and going at the same rate as some of the bigger hives. None of them have lots of trafic and some do have more then others just gaurding the entrances. 

It is not impossible that some of the traffic could be robbing but I could see no trends where any hive was flying directly from its entrance to a differrent entrance. So my best guess in this very early part of winter is that I still have nine hives. Long ways to go but I had looked at the warre before when there was a little activity and had thought it had already died cause it does not fly every day that some of the others do. I just put this here so it is somewhere incase I ever want to look back on my beekeeping life.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

I find it unbelievable but we have not yet had a day where the temp did not at least get to 43 degrees F. The computer says it is 60 out but it feels warmer and is supposed to get to 70 today. The hives are gethering water. I stood by my little dead warre entrance today and would swear I saw two bees bringing in orange pollen. The bees are only coming into the warre at a rate of about one every one or two minutes but the orange suprized me because I did not notice any of the other hives carry anything. 

There are just a few dandilion but they are so few and far inbetween that I thought bees would probly lose resources trying to get anything from them. The two or three dandilion that I saw did not have bees on them.

If the computer can be believed, we are not going to have day time freezing temps for the next ten days.

Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

It is -8 degrees F. today. I guess we will see how small clusters do in the cold. No real relief in site yet. In Mo it seems that normally we would get a flying day of some sort about every three weeks or so. I think we are going to get a week or two extra cold to extend what is closer to normal. It will be interesting to see what is left the next 50 degree day. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## DanielD

Stay cool in the heat down there gww. I woke up to -15 here. A week of testing the colonies and winter preparation going on.


----------



## 1102009

Fingers crossed, gww. That´s very cold but they probably will make it if they are not too small a cluster. They don´t need a flying day every 3 weeks, they need to be left in peace.
At least they will not starve because they are asleep.


----------



## gww

I am not too worried, it will be what it will be. I will find it interesting on the first flying day and will cry the blues if it goes bad and jump for joy if it goes good but have did what I have did and am not worried now. I personally like the break that winter gives me to reflect a bit for next year.
Cheers
gww
Ps Danial, cold aint it?


----------



## 1102009

You are an example in your attitudes, gww,
thank you.
 :thumbsup:


----------



## gww

The computer says it is 52 out today at noon. I went out at 10:30 am and thought maby I had three hives dead or that it was good news that three hives were not taking a cleansing flight. I had read once that if the bees were still alive and did not rush out at the very first chance, that they were probly doing pretty good and thier gut was not full of bad stuff.

I noticed that two of the hives not flying were bigger hives. 

I went back out at noon and all the hives had bees at thier entrance and some were doing some pretty impressive orientation flights. I must admit that walking around them during this is pretty intimidating, (maby I am still scared of bees).

So I think I have 9 out of nine hives still alive unless some robbing is going on. I don't think robbing is going on but with out opening the hives, I am not sure I could really tell the differrance. So for now I am going on the thought that all are still alive.

As a side note not related to bees. I was given 250 lbs of flour and so have been making about one 5/6 lb loaves of sour dough bread every day. I have found a real easy way to do it and it is costing me (close guess) about a buck fifty a day to make it. I have been giving bread to all my relitives and feeding the chickens with it. I hear bread is not too nutritious for chickens and can affect egg laying and also that if they don't eat fast and it lays around it can get mold and hurt them and it can gum up in thier craws and give them sour craw. I have noticed no ill effects yet and the birds just love the bread. I also am eating a whole bunch every day and since I am not really doing anything else but bakeing the bread (havn't been in my workshop for a week), I may not be in good enough shape to keep bees by the time spring comes. 

Today is the first bee flying day of any kind since right before christmas.

I don't know what the future holds for these untreated, miss managed bees but so far so good.
Cheers
gww

PS I do have one hive that just has to be differrent. It is the hive that is pictured during summer that had the bearding. It is house cleaning and draging out tons of dead bees. It has hundreds of dead in front of the hive and has for months and is the only one I see working really hard today carrying off a bunch more not counting what is in front of the hive. It still seems to have enough bees to do all this carrying and so is still alive (so far). It also has singles try and fly and hit the ground and so is probly sick. It will be interesting to see what happens come feb/march when the bees get a little brood. I will just keep watching and see if I learn anything.


----------



## 1102009

Sweet post, thanks for the update!

It must be nice to see what happens in front of the house and not to have outyards. The hive in my garden is ominous silent I fear the worst. Saw a little wax capping debris though but not much.

I hope you will have your 9 out of 9 gww. Good luck to you and enjoy your bread and butter. Lazy guy? 

Watch this video of my friends´bees, one hive had a blocked entrance from deadfall and he shows the dead bee hill. The hive´s still alive but it was the strongest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1oB_XMsoHA


----------



## gww

SiW


> It must be nice to see what happens in front of the house and not to have outyards.


It is nice enough that I can't make myself put any hives at dads even though I think he might have better flows. If you are a hermit, at home is sooo good.

My dead pile is not as big as your friends in the vidio but has stayed there for awhile and they are getting away from the hive with some of the ones they carry off. This was my favorite split last year. I can not believe that nine are still alive cause I stacked the deck against one or two of them. One has empty comb in the top box and one was only one medium and the warre was so small. It ain't spring yet but it was nice to get a day nice enough to see something and broke the winter doledrums. I don't worry too much, like good news better then bad but mostly, if I write stuff here, I might look back at it next year and have something besides a bad memory to campare with.
Thank you for your good wishes and I hope you are mistaken on your small hive and that it surprizes you in a good way. If not, I am sure one of your other hives will.
Cheers
gww


----------



## DanielD

gww, can I update on your thread here? Thanks.  I checked colonies today to see if anything needed sugar bricks, and all but one are alive. The dead one is a double 5 nuc that never went anywhere last summer and fall. It was a split last year with queen from a swarm I caught in 2015, maybe a supersedure swarm from one of my other hives that year at the same time. I wanted to re queen the hive, but couldn't get myself to kill off the queen. It was a tiny swarm in '15, built slow, and never did anything last year, but it's doing well with the new queen. This split has drawn out about 12-13 deep frames from foundation, but other than that didn't do anything much. I just kept it to see what it would do, and intended to re queen it with some grafting, but didn't get that accomplished. I am surprised it made it to winter. The small cluster was just dead together, so I am assuming it froze out. It didn't move up to the next box that had sugar packed in comb, but had a little honey stores in the corners of the frames they were on. No real loss, but I hope to keep from tinkering with little pokey colonies from now on. It was interesting, sort of, to see what it did.


----------



## gww

Danial
I have been away from the computer for two days cause I my daughter is building a house and me and the wife helped paint. It was a nice surprise while getting my first computer fix to see your post. I sorta worked with the small ones cause of the free sugar I had and the bees being in my back yard. I still expect the warre hive of mine to die due to cluster size. I left to my daughers before the first flying day but should be able to walk out to the hives tommorrow and see what is up because it is supposed to be 55 degrees F.

I am glad you posted yours. It made me kinda excited to check mine. The excitement take some of the soreness from finally doing something (painting) out of my bones.
Cheer
gww
Ps 13 drawn deep frames is not too bad.


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## DanielD

Yes, the drawn frames will be used for nucs this spring, I hope. I am sure you will have a good bee flying day tomorrow. I expect another day of flying here. I am actually surprised that a couple other colonies are still kicking, and there's one that I don't know if it actually got re queened last fall. In a last ditch effort, I put in a queen from a nuc in November and didn't open it again. I didn't think the colony had good winder bee buildup with some multiple failed re queening, but it's still going. 

I hope you had fun painting. I built 2 houses of my own, and know what that's like. 

I will look forward to your post inspection post.


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## gww

Danial
I will go out again later but at nine, I saw some min gaurding or at least a few bees at all hives and so think they are all alive. They had not woke up hard yet. It was foggy.

I have noticed that the hives are not as noisy this year and on a couple of big ones I could not tell for sure if I could hear anything or not when I put my ear to the hives. I did not put my ear to all of them (too hard) and did not tap on the hives cause I will just go out later in the day and watch the entrances. 

I did hear the bees in the warre though but could not hear them in my single medium but they were flying from that hive. If I see later that they are house cleaning, I figure if I see house cleaning then any action at the hive will not be robbing.

I think it is going to be good news one more time.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I don't really get much noise out of my colonies by tapping. To get a low hum I might puff into the top vent or main entrance when it's cold. Kind of an obvious danger there if they're willing to fly. In milder cold there may be several bees show up at the entrance and check me out.


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## gww

Danial
It got up to 65 today according to the computer. It was windy but did feel that hot. I went out a couple of times just for a little walk cause mostly I was still recouping from the two days of painting and not moving around as good as I should have been. The one thing I am sure of is that as of today, I still have nine hives. Still some winter and spring to go but time is flying by and trying to stay on top of swarming and starve outs is right around the corner. I hope it goes well for you and you get over the little bit of lack of enthusiasm that it seemed you were conveying and everything becomes really exciting and that it works well for you. Spring can do that just by being spring. I still don't have real plans on what direction I want to go except for just learning a little and going with the flow. 

I have not forced expansion but have tried to have equiptment incase the bees press me. I like honey but am not sure of how well I will be at selling it. I like the ideal of selling bees but am greedy for enough hives that I can withstand a really bad year and still have bees and still get something from them with out ever having to by bees. Plus, I have not figured out the equiptment part of selling nucs. Buying stuff from the bee places small scale adds up to shipping cost and buying at what they sell in box stores is priced to high and I am to slow to build stuff that I am getting rid of even if somebody pays me for them. The frames being the bottle neck. In town they want like 20 bucks for 5 medium frames with foundation in them.

Mostly, I just have some hives and no plans and am waiting for some insperation to hit me after I learn a little more of what it takes to keep bees. If you switch from honey making to selling nucs, I would be interested in how you handle the equiptment process. Member Nordak made some packages and got rid of some of the equipment issues. I bet packages are easier to make then frames.

Keep me imformed of what you are doing cause I might learn something.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

Good news on your bees. Yes, late winter into early spring is the most risk for bee loss with starving. Your plans sound like mine, don't know where I am going, but taking it a month at a time. My lack of enthusiasm has been caused by a couple things. Sometimes the thought space in my head gets a bit filled up with other things, which causes some things to be a distraction from less important things. 

I also have determined I most likely have an allergic reaction to propolis that came up last summer. It effects my hands, wrists, wherever it gets in contact with propolis, and it dries out, rash, cracked skin, etc. I have to be careful not to grab anything beekeeping without gloves now. It started last summer. I just need a supply of gloves always on hand, which is better than using leather beekeeping gloves, but it's kind of a pain, not to mention propolis is probably all over my truck door handles, steering wheel, on my suit, in my storage place, and on. I need to wear them checking bees, extracting honey, moving unused equipment, etc. That development makes me think I don't need to be too deep into bees. We will see what this year brings.


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## gww

The allergy thing sucks. I wonder if carrying alcohol towels would clean it off fast enough that you could beat the potential outbreak. My dad has a small allergy to antibacterial soaps. That stuff is everywhere but I don't think his outbreaks are that bad. I worked in a paint booth for a short time and we used to put vasoline all over ourselves so the paint would not stick to us.
Them are about the only ideals that I could come up with and they are not good unless you plan in advance for every bee move. I knew when I rubbed vasoline on me that I was only going to be painting for eight hours and was not going to go hugg my kids and such.
Good luck
gww


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## DanielD

I need to post the question if anyone else has had the propolis reaction. Bee stings don't effect me at all, except the pain of being stuck. I think I would stick with the paint coveralls and gloves than Vaseline if I need to paint. I have had more than my share of automotive paint refinishing. I will find out how easy or hard it is to avoid the contact to propolis this year. Doesn't sound too easy to keep it off me.


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## gww

Danial
We had the coverals, gloves and even the ground strap to the bottom of our shoes but it would get over 100 degrees in the booth and you would have 8 guys in there spraying and so would find any way possible to keep cool. There was always going to be some exposed skin. Maby somebody will see your post and respond here on how they handled a simular problim. You might get lucky and maby it was just the propolus they were gethering one time that you were alergic to and maby the will put another coat on and cover the bad stuff.

Cheers
gww


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## gww

There was a bees and chicken thread earlier about bees in the chicken food. It is 58 degrees F out today and the bees were pretty heavy in the chicken food. I took three pictures but the bees did not show up in them and so I guess you have to take my word for it. The chickens do eat right along with the bees though.








The bees don't all get up that early but all are still alive at this point, knock on wood.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I have bees moving in all my hives today as well. None look like robbing, but one hive is very light so I will check it's food supply today or tomorrow. 

I don't see any bees there gww. :lookout:


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## 1102009

Nice chicken..where are the bees? 



> but all are still alive at this point, knock on wood.


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## JWPalmer

Gww, glad to hear all your hives are alive. If they are hitting the chicken feed, it's time to give them the pollen sub. I put patties and fondant on last weekend and the bees are tearing it up. Nice chicken, when is dinner?


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## gww

Danial and SiW...
I took two other pictures of just the feed bin but when I pulled them up on the computer, I could only see one bee in them when I zoomed in and so I didn't take up space and post them. there were maby 20 bees working the feed and so I have seen hundreds at a time before but like I said, "You are going to have to take my word for it cause it wasn't worth going out and trying again for better one.

I never tip the hive to check for weight. I just take it for granted that they will make it till I can look. Last year per the Missouri thread, I had my first pollen that I noticed coming into the hive on feb 11. I think we had two good 70 degree days around then that let me tip the boxes and look at stores. Who knows what this year holds but it sure is getting close. Danial, good deal on your bees all having movement.
Cheers
gww
Ps, I typed this twice cause I thing the site was down for a bit right in the middle of my posting.


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## gww

Jw


> Gww, glad to hear all your hives are alive. If they are hitting the chicken feed, it's time to give them the pollen sub. I put patties and fondant on last weekend and the bees are tearing it up. Nice chicken, when is dinner?


No pollen sub for me for two reasons. One I am cheap and two, I want to retard thier swarming instinct for as long as possible. I have read starved babies make for poor foragers but my bees got ahead of me last year and I sure don't want to speed it up even more. Depending on wether and if it is warm enough for bees to fly, maple and elm is just around the corner.
Thank you for the congrats, of course it aint over till it is over and now is a dangerous time of the year food wise.
Cheers
gww


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## JWPalmer

From the chicken feed thread I knew of your intentions, just as you know why I am laying the feed on my bees. I was just ribbing you a bit. I swear though, there are more bees in my hives now than I thought I had going into winter and I know I was broodless in October. Even my nuc looks like it will be ready for a 10 frame around March 1. 

All the best,
John


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## gww

Jw
yea, last year we had a warm spell in feb and my hives already had full combs and more bees then went into winter and then it cooled off and the first next 70 degree day or close around april 13, my hives had already swarmed. I had sugar blocks on top and they had also drawn out the empty frames that were in the hive. I had thought it needed to be warm for them to draw comb and so I was way off on my thinking of how things worked to how they really worked. Now I am gun shy and will probly over compensate the other way and kill some of them, Ha, ha. 

Glad to here yours are strong now. Good luck on staying on top of it. If you don't, you may be like me and be surprized at how much equiptment you will need.
All the best to you also.
gww
Ps I had heard from more then one that when the bees hit the chicken feed it was time to pore on the sub.


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## DanielD

I did put some sugar bricks on 4 hives today. they were getting light, and one looks to have had the cluster stuck on one side of the upper box in a hard cold and some of the cluster died in place. There's a good number left and they were on the far other side of the top box. They were in need of sugar. 

JW, I think that sometimes too, but I am guessing they look like a lot more when they are clustered. I don't know if your winters are has hard as mine though. I saw some impressive cluster sizes in some colonies this week. I would guess they aren't producing enough brood to gain numbers against winter die off yet. I am a month away from first pollen last year, and that was early.


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## gww

It is 50 degrees and though I have seen bees flying harder on the very first of the cooler days, I did see bees at the entrance of all my hives. I think the clouds make it seem a little cooler then when it is real sunny. 

I looked at the forcast for the next ten days and if it does not change (change is possible on computer forcast), it is going to be a high of about fourty degrees F till about feb 9th with some very cool nights (teens).

I just put this here cause I am excited even though only 5 days have passed that my bees still seem alive. But even more, I looked at my yard trees that seem to be some of the first bloom that I notice each year. I think they are big maples but am not sure. They look to being close to popping and have the red tint to them and my eyes are to bad to really see but it almost looked like a few of the top ones were open. I don't really trust what I see except the color part and so could be mistaken. The wether is of course too cold for the bees to take advantage of any bloom that might be openning and so getting a wether change pretty soon is going to be key on wether the tree blooms mean anything at all.

I almost posted the tree bloom thing on the missouri thread but think I am going to wait untill I actually see or hear the bees on the trees.

Supposed to get to 56 degrees today and then cool down for the next ten days.

I looked up the rainfall and we are behind for the year so far (counting december). I did find it interesting that it was reported that this jan was averaging one degree warmer then last year at this time. I sure thought this year was much colder and colder for longer in a row. Just shows how hard these things really are to judge based on memory.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, last year you posted your first pollen on Feb 11, and I had pollen on the 16th. I am having a hard time believing it's so close already. Of course, it could be mid march before bees fly too. I do have witch hazel blooming a bit right now, but no bees are going to be flying this week up here.


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## gww

I am going to take another walk here in a bit. It is now 54 degrees. I think all my henbit in the garden has turned brown but am going to give it a look. I am thinking witch hazel is in wet areas and i doubt I walk to the wet wether creek and look and on the henbit, it is usually in tilled areas and so with no known crop lands close to me, the garden, even if any is blooming, won't be much. The trees however will be loud if it gets warm while they are in bloom.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Right at 40 degrees F but pretty sunny.
Bees at all the entrances except the warre. I put my ear to the warre and tapped but heard nothing but am not sure this is a for sure thing cause I have to get on my knees and there is a cleete handle in the way and I can't hear. I saw one bee fly to the entrance but over all nothing. I say it could go either way on it being alive or dead but it was one small cluster going into winter and so dead would not surprize me. My single medium is still alive as are the rest of them. Going to be 51 degrees tommorrow but this is mostly what it looks like.


> 30°
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> 
> 
> Scroll right
> Hourly forecast
> 
> 44°1 PM45°4 PM38°7 PM37°10 PM37°1 AM37°4 AM38°7 AM43°10 AM37°1 AM37°4 AM38°7 AM43°10 AM49°1 PM48°4 PM40°7 PM32°10 PM30°
> 10%1 AM30°
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> 10%1 PM28°4 PM25°7 PM20°10 PM17°1 AM15°4 AM19°7 AM31°10 AM40°1 PM40°4 PM31°7 PM27°10 PM26°
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> 10%10 PM
> 
> Detailed forecast · Radar map · Data from Foreca


Last year it was hitting 70 degrees and the bees were bringing in the first tree pollen on the 11th and it stayed warm for a pretty long time untill it cooled off again end of march.

Maby I will make it to april 15 before the bees decide to start swarming this year. Give me a little extra time to stop it. The top of some of my trees are pink/purple and so it is close if we get flying wether for the trees to go into full bloom (maple/elm).
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok, I couldn't stand it I guess cause I popped the top on the warre and it is dead. It looked like a couple of hundred bees (being generous) stuck on comb. Being a warre, I did not dig into it or even brush bees off yet. The bees had never touched the sugar block and also the hive was not robbed cause they are dead on capped sugar water. I don't exactly know what I am going to do with it. That is the bad thing about the warre, the frames are not interchangeable with all the langs. The hive never did build up and had plenty of time to do it though I killed a bunch when putting them in the warre and also started robbing in it at least twice during the year. It should have never made it to winter.

I am a little worried about disiese but think come april that I am going to drop a queen from one of the other hive in it and shake a whole bunch of nurse bees in it and let them fend for themselves. So I guess I need to bang the hive one time on the ground and knock as many of the dead out of it as is possible and then tape up all the bee sized entrances into the hive so that it does not get robbed. 

I am thinking I can kill two birds with one stone by doing the nurse bee type split into the warre. If I pick a good hive to take the queen from, it should make a couple of extra queen cells for me to make some small cutdown type splits off of a few other hives that start looking like I need to worry about swarming. And the warre comb is full of stores which, except for pollen, should substain the nurse bees and queen till they get to foraging age. They are going to have to graduate early if they want some pollen.

Anyway, That is the plan and if it is a stupid plan, you are welcome to tell me so.

I will not be able to tell if it was mites or diseise with out tearing up the comb to get a closer look like I would have been able to do if it had been one of my langs. (I could really though cause they built strait and I could probly get the comb out one at a time) I think I am going to ride on luck instead and just put bees in it. However, if the new bees do bad, the warre is going into the burn pile. 

So, one hive down out of 9 puts me at a 11 or 12 percent loss over winter so far.

Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Sorry about the warre, it was a good story. 
If no brood disease like foul brood is in, why not reuse like you plan to do?

I would place it some distance away when starting new. The bees now smell the stores and try to get in all the time and when you start new they go on trying.


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## gww

Ok, I did my same crappy picture taking that I always do. I wish I would have gotten one more shot just to show how little comb was in this warre. It was really only about 50/60% drawn out in one box. 
I also miss judged the stores cause it looked like the tops of the combs all had a little capped sugar water and there was some but it was pretty dry really.

Top bars, maybe you can see the small cluster?








From the bottom.








Bottom board








From all the cappings on the bottom, I am thinking they may have starved just from being too small to get to the small amount of capped stuff still left in the hive. It had a 10 lbs sugar block on top but is different on the warre cause it has no inter cover and so the bees could only access the sugar from the bottom and so if it was too dry it may have been useless. I know they did not touch it in any case. All my other hives eat sugar before even touching their capped stuff, or at least they did last year, I have not looked this year.

Now thinking they starved does not mean that they could not have also been sick. They did not build up all last spring summer. I think they never lost robbing pressure and never got to critical mass and should never have even got to winter much less to feb. I am not that upset losing what I thought should have been gone all along but also think even with that tiny cluster that they may have made it if they would have had some bee space that would have allowed them access to the top of the sugar block or would have gotten a shot of 2 to 1 in a way that did not put the other hives on them.

I am interested in what others think of my thoughts on the above and also what you guys think I am most likely wrong on or even showing my ineptness on. 

Any way, if anyone wants to make comments good or bad, I have open ears and if not, hope you at least enjoy pictures.
Thanks
gww


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## gww

Today was first look of 2018. I looked at my two biggest and my smallest and one of the medium size. The hive that were 3 medium, I pulled the top two mediums and just lifted for weight. They might make it with out starving but are not like they were last year. From a bad guess, somewhere around 20 lbs plus.

The two hives that produced are loaded with bees in the top two mediums and have sparse cover on the bottom medium.

A bad picture of one.

















I thought the picture would show better but it is what it is. I did not look for brood in the top two boxes but just pulled frames from the bottom one to make sure there was no brood in it. I put the bottom medium on top of the hive. I was a little surprized the the bottom medium on both hives still had quite a bit of capped stores. I would have thought it would have been the very first thing to have been cleaned out. Shows what I know.

The smallest hive seemed to be clustered to the side of the hive and it looked to me like only 3 or 4 frames of bees. This hive is going to cause me trouble cause it has too much stores in the comb yet and so the queen may not have good room to lay to grow the hive. It has a sugar block on it that the bees have worked but there is still a lot left. I have no ideal how to handle this one and so am just going to keep an eye on it and move when I have to. 

The last hive I looked at was a two medium hive that I had put a third medium on the bottom that had 2.5 combs drawn out in it and the rest was empty foundationless frames. This hive also was not just filled with bees like the two procuction hives from last year were. It defanatly has some time before it needed space. This surprized me a little. I was also surprized that of those 2.5 frames, they were still more then half full of capped stores. Either way, I put that empty box with the 2.5 frames on top instead of leaving it on bottom. I guess this will be my test hive of cold wether and empty space. If it survives and does not die, it will give me a clue for next year on how early and cold I can add empty space to a hive to try and stop swarming. This hive was my only small hive that did not get a sugar block on it last year.

All hives are bringing in pollen and so, let the games begin.
Dandilion should not be too far off. So far the only tree pollen That I have seen is still those big maples? in my yard. The bees are not working them and they are still working my chicken feed. I don't really know what they have found but the last two flying days, they are busy. I still do not know what I am doing.
Cheers
gww


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## squarepeg

nice report gww. 

you are a few weeks behind us with the weather, but i'm thinking you'll probably find some brood in your hives by the time you get warm weather again.

are you using foundationless frames. if so, have they been drawn even enough that you can move frames around? i.e. move a frame of honey here or a frame of empty comb there?

i'll usually find that some of my clusters are up at the top on the first inspection of the year with capped honey below. like you did, i'll move the cluster down and give more space above. so far no issues with doing that even when we still have frosty mornings.

but a lot of my colonies ride out the winter lower in the stacks and again that empty space above doesn't seem to cause problems for them. i do keep a half inch of styrofoam insulation between the inner and top covers during the winter months.

looking forward to hearing how things progress and yes, the fun begins when the pollen starts coming in!


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## gww

Square
My frames are all foundationless. What is on the hives now is all draw. Some are drawn fat and on several I have the frames packed in tighter then normal ten frame would be but yes, most can be moved and most times switched one for one though every once in a while one will be so fat that I would have to remove two frames to fit it in a new hole. Sometime getting the first one out is hard with out rolling bees.

I am all mediums but only have two hives that have three mediums worth of size and so I am hooked to adding space to minipulate the other hives.

I have two inch foam on the very top of the hives. The bees do pretty good cause almost all of my hives have new holes in the corners where the boxes meet that are now being used as entrances and a few have cracks where the boxes meet that are big enough for bees to come in and out of the whole seam. Last year I had a swarm issue and they didn't even try to go out the entrance, they just poured though the seam where the hives were stacked on each other. I have to keep the hives pretty strong cause I don't think robber screens would do much for me. I did tape before but then just said heck with it. I am building wooden ware better now then I did in the beginning but using hard woods still sometimes flex in differrent ways then pine. But the top is insulated, ha, ha.

The ones with three mediums have lots of bees in the two top boxes. The one that was two medium with an empty on bottom was also in both mediums but to the side and so about half the bee density. I did not look at four of them cause I had decided not to add empty space to them yet. I would like to do better but if I can just keep the two big ones in the hives till I can see drones, I can make a cut down type split of some kind and that may give me enough queen cells to work with that if it is not too late, I can just pull a frame or two of brood from the smaller ones and keep them in the boxes and drawing comb rather then swarming. I doubt this works cause they may swarm right when they get drones and at the same time it is right for me to make the cut down. 

No matter what, even if four end up swarming on me, if I can keep some from not swarming, I will have more comb to work with next year to do better.

I don't know if any of these plans are good but they are what I am thinking for now. I keep hearing that they will want to swarm before they will start drawing wax.

The only way I know to break that is to put empties in the brood nest but that means big empty space or having somewhere to go with the brood comb that is removed. I am just looking at options but don't know what I am going to do. I do have one hive now with lots of empty space on top to at least test it out so I know more next year.

If I ever lose a hive or two, I should have more comb to minipulate with. Kinda funny, I don't want to lose a hive but have a use for it when it does happen someday.
Cheers
gww
Ps I have switched from using finger joints on boxes to a butt/rabbit joint cause it seemed to me with my lumber that the finger joints swell more at the fingers leaving bigger seams where the boxes meet. I think the absorb water at a differrent rate then the box joint does.


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## gww

One of the three hives I moved the bottom hive body to the top had a bunch of what I am assuming is drone brood carried out. It is 48 degrees out today. I don't know if I chilled it when I was moving the boxes around or if I did not check as good as I thought on the bottom box for brood or moving the middle box to the bottom had drone brood near the edges that got chilled. Hopefully it is not the hives just sacraficing some drones due to being worried about stores.

The other two hives, counting the one with lots of empty space on top, did not carry out any brood.

I don't know if it was just a cleansing flight or an oreintation flight but a whole bunch of bees were taking advantage of it on my last two hives in the row. Lots of bees.

I also saw what lookes like dancing on the front of one hive but it was being done by a bee that was following a differrent be and so didn't look just right either. It was really shaking but looked to be following or hanging on to a differrent be. 

There was not pollen coming in and it looks like lots of the maple bloom has fell to the ground. The henbit in my garden is just starting and some other kind of little bity ground cover blue flowers mixed in with the henbit is being worked by the bees and the bees are still on the chicken food and gathering lots of water on the ground. 

I see the start of dandilion leaves and so that should not be too far off. plumb and peach have buds that look like it won't be too long. It is all coming a little later then last year. 

I hope the drone brood being pulled out is not a bad sign. It is on the hive that I took the picture of two post ago. It doesn't show it in the picture but when I zoom that picture on my computer, you can see that both boxes have lots of bees filling every seam.

There have not been that many flying days since first pollen and I don't think the bees have been able to take advantage of the first trees like they did last year and so I hope I have better luck on swarm control and I hope I don't starve some hives due to the rain and cold not letting them fly after getting some pollen. 
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

gww said:


> One of the three hives I moved the bottom hive body to the top had a bunch of what I am assuming is drone brood carried out.
> I also saw what lookes like dancing on the front of one hive but it was being done by a bee that was following a differrent be and so didn't look just right either. It was really shaking but looked to be following or hanging on to a differrent be.
> I hope the drone brood being pulled out is not a bad sign. It is on the hive that I took the picture of two post ago. It doesn't show it in the picture but when I zoom that picture on my computer, you can see that both boxes have lots of bees filling every seam.


Purging. They expel the first mite diseased, chilled or too much food using drones if they are resistant and expanding. Depends on the weather.. My only survivor AMM did that ever spring.









Young bees follow the older ones on orientation flights. Do they dance with head to the hive?

I believe you have very good chicken feed, gww


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## gww

SiW...
Your picture is what I saw.

The dancing bee was on the front of the hive body and not the landing board. There were probly 10 bees. I have seen the dancing vidios that seeley has made and have seen bees last year dancing like crazy inside the hive on comb. The bee waggled up the hive body shaking its tail. It did not shake constant but the breaks between shaking were nanoseconds. It was either hanging on to another bee or was bumping the other bee (not on the head). The other bees were just hanging out.

I am just guessing that on the chicken feed, it is the cracked corn part of it that interest the bees. I read an old book where one of the famous bee keepers put out corn mill in the spring. Not saying cornmill works, just saying I read it.

On the drones carried out. I saw this last fall also. I do have a question. Seeing the drone being carried out, is there a way to judge from that of when a person might have sexually mature drones for splitting hives?
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I could be wrong gww, but it seems a bit early to rotate boxes to me. Of course we aren't in the same climate exactly either. I have had brood in general pitched out in May after a couple colonies almost starved out in a week long cold spell. Serious brood building can drain resources fast. I would make sure they have food. If it's too cold for syrup, sugar bricks would work well. 

I haven't had a lot of pollen collecting days here, but it's been a few weeks since startup and then it cooled back down. I also still have sugar on quite a few hives and a couple of them are short on food and need it. It's 48 today and there's a small amount of flying and pollen collecting. I look forward to next weeks predicted warmer weather. It is 3 weeks later than last year, but last year was a month early, so it should be a normal year.


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## gww

Danial
The threw out brood looked like SiW....'s picture. I could be early on the switching boxes. I had hives swarm on april 13 last year (but it was warm early and the bees could work the trees). So I was a little gun shy. I have sugar blocks on five of the hives. I don't have sugar blocks on this hive. You could say that I am running sort of an experment. I also only dropped 2 gal of two to one on them last fall after I took the extra honey off to extract. I had gave then 3 gal the year before and 15 lbs of sugar blocks. 

The reason behind my madness is to see if I can slow the bees down a little so that it is warmer out before they get the ideal they are healthy enough to want to swarm. I don't really have a bases to judge how to do this and so I am expermenting a little but not on all the hives. That way if my experment does not work and I starve a hive to death, I will still have some bees to play with. I don't say this makes sense but more, I don't know any other way to try and find out what the minimum it takes to get bees by till spring.

So, I don't want the bees to starve or to freeze them out but since I don't know what is right, I am just trying things and seeing if they bite me.

Last year I was waiting for 70 degree days to inspect and the bees swarmed before we had one.

I am not claiming to know anything and would love to hear your thoughts on what might be a normal time to switch boxes on a normal year.

I know I don't know more then what happened last year and what I am going to try to make small changes in bee behavior. I don't know if those changes will work. 
I do want to get to where I don't have to feed so much even if it means leaving more honey but have yet to learn where the line is. I will feed if I am sure it is needed. I am trying to learn to judge, preferably with out causeing death and destruction but know that is a risk unless I just go over board every time and take no chances.

Lots of rain also predicted next week.
Thanks
gww


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## gww

I just looked at all of the published apary management toturials and most say rotate the box in may. Maybe that is the more normal and last year was warm but even on a late year, that seems late compared to my hives swarming on april 13 and the year before, I caught my first swarm on may 5. It just seems a little late if you are using it for swarm management. 
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, your swarm problem last year probably was that you had few frames drawn and foundationless. You have some larger hives this year that will be safer. I start inspecting my colonies when pollen is going gangbusters and it reaches near 60 with simple assessment inspections. Does the queen have work to do? . They really won't do much comb making for expansion till later in the year, but if you slip a blank frame in the nest they will do it. You should watch for a nest that has nothing for the queen to do, or close to it. If you don't find much space with empty cells all cleaned out, and emerging brood, pull up 1 to 3 frames to the top box and add empties in their place. If it's cool yet, add to the side of the nest. If warming up and stronger colony, stick them right in the nest spaced away from each other. You could do a frame in each box that the nest is in. Put the frames with brood going up, to the top of the nest. There are some variables, like how strong the colony and temps, that would dictate where to move what, and how many. Even one empty frame next to the last brood frame in an upper box would satisfy them a while. As soon as it's drawn and getting filled, do it again in another spot.


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## DanielD

You can learn to see an approaching swarm and take action before it's critical stage. Early signs are a filled nest with no room to go up or out. Early in the year, empty space above doesnt always mean theres room to them if theres no drawn comb up there. I saw them stop and not see foundation as expansion room too. They need a drawn frame up there for convincing. The later signs of swarm prep are empty cells from newly emerged bees getting filled with nectar. As you know, they need to be convinced they aren't prepared to swarm before cells are made. Here's to another year of learning more about bees.


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## gww

Danial
Your post was how I intended to handle it last year but I started too late. This year, I still have 5 hives that I have to do that way and I was planning on starting sooner. Last year I was just waiting till the first 70 degree day in april and it just happenned to be the day they swarmed. I had thought I was good till april 15 no matter what and on most years that is probly true.

I was just thinking on the hives with three mediums that a simple rotation might gain me time till it was a little warmer and on those hives, if I make it to warm wether, I can just pull brood frames up into empty space. I am probly rushing it but I had done made my mind up to go for 60 degree days early april compared to waiting for a 70 degree day. I do understand your point of looking for fullness and laying area and was going to do that but am moving the temp down to 60 degrees so I can look earlier.

I did put the empty space on top of the hive the other day as a cold wether experment, cause if I don't see real bad effects on it, I will be more comfortable lifting frames from the brood nest earlier then I thought I could, if needed.

I knew your advice above and it was even my plan but the actual doing it apparrently still confuses me. I do thank you for writing it and trust your advice. Now lets just see if I can impliment it. Time will tell.

I did think I might handle the bigger hives by the box rather then by the frame but this could be a mistake on my part.

The other issue with my smallest hive is that it has a sugar block on it and way to much stores in comb in a single medium box. It does not have the bee density to spread things out though what is there looks healthy. On it, I see no way to help it except to maby move an empty comb from a differrent hive for the queen to lay in. 

I will figure it out. I hope your alergic reation was a bit of a fluke and that your work schedual and bees don't interfere with you too bad this year. Good luck with the bees.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Danial
I did have a bit of a brain storm after rereading your last post. My whole concern of opening the brood nest early has been what to do with the comb I am pulling out. I do it all the time when it is 80 and 90 out but in the cold, I have no where to go with the frame I remove unless I put an empty box on. I got to thinking that maby I could pull a frame from each hive and shake the bees off and put all the pulled frames in one box together and put it on my single medium hive and it would strengthen it and weaken the others and would not create as much empty space on all the hives till it got warmer and I did it again on all the hives.

Even if the foragers in the single medium had to cover double brood till some hatched, it has lots of stores in it right now.

This might kill two problims that I have due to having no drawn comb.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

Moving frames to other hives does help to equalize all of them, and jump start smaller ones in the spring, but you would have to concern yourself about the small colony having enough bees to cover brood, like you wrote. You'd be going backwards if brood was lost. I have taken single frames of brood with nurse bees still attached to new colonies without issues, as long as the receiving colony has considerably more strength than the frame of bees. The nurse bees won't kill a queen. It's interesting to hear the buzz as it's going in. A bit warmer, and I wouldn't worry about pulling a frame up to an empty box, but you could also pull a side frame up without brood, and slide the others over to fit a new frame in. If I pull a brood frame up I try to have 2 drawn frames going up together if it's cooler. I don't think it matters in warm weather and a strong colony though. they'll cover it.


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## gww

Danial
Up to now, I have not mixed the combs from differrent hives except to maby use a brood comb in a caught swarm. I have let each hive live or die on its own. I have did this for two reasons. One, I wanted to see how each hive grew so I could get a sense of fast and slow with bees. It is easyer not to open two or three hive at once and move stuff around. I figured that it probly helped diseise wise while I learned what any disiese might look like and I wouldn't spred it all around till I was smarter.

You and square peg don't seem to be as worried as I am about the empty space on top and both have more experiance then me and so I am convinced that I will be ok in just minipulating each individual hive by its self. I don't really know what I will do when I actually do something cause I wake up in a new day and just do stuff, but my fear level is reduced a bit after hearing from you guys and so thanks.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, empty space to a bee means, 'we gotta fill it', verses no space, which means, "we gotta go". But, if there's empty space an no comb up there, they may not see it as space to grow in to for some reason.


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## gww

Danial
I have had zero luck with bees moving to new boxes with out pulling something up. When on a flow and aslo hot, I have had best luck with pulling the center brood frame up as this gets the bees working on the empty replacement and also each side of the pulled up brood frame. The fuller the brood frame the betted cause uncapped stores cause those parts of the comb to be built fat. With heavy brood, the bees seem to want comb on each side of it and so start on the frames beside the brood.
On empty boxes with nothing pulled up, swarming seems to be the preferance.

When there is no flow, it does not matter what is pulled up and the small comb they build will be more funky. I am learning my flows a little better but still not confident.
Cheers
gww
Ps I am going to kick myself in the butt if I do let one of the big hives starve during my experment on slowing build up to match natural forage.


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## 1102009

Fingers crossed to us two 

Since you already had some drones bred i think your food situation is probably better than mine, but I see that my bees are not as desperate I thought them to be, they still have some honey left in the feeder and I saw they opened a honey comb. Some wax on the boards outside the brood area. Tomorrow or Sunday I will open the hives to check and hang a honey comb if there is nothing.

Watch that dancing bees hive. Could be a paralyze sign. After a very long winter the bees are a little susceptible in their crowded conditions. But they will be good the moment the weather gets fine.


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## gww

Siw....
Yes I had thought about the bee paralize thing. However after a while, it did go back to normal. I do have some almost black colored bees which I had also heard is associated with that diseise as well as being associated with pms. They look heathy and are acting correctly and so I think over all things are fine as long as I don't run them out of food.

I only see two things forage wise and one is at an end (maples) and one is of such a small amount that it could not add up to much (little tiny blue ground cover blooms and the start of henbit) that are in my garden. Unless there is a plowed field some where that I don't know about, the garden would not add up to much. Flying hours since pollen first appeard has only added up to about one day a week (about two weeks). They have flew about 6 days but some of those days the flying was only a few hours. Some stuff tree and dandilion is pretty close though.

From your list, it sounds like you may have more actaul forage but I may have had more flying.

Since I am not diving as deep or even getting in most of my hives. I don't yet see the things that danial says to look for and so am running on faith and hope that my pre-prep was enough. This means I am a little scared for the hives that I don't have sugar blocks on but also need to find out if it was enough. It is not forecast to get to 60 degrees F to the end of the month and so I won't be looking for a bit yet and so stay scared but willing to accept what happens and learn from it (and if bad, kick myself a little).

I think we are both on the cusp of it breaking good or bad and will know pretty soon. By bet is from what we do know, it is going to go pretty good for both of us. 

I am thinking that was drone brood carried out and it did look like your picture but it could have just been chilled brood and I did see a few on a differrent hive yesterday. When I looked in the few hives, I did not pull frames but also did not see anything capped when looking between the frames or see any type of burr comb.

Last year, right at the time the bees decided to swarm, I did see some small wax building in the feeding shim. I got to thinking how bees have ignored empty boxes that are added but yet will draw wax in a feeding shim. Not saying anything but just an observation that I might want to read myself later and think on what use its knowing might have as for as minipulating the hive goes. Like a shim might be the easiest way to tell when the bees start making white wax or something. In the one shim I see now, no wax.
Just trying to learn things that help in the timeing of managements.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

> Yes I had thought about the bee paralize thing. However after a while, it did go back to normal. I do have some almost black colored bees which I had also heard is associated with that diseise as well as being associated with pms. They look heathy and are acting correctly and so I think over all things are fine as long as I don't run them out of food.


Well we are all shaking of old age now and then... maybe it´s just old age.



> I only see two things forage wise and one is at an end (maples) and one is of such a small amount that it could not add up to much (little tiny blue ground cover blooms and the start of henbit) that are in my garden. Unless there is a plowed field some where that I don't know about, the garden would not add up to much. Flying hours since pollen first appeard has only added up to about one day a week (about two weeks). They have flew about 6 days but some of those days the flying was only a few hours. Some stuff tree and dandilion is pretty close though.


Do you mean veronica? We have it too, it´s blooming. Bees love it. Could be they use it, I have to watch.



> From your list, it sounds like you may have more actaul forage but I may have had more flying.


yep. But only pollen yet. Too cold for nectar producing plants, except the veronica perhaps.



> Since I am not diving as deep or even getting in most of my hives. I don't yet see the things that danial says to look for and so am running on faith and hope that my pre-prep was enough. This means I am a little scared for the hives that I don't have sugar blocks on but also need to find out if it was enough. It is not forecast to get to 60 degrees F to the end of the month and so I won't be looking for a bit yet and so stay scared but willing to accept what happens and learn from it (and if bad, kick myself a little).


If the strong ones get hungry they will rob the weak, so be careful. I don´t feel robbing should be used in "bond". Our placings of hives must make us responsible. Too many hives in one place.

I


> think we are both on the cusp of it breaking good or bad and will know pretty soon. By bet is from what we do know, it is going to go pretty good for both of us.


Yes, it´s a new experience to me which I will consider. The deadout I took apart had a very bad case of dysentery. All stores left were crystallized hardened honey. they must have used the mustard field.
This means if the cluster is weak and not much moisture inside the hive they could not use it or they could not digest it because they lack condensation. 
I have to consider this,perhaps exchange some honey combs in fall, take the crystallized honey, give them liquid capped honey.
The crystallized is very good for late spring splits made before bad weather comes. They will eat it but destroy much wax doing this, no matter, they can repair that time of year.
( perhaps someone wants to chime in if I´m wrong)



> I am thinking that was drone brood carried out and it did look like your picture but it could have just been chilled brood and I did see a few on a differrent hive yesterday. When I looked in the few hives, I did not pull frames but also did not see anything capped when looking between the frames or see any type of burr comb.


IMHO chilled brood is taken out as a patch, drone pupa looking the same but I don´t really know. The pupa or imago I photographed is in different stages. So I believe it´s a hygienic behavior more.



> Last year, right at the time the bees decided to swarm, I did see some small wax building in the feeding shim. I got to thinking how bees have ignored empty boxes that are added but yet will draw wax in a feeding shim. Not saying anything but just an observation that I might want to read myself later and think on what use its knowing might have as for as minipulating the hive goes. Like a shim might be the easiest way to tell when the bees start making white wax or something. In the one shim I see now, no wax.


They build ladders and connections all the time. My bees built comb into the feeder just like the bees build honey comb into Sam Comforts honey bottles. The build ladders or some cells for honey. 
Sometimes the build half cells to sleep in.



> Just trying to learn things that help in the timeing of managements.


Me too and I appreciate learning from you. You make me consider many things.


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## gww

SiW...


> The deadout I took apart had a very bad case of dysentery. All stores left were crystallized hardened honey. they must have used the mustard field.


In fall, you might just want to extract and feed back sugar water to refill. You could use the honey in some way and the bees might winter better. I know you are feeding honey back but I did read a study one time that said survival rate was better on sugar water then it was on honeys or honey dew that had a lot of solids in them.

On the building ladders and such, I had read one beekeeper whose position was that if you started seeing white comb being built on frames, you were already too late on adding a super. I know a guy that uses foundation and on his hives in spring, he would have comb built everywhere possible and it would be full of drone brood. The bees had no where else to go. I try to keep the things I see in my mind till I advance far enough to put it into some kind of useful knowlage.









I am thinking this picture shows the little blue flowers that the bees are on now mixed in with the henbit. I tried looking up what they might be so I could be clearer, but can not tell from computer pictures that I try and compare them with. This picture is from last year but it is the same little flower and the bees go from one to the next and so I know they are working them and not just checking. I don't know why the little blue flowers don't show in this picture, they do show on the Missouri thread with these same pictures I think. The bad part of the picture gally on this site is I can't make the pictures bigger before I post them so I can see for sure I am getting the right one.
Cheers
gww
Ps I guess the top picture shows the little blues I am talking about.


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## 1102009

I´m not able to enlarge you pict much but it now seems to be

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glechoma_hederacea

it´s later blooming here, in april, but the bees use it.


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## gww

SiW
Yesterday there was two pictures when I left this post and today there is only one. I had put about 5 pictures and then deleted them because I couldn't see them well untill they were posted. It might be the plant you posted a link to or something simular. I can never really tell but I guess it doesn't matter and I am just glad they are there cause I guess it is better then nothing being there.

Thanks for trying to find and answer, I like knowing better then not though I don't know why.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok, So first off, I got stung on the finger through the thin nirlite glove. 

It was warm and took me about two hours due to being unprepared and having to go back to the house twice, to get through three hives. How sad.

Everytime I get in, I realize that I don't really know what is happining with the hives.

I had sent one hive into winter with some empty space in both mediums that was on it. This hive had a sugar block on it. It does not look like it has very many bees in it though it is very active and bringing in lots of pollen. I found no brood or stores. The bees are working the sugar block. One of my trips to the house was to get a coffee can full of water and I sprinkled some water on the sugar block to try and make it a little easier for the bees to use. I lost my hive tool/putty knife and it might be in the hive cause I never did find it. I reopened the top box of this hive and put a frame of capped honey from a differrent hive in this hive. I took the putty knife and scraped a few cappings to get the bees interested in the frame. This is the very first hive I have ever opened that had a sugar block on it that did not have stores in the comb. I am guessing the wether did not let the bees use the sugar blocks as well as the warmer times of last year.

The next hive I opened was the three medium hive that is compleetly filled with comb and had no sugar block on it. It is also the hive that I had put the bottom medium on top and had seen a little brood being carried out after I did that. Lots of stores in this hive and it is the one I stole from to put in the other hive. I took an empty comb from the small hive and put it a couple of frames toward the center of the top box so that if the queen wanted to move up and lay in the third box, there would be a little open comb. This hive is packed with bees in all three boxes. I mean packed. This confuses me in that I could not really find any capped brood and don't know how it got so full from the last time I looked at it a week ago. There are drones in the hive though I did not see but maby two capped drone brood and only a very small bit of larva and no capped worker brood. I went though it fairly well though I did stop when I finaly found some larva I could see. I do not understand how the hive got so crowded with no real brood being layed in it (that I could see). I did see one queen cup that I saw a bee going in and so I took my putty knife and broke down the walls and it was empty and dry.

The third hive was a two medium hive and it was not packed with bees but at least did have some stores still in the comb. It also has a sugar block on it. I found one frame of capped brood in this hive. It looked a little spotty but was covering about 3/4 of the frame on both sides. 

I was thinking of taking off the sugar blocks but due to the comb not being as full as they were last year, I decided I had another week or two before I had to worry. I had swarms last year at this time but the bees also had lots more tree bloom that they could get to due to the warmness.

I wanted to make a split with the three medium hive to get some extra queen cells started so I could have avenues to pull brood frames from the other hives if they seemed to be building too fast for the amount of comb I have drawn out but I chickened out and also since none of the hives really had any capped brood in them, I thought I might have another 15 to twenty days before I need to worry. I figured it would take 10 days for the queen cells to be ready and so wanted to do it early but now I am not sure what to do or how fast the bees might get some capped brood where I had to worry about swarming. I think we will be in heavy dandilion bloom in a week or so. 

I am really struggling with putting what I am seeing with what I should be doing. My plan was to go through all of the hives but dad showed up and they did not have much capped brood and so I put it off. One more warm day tommorrow if I change my mind. I think the three small hives I have looked at so far have quite a bit of time before the empty comb is filled and the bee density is good enough to cover them but I am not sure how fast things will break lose.

I did see one super white comb but am pretty sure that it must be from last year and I don't see anything that makes me think the bees are ready to draw comb if I tryed to add space anywhere.

The last three days, the hives have been active and from the entrance, you can not tell much difference from the bee packed hives and the smaller clusters. Lots and lots of pollen coming in.
I am lost.
Cheers
gww


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## cbay

gww, On your 3 deep hive, sounds like the queen could have possibly shut down for a bit with these cold spells we've had. Noticed a couple of mine where they were going pretty good and then recently seen a gap in the laying. Makes sense with the wild temperature swings the last month. Just one possibility...


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## gww

Cbay
I was wondering if that was possible. I hear they will do that during summer derths and not having any food coming in due to nothing being out there and cool wether. I do know they sometimes lay in feb and last year on the very first 70 degree day in feb, the brood nest looked simular to what they did today. Except for the big hives (and even them a little) I had much less stores in the hives this year at this time. I fed them less in fall last year hoping for a little slow down in spring build up but am having a hard time interpiting what I am seeing. I think I entered the hives with preconcieved notions and then when I looked, I was not sure how to interpet it. 

I want to take some kind of action this year so that swarming does not get ahead of me but don't know what I am doing and can't seem to get the timeing down. Swarming didn't really hurt me that bad last year cause they all landed on the cedar tree by the hives and I hived them but I would like to be a better bee keeper. 

I am missing the part from when my hives look like they look now to when they swarmed last year cause it was cold last year and the hives swarmed the first warm day that I could have inspected. I am wondering the timing from what my hive looks like now with very little brood to when it will be full of brood and I need to worry. My mind says that if the dandilion and a couple of trees bloom that it could be as little as 20 days from now but I missed it last year and so am a little lost now on what to expect and when to act. 

We had talked about drones. I saw no capped drone brood to speak of but did see some mature drones. I didn't see as many as was in the hives last year but I am sure they were drones cause they were twice the size of my bees. 

I would like to have some queen cells that I can use to pull a couple of brood frames from my smaller hives when it looks like they are about to fill all of the comb. Last year, the only hive I had that did not swarm was one that I pulled two brood combs from to tether the swarms I hived. I was thinking if I could figure out the timeing of when to have a couple cells ready, I could pull a brood comb or two from my little hives and put two or three hives worth together with a queen cell and have a decent split and swarm free hives. I have no drawn comb that is not already on the hives and so this was my hope of keeping control of them till they start drawing comb and making more room.

So far, the three medium hives are just loaded with bees and something will have to be done with then but all the small ones seem to have small clusters compared to last year and so maby doing nothing but adding space will work good enough. 

I guess my question is, should I split the big ones while they still have lots of stores and little brood or wait for the brood and then split? They have young enough larva to make a queen and I was going to do a fly back split where I take the queen and an empty box and put it in the old spot and let the bees build everything from scratch and let the moved part make the queens.

Should I let them lay up the hive with brood before any split?

I will be glad when this comes a little more natural to me.
Cheers
gww
Ps Cbay I am not trying to force an answer from you and not trying to make you wish you had not even commented. I am thinking while writing and hopeing something pops out in my mind as the right thing to do. I do love comments though. After writing it all, I think waiting another week and looking again is the right answer.


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## DanielD

Gww I may not see the picture of your packed with bees hive right, but did you see empty comb anywhere for the queen to lay in? If she has nothing to do a swarm will happen. If it's packed and not much room for the queen to work I would pull couple outer frames of stores in a box with brood and put them in a new box on top, then put the empty frames on the edge of the brood nest. Or I would extract a couple frames of comb if there's a bunch of stores and give them the drawn comb. Or you can switch for empty comb with a light hive. 
If they are packed with bees and a restricted nest because of a bunch of stores, it could go to swarm in a while, it sounds like.


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## cbay

gww,

We had some with cups/eggs/rj a week ago, and again this week. Lots of brood/bees, even though i can tell there was a setback recently on a lot of them.
Been doing the OSB method with success....so far. It got them occupied drawing wax.

Also did the flyback on the biggest hive, and it appears to be working exactly like what's been shared on here so far.

If they weren't strong we would have waited like you stated. Might be a difference in location and forage - along with the fact we've been feeding pollen sub and a little syrup along the way.

Definitely is time to keep an eye out for cells though!!


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## gww

Danial
Thanks for the comment. I think there is empty comb. I was just surprised at not being able to find any capped brood. I did take one comb of stores and put it in a weak hive and replace it with an empty drawn comb from the weak hive.

The hive is just packed with bees, all three boxes and last week it looked like only two of them were full. Maby moving the box to the top spread them out more and there really are not more bees but it looked like there were.

None of the hives I looked at today had any real brood. The one hive had one frame and it was not the big hive which I did not find any capped brood and only saw larva. I think there is plenty of empty comb but don't know how long that will last. I also did not really see lots of wet cells and think all the stores are still from last fall and not that any has been added yet. 

Lots and lots of bees but no real brood except for a small spot of larva that was big enough for my bad eyes to see. The bees have only been flying for three days and only have my peach trees and a little henbit though they are getting a bunch of white pollen from somewhere. The bees in the hive and through out the three boxes were excited and loaded with pollen but I did not see a lot of wet stuff. Some orange comming in and so I know they are starting to find dandilions in bigger quanities though you could not tell it from my acreage.

There are stores but empty comb also. I think two things are throwing me. One is lack of much brood in all three of the hives but yet so many bees in the big hive. The two small hives are not packed that way though they have simular brood in them. IE: not much.

Plus, seeing drone but no brood means at some point there was brood or there would not be drones. I did not pull every frame but did pull a few from every box and the little brood I found was in the middle box.
I think I am ok for a little while but would like to be prepared when it changes.

I might be worrying too much. Not big number of bees in any of the two medium hives and lots of empty comb and lots of bees in the big hives but also empty combs though more stores also.  I think, think, think that these big hives will peak before the small ones are and so I can watch for back filling of them and split when I start to see it and still have a few cells before the small ones build to a danger point. Knock on wood, I think I can make it to the next 70 degree day and look again. This is the hardest time of the year for me to learn and I missed even seeing the signs last year due to the warm feb. If I screw up, maby next year I will have a handle on it cause at least I can watch better this year due to wether.
Thanks
gww
Ps danial, could you give a small report on what stage your hives seem to be in? you are a couple of weeks behind me?


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## gww

Cbay, I am surprized by your report. If I remember you have had dandilions for a week or two. It has to be the feeding. Drawing wax? Sounds like may.
Sounds like you are on top of it. I am a slow learner.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, if there is empty comb in the brood nest itself, you should be fine regarding swarms. It sounds like they are just getting going again with the warm up. All the bees can mean a tall stack of honey on top later. You can keep them from swarming if you know the progression of the colony to swarming. Squarepeg had a good summery of what to watch for a few months ago but I can't find it now. What I try to see is if the queen has something to do. If you are finding areas of empty cells and newly emerging bees, the queen is occupied. Also watch for a honey cap or dome, over the nest. The brood nest stops expanding upwards then. Then if you start seeing a much higher percentage of capped brood verses eggs and open larva, the queen may be running out of work. Then, when new bees emerge the bees start filling the now empty cells with nectar and the queen looses more places to lay, back filling the brood nest. The next step is the queen laying in cups and the bon voyage party is being planned. 

I always look for the queen having some work to do. You need to pull several frames around the nest to get a good indication about what's happening. If I see the brood nest with no or little empty polished cells waiting for the queen, I add empty comb, foundation or empty frames in the nest area. 1 to even 4 depending on what I see, the size of the colony and nest, and the temperatures. If it's cool, I would add the empty or emptys on the edge of the brood nest after the last frame of brood. As it warms up, I add them in the brood nest itself, but spread them around, spacing a few occupied frames between them. If there's back filling of the brood nest, I sometimes get kind of dramatic with empty frames, once in a while 4 in a good size nest. I take the existing frames of brood and move them up to where they fit. Maybe the top brood box has room, maybe a new box on top. You can also move frames of stores up for room and spread open the nest to add an empty. I let the brood nest get as big as it gets but keeping it intact of course. Your 8 frame mediums should have brood in up to 4 boxes, and if you occasionally have to put a frame of brood in the next box right above the brood nest, that works but you don't want to string out the nest real tall. More bees would be more honey in my estimation. The frames you move up will get nectar filled after the brood emerges.


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## 1102009

My bees always breed in a row.

That means they prepare one by one ( depending on the pollen input) the new brood frames and the queen then starts to lay there. This means in my hives much capped brood, not much or one new layed comb for now.
When the first capped brood frame hatches the queen moves back to the other side of the box to lay the newly cleaned cells. 
This behavior speeds up by the season and with more combs available.
Now they are just in the beginning state of that. The one hive I checked had 4 combs capped and one had the queen just laying. So you might see the same situation in my hive in one week like you see in the big colony.
Many young bees and not much brood.
The new brood much be kept warm so the bees will concentrate on this larva comb until temperature allows them to spread more and the amount of newly layed brood will be accommodated by the decision of the colony brain.
Also many of the bees will quickly become foragers to enforce more stores and therefore more breeding. This will be until swarm density is reached.

If swarm force starts they stop doing this. The newly hatched comb is filled with nectar, not capped ( immediately to the use of the swarm bees) and queen cells start on the young brood combs.


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## gww

danial
Thanks for typing all that. I am actually running ten frame mediums and so was going for a three box brood nest. In theory, I know all of the tips you mention but in practice, I get lost when I open the hives. How can I spend 2 hours on only three hives and end up with as little knowlage as I did. I have read squarepegs stuff and do watch for those things just like I watched for drones and mite frass or holes in the bood caps. I even watched for the queen but did not see one on the three hives.

I figure this stuff is like mushroom hunting, I can go out and walk past some till I finaly see one and then my brain resets and they become easier to see the next time. It doesn't matter that I have hunted them for fourty years, I have to repeat that proccess every year.

I went in the hives with preconcieved notions that I could split the brood nest and such but when I got there it looked differrent and I could not even find the brood nest. I just come upn and try and write what I can reamember as quick as I can so that I can reamember as much as I can cause my brain is not what it was at one time.

You gave wonderfull explinations and things to watch for and I thank you for it. Now if I can atually reconize it inside the hives when I see it?

I am sitting in my easy chair deciding if I want to open the one or two hives i have not seen the inside of yet or just not bother them based on what I saw with the rest of them.

Siw.....


> Also many of the bees will quickly become foragers to enforce more stores and therefore more breeding. This will be until swarm density is reached.


I am curious of when the bees go from starting the brood nest as now to having it filled with more brood and stores. I am thinking tops of 20 days if the hive is crowded now. I can tip the hives every 5 days and look for queen cups and respond to them but was hoping to manage a little better then that this year. When there is an actual brood nest, I can pull a brood frame or two and add a box and by then bees are usually starting to draw wax and it has a chance of going smoothly. I am just wondering when from now to that point what might be the danger in the timeing of waiting too long. 

You guys have helped some with the neurotic part of my personality and so it has been reinforced what to watch for and so I guess I will just keep trucking.

So I thank you guys for taking the time.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I can relate to that mushroom hunting reset. I haven't hunted them for decades, but remember how I would wonder if I even knew how to see them, till I saw the first ones of the year. Then they were easier. With bees, you just need to reset your mind more by looking every week. I have gained insight by going through a box looking at every frame from side to side often in the past to get a handle on all the details of a hive. I don't need to do that anymore to have a grasp where it's at. I wouldn't say I have expert status by any stretch, but I am starting to understand their process a little. 

With this warm stretch, the brood nest should be growing well in a week. I wouldn't try to calculate how much time you have till there's a problem. I would just plan on checking them weekly to see how the brood nest is growing. You don't need to check them all the same day, but stagger the inspections to 2 a day or something. They can get away from you in such a short time this time of year. Last year I had a sputtering hive that seemed like they weren't getting anywhere so I ignored them one week. The next week when I opened them up, the swarm was set off as I was going through frames. The bees were getting all runny and I was puzzled, till I realized there were a whole lot of bees in the air. They landed on a corner post a few feet away.


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## gww

Danial


> The bees were getting all runny and I was puzzled, till I realized there were a whole lot of bees in the air. They landed on a corner post a few feet away.


Yes, I had that happen last year. Got a couple of neat pictures though. You made my mind up for me for today. I guess I will go through a hive or two just cause I am still a dummy. 

My goal is to get to where I can just sorta glance and know about what to do or what the status is. I am not there yet.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

You might be trying to see and understand everything at once. Just go in trying to identify one thing at a time. How about looking for those areas of polished out cells that are waiting for the queen. Where is she going to lay next?


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## gww

Danial
I saw bees working the cells. Last year when I had virgin queens that I was waiting and worrying about getting mated, I saw clearly what you are talking about cause the bees were in a flow and had filled the honey dome but left circles of empties for the soon to be laying queen. It is a little differrent now cause the bees have not been storing a lot of nector and so most of the empty comb look like empty comb and the areas are not as defined. I will try that today though when I get in another hive.

Today is going to be warm enough to consider it practice for those 95 degree days when I have to get out at 7am to keep heat stroke at bay.

My peach trees are finaly opened all the way and being worked hard and more dandilions are poping up each day. The rest of the trees seem slow this year.

I should start seeing changes in the stores/brood real soon cause the stimulation is starting to be there.

Thanks for the help. 
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I would suspect you will see a good number of eggs today as the nest should be expanding. It does sound like to see things more than you think. I am remembering last year after the first shot of spring and pollen, that there seemed to be less brood nest than I expected. But the next shot of warm had a round of eggs laid that doubled the nest area fast. 

All I have seen here is mostly just maple pollen with a hint of firebrick red, which could be henbit, but I haven't seen any bloomed anywhere. We are having mid 70s a few days so I am sure there will be a jump in blooms and brood rearing. I still haven't opened a hive very far except for one I suspect didn't get queened late last fall. It looks like it didn't so far but I will check again maybe today.


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## gww

Danial
What a differrence a day might make.
I pulled my phone camera out and was going to try and get a few pictures but just could not get my heart into it and so I took one, layed the phone down and never got any more.
This is a two medium hive right when I pulled the sugar block off.








Not great but maybe a little better then one of the ones I did yesterday.

I got into three hives and one was the small one I looked at during the last warm day. A single medium hive. There was quite a differrence in it as far as the sugar block being eaten. The interesting thing on it was that they had started building comb in the sugar block shim. I pulled some frames up and added an empty box on it. I probly made a mistake but I put the sugar block back on top. Last year, the second I saw comb in the shim, I pulled all sugar blocks. We have a couple of cold days coming yet with freezing on the 15th and a high of 38 degrees and so I left the sugar block in the hopes that my frame movements make the bees consintrate on the open area by the comb rather then the shim.

The hive with the picture actually had a couple of brood combs capped and it looked a little spotty on the laying pattern but it was ok enough and they had brought in new stores and put in in a comb. Of course it could be sugar block they are storing but it was still differrent then the other hives I looked at yeaterday. I did see in some of the hives that had some stores today in the circle that would be above the cleaned cells left for brood.

I was a little more prepared today and I did break a whole comb off of the small hive while twisting a curled end that was two peices of comb instead of one but woopie, I had some rubberbands in my pocket. 

I did not add a super to the hive in the picture but did look at one more double medium hive that did not seem to have as much capped brood as the one pictured but did have more bees in it. I added a super to it also. I pulled two combs that you could see the cleaned area with stores above and one empty comb. I had two combs in the second medium on the hive that had areas of comb built almost three frames wide. I slamed one of them against the wall and fliped the other one and crunched it against a differrent frame and hope the bees will cut them down to get thier bee space back. It was still fat enough that I had to remove one frame from the hive and put it in the super above that I added.

I am glad that I went ahead and got in the hives today cause it seems that they are differrent then those I looked at yesterday and I think it was the one day of warmth that made the differrence. I know it did on sugar block consumption.

That last hive is what seems to be my hottest hive. The bees jump out from between the frames and head for my head. Every time they do, I step back and put a little smoke in the air and they don't seem to follow up. I am glad for this cause I had a smock on but shorts and crocks and so didn't really need them to get too serious. I did see one leave a stinger in the cuff of my nirilite glove. Some of it might be me smashing comb together and maybe rolling some bees also. It is amazing that my queens don't get killed the way I work sometimes. I have noticed these bees being a little more agressive last year though but not unworkable and I don't know what is normal cause I have not been around too may hives in my life.

If nothing else happens, I have did a few things differrent on a few hives and if I can remember, I may be able to judge the differrence in what those things do for me.

I was only in the hives for an hour and a half today (it was hot) so maybe I am getting better.

I think my biggest possible mistake or the thing I did right will be having left the sugar block on the hives. If they use the carbs to start drawing comb in places other then the shim, great. If they use it to fill empty comb and stop the queen from laying or draw all the comb in the shim, it will be bad.

ba-th, ba-tha, ba-thats all folks.
Thanks for reading and for the advice.
Cheers
gww
Ps I don't see eggs but that does not surprize me and does not mean they are not there.


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## 1102009

I always thought sugar blocks were not stored but eaten, only syrup was stored?
:scratch:


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## gww

SiW..
I think it is ate and not stored also. My experiance last year was that they ate it and left the capped stuff in the comb. Still, they are drawing wax in the shim. It could be that they have no room and it is the highest open spot in the hive or it could be the carbs and having no place to put them causes the wax making portion of the nurse bees kick in. Except for water content, I can't see why bees would not store it and sometime last winter (not the winter that just ended) between oct and feb, my bees did draw some comb making me question it haveing to be hot to draw wax and only having sugar block sorta makes me question the just use the sugar ideal . I don't really know but it would not surprize me if they did not store some of it.

I don't know though and just try and watch what is going on and then guess.
If bees move honey and store sugar water, I don't see how it is impossible that they might store sugar block if they have excess and it is warm enough. But I don't say they do either.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

They do place sugar in comb for me sometimes, in dry grains of sugar and sometimes a liquid kind of sugar mix. 

Gww, I got into a half dozen hives today as well. Yesterday and today are our first 70+ degrees since November. the colonies vary a lot depending on the abundance of stores and size of colony. One had just a small 5-6" ball of brood nest that was mostly capped brood and some eggs expanding it on the edges. They brooded up some a week ago when it was a short warm spell with pollen coming in, yet stopped laying till this warmup I guess. A couple hives got reversed today since the brood was up on top. One of them had 2 mediums of brood nest and a lot of stores left from winter. It is off on a good start and I could be the power hive of the year. It's offspring of the strong colony last year. I need to get through all the others in the next week. It was fun to get into them again, yet I feel like I may have too many to deal with this year. I plan to split and sell nucs and hopefully get back down to 15 for the main flow time. Of course I will make splits again for myself in there somewhere.

If you have dandelions gww, they probably don't need sugar. But, I have seen some run dry after a week of cold and rain and no fly time in Mid May. I took off some sugar on hives with plenty of stores left. I should put some syrup on a few this evening to give a couple hives some encouragement. There is a ton of maple pollen coming in with frames full of it, and even fresh nectar being stored so things are looking good. 

I found one colony down to a very small amount of bees and thought it was a dead out, but found a very small, 3" ball of brood nest and fresh eggs. Almost dead, but I also have the one that didn't get queened last year and can combine them.


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## gww

Danial
I don't have many dandilions but am getting more each day. They are bringing in orange pollen here and there and so there may be sheltered spots where there are more then I see. I live 7/10th of a mile from a very small town and maybe somebody firtilized their yard to make them grow.

You must have the inspecting down a bit better then me to get half a dozen hives looked at.

Thanks for telling me the results so I can compare. Sounds kind of simular to what I am seeing. I had much more stores in comb in most of my hives last year. I do think it is time to remove my sugar bricks and it was the one thing I was pretty conflicted on today. Since I put so much empty space in two of the hives, I think I will be fine till the next 70 degree day but know it could also cause me some kind of trouble having the blocks on the hive. 

So you have another two hundred pound hive on the way, how cool.

I have mixed feelings on if I want more honey or more bees. I am scared of getting too much honey and scared of not getting enough. I do not think I am a sales man. If I made bees, I would probly keep them cause I have not figured out how to handle the equipment part of selling bees (but believe I am too slow to make it all just to sell) and foundationless worrys me a little on what I sell that poeple would travel with. It almost makes me want to do the package thing like member nordac did last year. Maybe less risk?

Any drones? I would be interested when you start seeing dandilions just for an ideal of when I see you mention things, I will know if my stuff that came a little earlier was the same. You are a bit more advanced in beekeeping skill and I have no background and find little nuggets in your reports/discussions.
Thank you very much for telling me what you found in your hives and also your plans. I am just spinning with the wind with no real direction except to have some bees and learn how to manage them well enough that I can later pick a direction I might want to pursue. I hope your skin is acting like it should after todays inspections and that it was just a fluke earlier.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I read your post and it made me go out to the south side of my shop, and I have 4 dandelions. Woohoo. I would guess the nearby town is supplying you some dandelions and daffodils and other early flowers. 

Regarding my time to inspect, I have no choice but to hustle at it with the number I have and time I want to spend on them. I gotta keep up. 

It remains to be seen if I have a 200 pound hive. It could crash and burn, but it looks similar to the other one with an abundance of stores and a good size early brood nest. Some of the capped brood had already been emerging, so it's been going forward for a while. I initially didn't see much for bees coming and going in the hive and thought it was dead. I opened it and found it full of bees and the brood. There are some other ones of that line that I haven't opened yet and are looking strong. Late in the day I am putting some sugar bags on a couple and will open another one or two. 

About too much honey or too much bees, it seems like you can't help it to get more this year. I have said to myself at the beginning of a season that I would just stay steady and see if I can get some honey, then end with plenty as well as more bees. My colonies went from 1 to 6 to 20 to almost 30 last year without planning to do much. Last year I just plain stopped doing it because it was too much. I may sell off some complete colonies if someone comes along wanting one this spring, for the right price of course. You just need to find someone to sell your honey for you. If you know another keeper nearby make them a deal to have them sell it and split the cash with you. There is the sticky detail of sales and business stuff and sales tax, etc. Kind of a drag, but I already do that with a current business. 

I didn't see drones, but just a couple capped drone cells, and some eggs in drone cells. I think my skin is the same since I handled some beekeeping parts without gloves a week or more ago and had a slight issue on the palms of my hands. 

I am glad to share my thoughts and experience with you qww and you find it useful. I like to hear about where you are at as well with the bee season.


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## gww

Danial


> I handled some beekeeping parts without gloves a week or more ago and had a slight issue on the palms of my hands.


Bummer

I got a good enough grasp on taxes. I used to own some rental property and ran a resturant for a few years, still have the building sitting and rotting away. Still take it off my taxes too.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I removed the sugar blocks today.








I had mixed feelings about this. The hives feel light to me but the bees are finding stuff. My asian pears are about to bloom and I see with in a mile of me all kinds of bradford pear trees in bloom.

I also added another super each to the two three medium hives that had full comb. They both have lots of bees but not really that much stores. The bees on them had some brood in the top boxes. I pulled up a couple of combs but none were brood comb. On one, I put emty frames next to full frames of drone brood and one I put an empty between a frame of drone brood and worker brood. 

The small hive that I added a box to last week that was drawing a little comb in the feeder shim had no bees on the sugar block this week and have not seemed to have drawn any more comb. I wonder with adding all the empty space if I may have demoralized them a bit. They were foraging well at the entrance of the hive but were not covering the frames I pulled up and had reduced down to what is left in the bottom box. The few frames in the top box are full of capped honey and so it may be normal. It is funny that the one hive with the most stores per bees is the smallest hive I have.

The bees did not eat as much of the sugar blocks this year as last and the hives themselves have much less stores in them then last year. The one good thing about this if I don't starve them is that they probly are not crowded enough to be ready to want to swarm and are packed with bees. 

I feel a little bit like an idiot. When I added the super on the first hive and saw the drone brood, I closed it and then thought, why did I not scrape a few of those drone brood open and check for mites. By the time I supered the next one, I had already forgot and did not scrape andy drone brood open on it either. My short term memory is shot.

The bees must be on something cause they were very nice and I did see some wiggle dancing in the hives.
I did not tip all the hives but did tip two of the crowded ones that I knew had brood in them and did not see any queen cups being made, dry or wet.

I did not notice any new comb being draw out anywhere I looked like I did in the feeder shim on the small one last week.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I guess it has been nine days since I last looked in the bees. That says something about the weather we have been having. 

The computer says today is 72 degrees, it seems hotter. I did not look in all hives. I did tip one of the big hives and looked for cells or cups.

I found a few cups that I took apart and they were dry. I pulled one drone larva out and it did not have any mites on it. I know one is not much of a test but I am lazy and wanted to move on. 

I found the queen in my smallest hive. The brood pattern is not great. The bees look smaller then the other hives bees and the queen is very skinny and small. I have to replace this queen at some point. I did get to see her lay an egg I think (or at least she put her butt in a cell) She also seemed to move really slow in my uneducated opinion. This is a small swarm that I caught last year and not one of my splits.

I took a frame that was about 50 percent brood on both sides and put it in this small hive to get me by untill I figure out how to come up with a queen. I left some hanger on bees that I could not just shake off the comb. I took the brood from my other big hive that I did not really go through or tip to check for queen cups/cell. The brood comp had a great pattern on the part that was layed and the part that was not looked like there might be a bit of back filling. I put an empty frame to replace where I took it from and maby they will start drawing wax rather then swarm cells. My hives are all over the place as far as build up is concerned. A few are so very loaded with bees and a few are just getting started. Over all the biggest ones from last year are filling the fastest with bees this spring.

I am so very wishy washy about what I want to do. Earlier in this thread, I was going to split one early and get some cells started but still have not did that and so now I am just waiting for the first one that gets cells cause it wants to swarm while I try to add space to keep them from swarming. I have a couple that are plenty strong to split and still get some honey from them. I keep thinking though that if I don't split and some how keep them from swarming, I will be able to see what is possible from a really big hive. I think failure on some of them is going to happen and so I will get my queen cells from the failure. Can't make my mind up on what I want.


There is a very small amount of comb being drawn on in the big hive where I opened up the side of the brood nest and pulled comb from to move up into the super I added nine days ago. 

The hive I pulled the brood frame from is a three medium hive with a super on it and the brood was in the top box, right under the added super. I am thinking this is a good sign and that it means there is room for the queen to move down if she does not move up into the super when the bees start drawing comb in it.

I am sure I am probly screwing this up. The bees are working redbud, asian pear, and dandilion in my yard hard. I have a crab apple that is starting to get quite a bit of bloom on it that last year the bees picked over the redbud. I was thinking last year that redbud was not thier favorite but they are working it pretty hard today. Working dandilion really hard also and the asian pear the best. The red delicious apple and moon glow pear trees don't look like they are going to bloom again this year. They are just taking up space.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, my colonies are very different as well, with some having a small brood nest and some having 2-3 mediums of brood nest. They really haven't had a lot of flying weather but I caught one with queen cells. One frame had 3 that all got damaged when I pulled the frame. There was one other queen cell that looked puny and I took it down since I was sure they were swarm cells and there should be more of them. I didn't see any more, but eggs were present so they could do it again if needed. I am not sure about supersedure or swarm, but it did look like the colony was unusually quiet like a lot of bees were missing. I was surprised about queen cells since the brood nest was a bit small, but it was up on top and plenty stores were left from winter so maybe the queen went away. I did finally finish going through all of them and reversing boxes, etc. 

The colony that I wasn't sure had a queen last November when I botched a couple combine efforts, didn't have a queen this spring. I shook them out in front of a weak colony. 

There are a couple emerged drones and most colonies have cells capped so I plan splitting one way or another next week sometime. I will try grafting again and see how that works out. Piles of pollen coming in.

Why is your apple tree not blooming? Did it freeze off this spring?


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## gww

Danial
The apple trees have not bloomed since I planted them 4 years or so ago. I think something must be lacking in the soil. They should have been old enough when I first planted them. Box store trees. Go figure. I have read of possible things to do about it but have been too lazy to follow through. I don't get the pears. They had blooms the first year and then one had a few last year and this year one has one little cluster of bloom in one spot. One is growing at twice the rate and I have heard you sometimes have to retard groth. The other one is not though and so I think something in the dirt is missing.

Being foundationless, I have lots and lots of capped drone brood right now. I am pretty sure some hatched and I saw some 9 days ago but am about to see a whole bunch more when what is capped hatches.

You are in a cooler place then me and so I might need to tip the hive I took the brood frame from tommorrow if you have already found queen cells. There was nothing on the three brood frames I did pull but now you have me scared.

I wonder if the small hive with the dinky queen would tear down a capped queen cell if I put one in the hive? 

I have two traps up by the house and every morning, I look at them to see if any scouts are checking them out. Last year it was a pretty good guage of when my hives were issuing swarms. I see one or two bees the last two mornings but nothing that made me worry but I do go down and look at my tree line where the hives are whenever I see anything looking at the traps.

I can not see eggs, I do look for larva in the brood areas. Do you use enough queen cells that a simple split won't provide enough extra cells to do what you need? I do not see grafting ever being part of my future cause I can't see good enough. Good luck though. Just cause I am not planning on doing it does not mean I would not like a report of how it goes and what you learn while you do it. If you feel like typing, I would like to hear how it goes.

The hives seem light enough that I think I have room and may not be checking as deep as I need to based on a wrong guess on back filling. 

One of the supers I put on them is warping all over the place and has entrances in all four corners. I almost took a picture. It is so bad that even I might have to switch it out and not much bothers me.

All my hives seem heathy enough but I just can't believe how about three of them are just super loaded with bees compared to the rest which are all at differrent levels from each other.

Did you notice any wax being drawn anywhere?

This being the warmest day for awhile, middle day had some amazing to and from traffic from the hives and the bees all looked loaded. I still had a few gung ho bees bulling up on me which surprized me with the busyness of them. I am guessing the clouds passing still made a few gaurd bees agressive. Over all they were pussy cats but even my small hive had some bees interested in my viel. I was in shorts and crocks so I am not complaining but did notice it and was a little surprized.

Thanks for reading and telling me about your queen cells. I guess if nothing else, I might need to tip my two scariest swarm chance hives tomorrow.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I could see how soil conditions would prevent blooms on trees, but wouldn't know. I had 1 apple tree and saw it would bloom but no fruit. Then I had a brain storm and realized I needed another for pollinating. Of course, when there's a couple apples they never see maturity with too many deer around. They seem to like them just before they are ripe. Deer aren't eating off the buds are they? Deer become rodents when you own property and try to grow something. They nip and scrape down everything. I enjoyed shooting a few during the hunting season just to get even a bit. 

The queen cell hive was very early and not a very big colony yet. The conditions were just right to make them feel out of space. I have been doing a little equalizing between hives regarding winter stores left over. Some have way much, but last year they consumed a lot of extra for brood. I think it had a strengthening effect that equaled more bees and more honey, as long as they are kept from swarming. 

About grafting, I have split so far and gained queens from that, but with plastic foundation it's near impossible to cut out individual cells off comb. If too many are on one frame I don't get as many possibilities. I do have my strongest hive on some foundationless comb, but I want to use it for queen rearing, yet see how big it gets and the honey harvest off of it. It's looking better than the big producer last year at this time. It has 3 mediums with brood nest and today the remaining deep has several combs all polished up for the queen. It's way ahead of the others. I did graft once last year and had marginal success, except I missed on the day count and had 2 virgins emerge and kill off the rest. Go figure. After that, life got a bit distracting so I didn't try again. I will let you know how it goes. 

This time of year, I would check every 7 days and do a bit of digging to see how each box looks as far as queen having room, backfilling, empty cells waiting for eggs, etc. If you don't it's a near guarantee that they will swarm, especially with limited comb. Any backfillng, move up 2 or 3 frames and give them empties in the nest. I had foundationless in 16 and kept swarms at bay in 4 hives that way. I am now in the time where I will feed empty comb one way or another to the colonies when I don't see room for expansion of the nest. I do have maybe 10 boxes of drawn mediums and at maybe 8 of deeps. I worry about wax moths getting into them though. Their in the old house but there's been moths in there. I hope they're tight enough to keep them out.


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## gww

Danial
Most years I don't get fruit. last year the animals ate them while they were not even close to done but most years it is like you say, a couple of days before people eat it. When it is close like that, I usually get to at least taste one. I need to do a little getting even. I have been keeping two roosters seperated during the day and so am putting some chicken food on the ground. The squirils are not even scared of me or the dog any more. I watched nine run off the other day and had to talk to two of them to get them to run. I am creating my own problims. Same with mice. I will catch 20 or so to knock them down and then get tired of setting and checking traps and let them build back up so I can do it again. I built a 6 foot fence around my garden and have stopped the deer (though I still eat a few a year) but have not figured the moles out yet.

I have live trapped a couple of **** and possom and killed them and I think they are eating some of the fruit with the squirils. You can kill them but then new ones move in and so it never last for long.

On the trees not blooming, I got most of my thoughts off the internet of what might be wrong. I wish they would bloom cause they took me a week of hard labor to plant and if I can't get fruit I would at least like to get honey. My experiance in the past with trees managed like I manage them is you might get a banner year every 5 years or so and then you freeze or can if you want fruit all the time.

It was the weather that made me wait 9 days to inspect though I didn't look at all of them and so it is only a partial excuse and lazyness is the other one.

I could see that if you had to fight a job and the weather, that grafting would take a real calander and the good habit of looking at it every day to not lose your cells to a misscount. Bummer on losing them all but I am sure you know what you could have had with out the mistake. Learned the parts that went right anyway.

My problim during swarm season is that I have no direction that is solid of a direction I want to go. Wether I want more hives or more honey and so I end up watching and then just reacting to what I see and taking whatever out come it is. If I wanted to make bees, I would know what to try and on the honey, I am sorta trying it by doing nothing except looking, putting an empty comb in and adding space and then if I see queen cells, making as big of splits as possible. Not sure it is not about as good of a way to go as possible and not sure if it is bad. I think I could look deeper lots of times but am trying to get to where I can just see better with less time. I change my mind of what I want every time I look. I learn slow. 

Comb storage has not been a problim of mine as I am starved for comb all the time. I hope it goes well for you, it will be one more thing for me to learn about someday. My boxes have enough holes in the corners that I could never keep moth out if they want in.

If the wax moth get you (I hope not) make fish bait out of the larva.

If the weather lets me, I will do the 5 to 7 day inspections till I am pretty sure they are past wanting to swarm. There have been a few swarms south of me apparrently and so it can't be too far off.
Good luck this year
gww


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## gww

I did get into three more of my higher bee density hives today.

No queen cells. I did put one to two empty frames in each brood nest.

The bees are putting and capping some new honey in the very bottom box. I left it and did not rotate cause I thought it might be easier to get the queen to lay into the added super with out adding a honey dome. Mistake?

I saw on the Missouri thread that another swarm has been caught.

One hive is meaner then the rest but not bad, wonder how they will act in a derth?
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, any time I had a hive that got a bit hot for no real reason, they just got worse and needed to be dealt with. Lead up to a swarm can make them testy too. I have seen that a time or two.


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## gww

Danial
I noticed the testynest of this hive last year and it has not really gotton worse but may. I don't have a real referrence of what is good or bad cause I have never really been around bees before. It is a little differrent then my other hives but only noticable but not anywhere near not workable. I will have to make some queen cells with one of the other hives if I ever decide I need to takle the hive. I could be a chicken and this hive might not be that bad. I have seen vidios and this is nothing like those. I just notice they don't like me splitting the frames to pull them as much as the other hives. They jump out, I back off and they calm down and I go back to what I was doing.

I believe you though.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Probably when the summer dearth hits you will find out how testy they can be. Or right before a swarm.


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## gww

I got in the hives. One of the big ones seems to be backfilling in the brood nest a bit. It is drawing a little comb though and I tipped all the boxes and did not see any queen cups or cells. I just pulled another brood frame out of the middle of the brood nest and put it up in the super and replaced it with an empty. Got my fingers crossed.

I will need to super one of my smaller hives maby next week. The top box of two was drawn out but the bottom still had about three frames not drawn out. I pulled one of the emptie frames from the bottom box and moved it up to the center of the brood nest on top and put one of the drawn frames in bottom to replace it. I find that they bees sometime move up and never fill out those bottom box undrawn frames.

Danial
I had one of my smaller hives jumping out at me today and the other one that is a little agressive was still so compared to the others. Your very last comment about aggressiveness right before a swarm makes me think I should have gone a little deeper in the small one. It still has empty frames and I see bees right at top of a frame and so assume they are in the beginning of drawing comb. They were jumping at me a little. There is lots of pollen coming in lots of foraging going on and you would think the hives would be super calm. 

I do not notice any of the hives really gaining weight. I did see some new drawn comb and they have small stores in them to keep them going but they are not heavy by any means. If they don't starve to death, I think what I did keeps me safe from swarms for one more week.

Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I had to split my super hive of the year. I took the queen since it has a dozen queen cells in the making. I haven't kept up with the cool weather till lately. I should have taken things more seriously again. It is a deep and 3 mediums, full of bees, and probably easily 5 gallons of stores on it already. Too bad, I would have liked to see how tall it got. That's a second one with cells. The first on, I pulled all the cells down to see what happens since it's a queen line I don't want to continue. If the queen is gone I will use the colony for splitting up more of the swarm cells in the big one. 

Several of my other hives are not real building well, so I treated all of them but the big one a round of OAV. I see a little mite stress maybe. Most of them were slow to build up the brood nest in with the weather we have had and few fly days till a couple weeks ago, and maybe winter die off is catching up. I could see loosing a few of them, but some sputtered a while last year at this time and then got out of it without treating anything.


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## gww

Danial
Sounds like you need lots of extra equiptment. I hope you are prepared. Your hives must be heathier then mine, or you started with more stores in the hives. I did not feed as heavy last fall as I did the fall before.

I have some that are definatly not growing at the same pace as some others. I am going to ride it out and see how it goes, even if I end up losing a few. I am thinking all are going to come out of it but the one with the skinny queen with the spotty laying pattern. I need to adress that at some point in time but figure the bees are going to do like yours eventually and give me queen cells even if I don't want them. So far so good. 

My wife ask me if I am paying attention cause she thinks it is a bad thing if my bees fly off and dissapear. I told her, yes I was watching and hoping I was seeing well.

Give me a report of what you think of how your bees respond to your treatments, I would be interrested if you feel like typing.
Cheers
gww

Ps I would also be interrested in knowing how your hive that you destroyed the queen cells in responds. Whether they build more cells or calm down and produce?


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## DanielD

I don't think I need the equipment I have now, but that can surely change in a hurry. I built another 35 boxes and frames over winter, and I have boxes of extra comb from last year. So far it's not looking all that great, but I may have thought that last year at this time. We will see. It remains to be seen what's up with the sputtering colonies, but hopefully they will still amount to a little bit. 

I need to check that hive with the queen cells torn down. Last I saw there were eggs laid 3-4 days after I took the cells out.


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## gww

Danial


> I built another 35 boxes and frames over winter,


Dang, I don't know if I should be proud of you or embarrassed for me. That is close to what I did and I don't have a job and bee stuff is all I did.
They fill up fast some times.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, now I didn't go cutting down the trees or milling out the lumber first like you do. I also didn't have too busy a winter.


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## gww

Danial


> gww, now I didn't go cutting down the trees or milling out the lumber first like you do. I also didn't have too busy a winter.


You also built the frames which I do also and so know what it takes.
I am still impressed.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I found a third hive with queen cells started so I pulled the queen. It isn't a big colony, but it had extra stores yet from winter and decided to pack up. Glad I found them before the event. I think I am not keeping track well enough since the bottom deep had no brood or eggs and was largely empty. I was thinking I reversed the boxes a week or two ago. I need a notebook I guess. Because of the swarm cells, I took away the bottom box and made a nuc with the queen. It has a deep and medium on yet. The deep and medium had brood, but also several frames of winter stores left. I got rid of some of it to extract tomorrow. I might extract 3-4 gallons of leftover stores. 

The first hive with swarm cells was smaller actually, the one that I took out all the cells. Today I find the nice looking dark queen and lots of eggs laid with more room polished and ready for the queen yet. It seems they decided to stay. When I found it they were in the top box with a lot of honey under them. I broke it all up and moved the top box down, giving them empty drawn comb in the brood nest and above it. Seems to have worked and I am surprised. It's actually building up well and looks like it will be a strong enough producer in a month when main flow gets going, unless they decide to swarm again.


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## gww

Danial
Unless I am blind, I have a few more days and I will look again but don't think I have any that even tried yet. You destroying your cells and it seeming for now to make a differrence is good news and buys you a week or two even if it turns. Sometimes having an extra minute in a busy schedule is a big help and you might win the game yet. You have 25 hive/nucs, I only have eight and sometimes I only look at half. I can sometimes remember seeing something minutes after I am done looking and not remember which hive I saw it in cause it did not hit me as important till later or I just am losing my memory.

I do know that I had a job once that required notes and I remember looking at those notes later and not even being able to understand what they were saying. I am not sure notes would help me unless I did like some and wrote them on the hive its self. 

Some of your hives must be heathier then mine to be makeing cells two weeks ago. It would not help me to extract cause on the small one that had the most stores, I am sure it is sugar water. The rest of the hives have been pretty light all along and so that kind of room is not needed though I did see the one big hive backfilling in the brood nest on the top box. The boxes were none too heavy though and so I take it for granted that there is empty space in the two bottom boxes. I did pull brood into the super for bait to keep the queen thinking about moving up rather then down into that empty space.
Fingers crossed. 

Thanks for telling me the destroyed queen cells hives reation so far.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I would guess that the reason taking out the queen cells worked, was that I also made dramatic changes in the hive configuration and opened up a lot of space.


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## DanielD

I went through most of my hives in the last couple days and have a different assessment of them. I am thinking some of the smaller colonies have just fallen behind as their numbers generally can shrink as they begin flying in the spring before the first brood emerges. There hasn't been much pollen collecting till a couple weeks ago. In some of the smaller colonies, the brood nest has rapidly expanded in a few days and I see a coming strength in another week or two. They grow very fast this time of year. There's a whole month before main flow, and it may be a little later with the late spring. Some of my stronger hives are fanning hard to dry down nectar, so there's extra being stored. I will probably be adding supers to some tomorrow when I check them. 

I do have a colony where the queen went drone layer, but they may have pulled off one supersedure cell with a fertilized egg. We'll see. The colony is small so I reduced it way down to see what happens. It's a new queen from last year.


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## gww

Danial
I wanted to get in the hives today but the morning got cloudy and by the time it cleared out I was tired. I have my two of my grandkids here for four days and it takes me and the wife to handle it. We got out of the habit. I still intend to look at something tommorrow which is day six from the last time and so I should be good. I don't know about fanning but the traffic to and from the hives was intense and I have no ideal of what they are on. One thing I think I noticed the year is that all my bloom periods seemed to be much shorter on each thing that bloomed except for dandilion. Some of the trees were only a few days each when I was expecting ten days each.

I bet the flow comes close to, on time, though it is still forcast to be pretty cool for the next ten days if you consider highs of 75 degrees cool.

I am hoping for some comb to be being drawn in the empty spots I provided but not so much that they are backfilling.

I have seen no scout activity at any trap I have looked at yet but have not been checking them except the ones close to the house.

I think they are on something and I have seen them on dandilion. I kinda wish my dink queen would superceed just cause of how skinny and small she is and her laying pattern does not seem good. I am sure before it is over somebody will be starting cells to swarm and I will handle that then. I do hope that they all don't decide to swarm though cause I am hoping to see if there is any honey making potential with these bees.

If I do make it into my hives tomorrow, I will try and keep your comments on your hives in mind while I look through mine and compare or at least know things to look for. 

I have about a foot worth of concreet board in front of three of my hives and it usually has quite a few dead bees on it and so I know some of the bees are dieing but did attribute it to winter bees wearing themselves out.

Thank you for telling me what you are seeing with your hives.
Cheers
gww
Ps I just looked at the ten day forcast and it has changed and looks like the heat is on. A pretty radical change.


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## gww

I got in the hives this morning. The forcast high was supposed to be 75 but on the same site it says it is 85 degrees right now. I believe it.

I did well on the first 5 hives and sluffed off on the last three. On them I just tipped the biggest one to see if there were cups being made. Not many and dry.
I also looked to make sure they still had empty frames to fill but did not move them around to give them a bigger incentive to fill them. I did on all the first five.

All except the dink hive have increased the bee density pretty well and drew small amounts of comb. Going in the right direction anyway. On a couple of the smaller ones, I took some drawn frames from the top boxes and pulled the few in the bottom box that the bees did not draw. The bees are doing thier drawing in the top boxes and so even though I like pulling everything higher, I didn't think they would ever draw them if I left them in the lower boxes.

I added another medium hive body to another of the mid sized hives bringing it up to three boxes room wise.

The biggest hives have drawn out the frames that I had put in the brood nest and are putting honey in the added supers and drawing a little wax for that. I am guessing about 40 percent drawn and filled. The smaller ones except for the dink (which is heavy for its size) seem pretty light considering the amount of bees there is starting to be in the hives.

Unless the two mid sized hives that I really did not tip and look for queen cups decides to trick me, I think I am fine for another week. I did not see many queen cups and what I did see was dry.
Cheers
gww

Ps I did break one full brood comb. It is still attached and I put it up against a wall hoping the bees will notice it is lose and I hope it does not drop while hanging there. It is broke but did not fall and I did not rubber band it.


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## gww

5 days from last inspection. Still no queen cell being started. I did not tip one of the big hives but did steal a compleetly solid frame of capped brood from it to give to my dink till I decide to work on getting a queen made for it. So on the big one that I looked at last, I only looked at a few brood frames for queen cells but figured that was going to be good enough after looking at all the others.

On about 3/4 of the hives, I put another empty frame in the brood nest.

Some capped honey and small comb drawing but they are not going to town yet. At some point I will have to move a few drawn combs down rather then up for the few frames in the lower part of the hives that the bees inore so they can work at the top of the hive with thier comb drawing. I don't find that they always work in both low and high places when it comes to drawing comb.

Most of the hives seem to be growing like they should, saw lots of drones also.

I am still only seeing the bees on bush honey suckle which I have a lot of but also don't see anything else around at this time. Dandilions are mostly gone and white yard clover is not here yet. 
Some hives could be heavier and an extended period of rain could maby put a couple of them in jepordy but I sure like my ability to control the swarm instint this year with the late cold winter and my hives not being packed with fall feed.


I moved four more supers to store down by my hives for when stuff breaks lose. All those little task add up.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I am surprised a bit to hear you have no swarm prep going on there gww. Today I have found 2 hives that have swarmed already on me. One, I am thinking that I just missed checking it last week since all the cells are capped and some of the brood is emerged out. It also has piles of nectar on it. I don't think I am doing a good enough job keeping track of where I have looked. The other one was a smaller hive and I may have thought it was not doing well and ignored it too much. I did that to one last year. 

One thing happening in the last week is the tremendous amount of nectar coming in compared to last May. I haven't seen such a flow coming in. I have hives packing it all over the place. I have a few bigger hives that could have 2 mediums plus worth of nectar on. What a change of perspective in 2 weeks. One colony had a partially filled medium on top but was proceeding to pack it in the brood nest. I am opening it up the best I can but they seem to just want to fill the new empty comb. I am watching and ready to pull queens if needed. That makes 5 that have gone to swarm mode. One was stopped taking out cells, 2 had queens pulled, and 2 swarmed away. I am not doing too well with swarm prevention this year. I wonder if the late start of spring has caused a lot of blooms to come on at once instead of bit by bit, and now there's a flood happening. I will run out of boxes for sure if they don't get some capped for extraction in a timely manner. I think I need to build. Two weeks ago I was thinking I have more than enough.


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## gww

Danial
I did see some back filling of the brood nest in the top box but no queen cups, even dry ones. I have two that have about a third of a medium each of honey and some capping but the smaller hives are not showing that and the bigger hives are packed with bees and so probly have a good forage force percentage wise to the whole hives. 

I could miss some cells cause I am mostly looking from the bottom and not in the middle of the frames. I did pull some brood frames though cause I opened the nest. I tHink I have a pretty good handle on where to look efficiantly due to seeing so many cells last year. I can no add drawn comb and so the only way for the hive to expand is to draw comb. Some are and some are just leaving the empty added space. The bees might act differrent with empty frames compared to drawn comb.

Remember my very aggressive and early box rotation on three of the hives? That may have set them back a little. I also did not fill every bit of space last fall like I did the year before. One other thing could be differrent. I saw the blooms you mentioned and think my area may have just a little differrent plant life to chose from cause I did not see some of the things you are listing.

The flow this year seemed to me to be coming one tree at a time and the blooms did not seem to be lasting the ten days that might be possible. Some of the trees seemed to lose thier blooms faster then I thought it happened last year.

Maby my bees are not healty though I do not think that is the case. I am thinking I am set up to do much better honey wise this year but not so good on making more hives. I also have 16 traps over a 20 mile radious and have not caught a scout looking at a trap yet. To bad we are not closer. I would loan you some equiptment so you could keep up. In five more days I might be posting a differrent story but so far so good except for catching swarms.

I have mostly pulled up a brood frame into the upper boxes even if honey is all that is in the upper boxes and putting empties in their place.

I had also added more frames last fall to the smaller hives by putting the comb from the supers I extracted on them and getting the ones that were not two mediums full up to two mediums and so maby the bees were starting with more comb then the bee density called for giving me a little more time for them to build into the hives. I don't know why for sure but am keeping up for now.

What is funny is that my dink hive with the dink queen has lots of honey in it compared to the medium size hives. I am sure the brood frame I put in there today will help with eating some of those combs free.

You mention forgetting which hive you have looked at. I only have eight hives (not 25) and I put a brick on one to remind me to do something and I could not remember the reason I put it there. I think it was to remind me I would not need to look in that hive for awhile. At least that is what it looks like I put it there for after I did look.
Cheers
gww

Ps It was getting cloudy at the end of my inspection and I almost got stung on the very end of my nose. I could feel the venom but she did not get me good enough to get the barb in due to the viel. I think one bit me on the foot, I felt what I thought was going to be a sting and looked down and was about to smash a bee with the crock against my foot. I paniced enough to flip my crock of my foot and got lucky again. I had one sting my smock that I wear also. The bees were pretty good but you could tell a small change when it was getting cloudy.


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## 1102009

I believe your situation is similar to mine, last year it was a lot of rain and late frost, this spring it´s a sudden high flow being over soon and a drought coming, we hope for some rain the next days.
I had to decide to make a production hive of the honey bound colony or do a split. No swarm urge in this colony, this is a last years queen.
Who knows, maybe the bees just decided to give the queen a brake in advantage to nectar storing as long as they could.
Do they feel a drought coming?
I decided for a split because I´m already self provided with honey.
In case of selling some I would probably exploit the situation and expand and checkerboarded this hive.


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## gww

SiW
I sure hope we don't start this summer with a drought. My garden is just now getting planted which is close to three weeks later then I normally have stuff in it and no rain just makes it not very nice and pretty out side. We did have a very dry fall winter last year. The winter last year was very differrent then the early warm spell we got the year before. 

I think my bees are on track even if behind what they were last year which was what I was trying to make happen also cause I lost control before it got warm last year. I am not experianced enough to be sure but am happy with how things are looking on my side of the pond. It sounds like your bees this spring are doing what you want them to also.

Except for deciding on how to make a few more bees this year, I am thinking that I liked the long cold with fewer flying days of this year better then the super warm early last year. Of course I will know more come july.

I wanted to take some pictures but am too lazy to do both (inspect and take pictures). I think about it but then start sweating and say heck with it.

Cheers
gww

Ps I do know the brood pattern on the capped brood frame that I moved to the dink would have made anybody proud. It was full on both sides with light colored capping and full as full could be with no gaps.


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## 1102009

Fingers crossed.
The trees and berry bushes already drop down much green fruit 

Try some picts, I´m very interested!


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## squarepeg

we are short on rain at this time as well gww, and i'm seeing a noticable slow down in progress in the honey supers.


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## gww

Square
I think we are ok on rainfall for now and have some supposidly comming in two days. I hope it reflects in the plants that were droughted last winter. Everything is green but the grasses and wild flowers are not blooming around me and we are hitting some days high 90 degrees and it can go bad at that point pretty quick. 

I do not remember, last year, the seperation of each blooming thing like it seems this year which could turn out to be a good thing. 

I am like every one else this time of year. Mostly fingers crossed.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, my biggest hive that was in swarm mode, I pulled the queen almost 2 weeks ago, and it is just packed with honey. There is easily 75 lbs, and probably 100 on it. I haven't seen such a thing in May before and not exactly sure what bloomed to cause it. Every hive has been getting packed and it happened in 2 weeks. There is a lot of invasive Russian Olive and it has bloomed big this year, which doesn't always happen. I actually don't remember the olives blooming like they did this year. It is now drying up but still has some bees on it. It's this year's hard lesson and I am not doing as well keeping swarms at bay. May has always been a month where nectar inflow just keeps up with brood feeding, but not this year. Even my strongest hive last year at this time maybe had a medium getting partially full. I am hoping for some capped honey before the sweet clover blooms. I have been opening up brood nests, but the new empty comb has been being filled with nectar. I am a bit discombobulated over it all and mostly just hope to catch any queens before they leave, and hope that powerful flow is finished.


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## gww

Danial
Sounds like you have good hording genetics in your bee. I saw a few miss the landing board at 8:30 am and so I figure that is a good sign. The bees are coming and going in masses. My bees are having to draw every comb (of course except when they back fill). I had some capped honey in the added super but in the 5 days between checks, they had not drawn that much and a couple of the hives are dence with bees and I am expecting some action when more brood hatches. I still only see honey suckle bush but have a ton of it. I think if bees had a choice, they may not work the honey suckle so hard but could be wrong on that. I just did not notice them working it as hard last year and last year it bloomed with the other trees like the wild plumb which the bees did like very well. Now it seems to be in bloom more by itself.

I will know in a couple days. I had a super on two hives that are about 30 percent filled and capped and so I should be able to see a differrence in a week and think that since they have to draw the comb to store anything, they have enough room. For you, it is pretty bad when you are hoping flows to end.

Thanks for keeping me imformed as it happens and advice is always welcome also.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

First swarm catch of the year yesterday.The trap

Ps I had typed explintaions for the pictures and then lost connection and when I got back my connection, this is what came up and I was too frustered to type it all again.


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## 1102009

:thumbsup:  

thanks for the picts!


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## DanielD

Not from your hives? I found a small cluster the size of a softball yesterday. It had a slim queen but it didn't look like a virgin queen. I put it in a box to see if the queen is laying. Not sure what to do with it. It could be a supersedure swarm. I will see if I come up with any evidence in my colonies. You made me put up a swarm trap this morning gww. As though I don't have enough.


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## gww

SiW...
Thanks and here are a few more.

Danial
From about 9 miles away from me is where I caught it.

Here are some crappy pictures I took while transfering it to a hive on a stand.









And another before I just picked up all 5/6 frames and transferred them all at once to the new box.









And then last but not least while I was there, I added another super to my biggest hive because they had filled the first one from about 30 percent to more then 80 percent in the last four days. My other big hive is only about 60 percent in the super and I hope it is not a mistake but I did not add a super to it yet and am going to be busy for a few days. I added another brood box to one other hive. It has only been four days. The bees are drawing wax. 










This was the young part of a walk away split that actually gave me as much honey as the hive that did not swarm. I had also pulled a brood frame from this hive and gave it to another hive and it has drawn that comb out and filled it as well as what it did in the super.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

What a differrance a couple of weeks makes. I looked in the dink today and the adding of a medium frame and a half of capped brood has made it take off. What is really amazing is the spotty laying pattern has cleared up. It might have been a touch of brood disiese due to stress of being so small. It is now drawing comb and has all but two frames in the top box drawn and I am sure there are empties in the bottom box that need switched with a few on the top but I did not do that today, I just moved the two empties in and between brood. It is now pretty packed with bees.

My second biggest hive did not really draw more comb and my biggest hive has not really did anything in the last added super. It rained yesterday and I think there may be a small short term slowdown in the flow. I was super lazy and did not check for swarm cells in any of the hives based on just looking at the two big ones and what they had done. This could be a mistake due to me seeing some scouts at two of my traps today. It had rained and I was not sure of the scouts cause they were bunching up on a corner of the trap and working the trunk of the tree more then going in the entrance. It could be a bit too much lemon grass oil inside the hive or it could be with the wetness, the bees were foraging some mineral from the wet wood or something.

It was cloudy and windy and so I waited till 2pm to start looking. In the end, the bees were nice but I got to sweating and quit anyway. I will probibly pay for it.

Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Mine swarmed right after the rainy days. Too much time they had inside to talk about that. 

New experience. The split was on 4 frames of honey bound brood and 6 frames of bees totally in a square dadant box 12 frames and a medium super.
Seems they sent 50% of bees to forage before the rain started and were crowded still.


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## gww

SiW....


> Mine swarmed right after the rainy days. Too much time they had inside to talk about that.


Yes, That was going through my mind but I was still lazy. I am watching the hives several times a day in the hopes that I catch any swarm that I was too lazy to get in the hive and try and stop properly. 

That was a very nice swarm you had and they treated you right being so easy to catch rather then 30 feet in a tree. Thanks for posting your pictures.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Just a small update so I remember when I looked last and can guage when to look again.

I think the flow that gives excess has slowed a bit since the honey suckle bloom is over and my yard clover in my area has not really taken off. I do not see much out there.

The hives throw me a bit and a few that I think should be growing faster are not and a few I was not real sure about or were the same as those hives are growing much faster. I put two more supers on and one needed it more then the other one. I have a couple of medium sized hives that could starve to death if the flow dried up too much and they have the same bee density as a few that are storing really well. Go figure. I am not going to feed and keep my fingers crossed cause I am trying to learn the signs of stress and what can and can not be lived with better then I know now.

Over all, I probly have 4 or 5 gal of super honey in the hives in total so far. I had to smash strait a couple of wonky frames where the bees had started to twist near the end of the frame to a differrent frame but it was easier then some I have seen. I had a fat comb that I flipped and that caused me to remove a frame from the box. I am sure I smash bees doing this. One of my more agressive hives is one that is storing honey the best. It is not out of hand in any way and just has to be worked a tiny bit slower but is going to town on storage. I am still working in shorts and not getting stings to my smock and so it is not bad, just something you can see a little.

I did not tip all boxes but did some and did not see much back filling while pulling up a brood frame which I have sorta made my habit most times I get in the hive. I really do this if I have a honey super that is mostly capped honey but not fully built out yet. I am trying to keep the queen thinking about moving up. I am close to the point of just adding space and not inspecting deep at all and hoping that storing is whats on the bees mind during the next hard flow and not swarming.

I have still made no splits and may not. I would think about doing like michael palmer does and taking the hives that are not going to be good producers and spliting them but then I have to figure out the queen situation cause those hives genetics are not the queens I would want and I don't want to split the big ones cause I want to see how they produce this year and I don't want to just make some queens. I have been relieing on losing control of one of the big ones and them making swarm cells but that has not happend yet (which is what I was trying for also). I know I could split and destroy cells and then add a brood frame from one of the hives I like but have not decided to do that yet. Maybe I will take that on in middle june if I can reconize the flow. Maybe I will just live with what I have and see what happens.

I did see a little bit of spottyness in brood pattern in one of my bigger hives but did not see anything too out of the ordinary of perferated caps or anything.

Over all, things seem ok except I can't quite figure out the differrences in the storage from hive to hive. I do know honey is heavy and the capped frames sure are pretty.

Cheers
gww


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## gww

I have only had one picture do justus to showing bees in the air. I know you beekeepers have seen lots of bees and bearding and such of your own with out seeing mine. However, I have the pictures and so guess I might as well post them. 4 pm and some oreintation going on and my first bearding from my hive that bearded the most last year. It is 86 degrees out side and so not that hot yet. 









I tried twice but it does not look like what my eyes were seeing.









I removed the intrance reducer on the bearding hive after the picture. I have slatted racks on which does help with bearding some (not that bearding is bad).


I have finally seen a few crawlers in the grass and so might be headed for some kind of trouble. I looked at the wings and they did not seem to be deformed and some of the brood is a little spotty but I do not see any larva in the open parts and no perferated cells.

The hive closest is my only hive that has never been split or swarmed and this is its third summer.
Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

Good luck!
The crawlers could be nectar heavy bees coming back landing in the gras resting before going in? 
Nice bee yard. Thanks for posting picts.  I like the corners of the boxes how they are done. ( Don´t know the term of that craftsmanship).


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## gww

SiW.....
I don't think the crawlers are nector laden bees. I thought they might be stung drone bees cause they looked a little bigger but I think they are just workers. They are crawling up blades of grass and then falling off. I only saw about five over a two day period but am a worrier of sorts due to how well things have been going. I have seen simular behavior but not exact behavior in early spring when it is cool out and lots of bees are on the ground collecting water. 

The boxes are not all the same. I tried several differrent ways of building and don't do the finger joints anymore but don't know how what I am doing is going to hold up. I have some doing well and some warping pretty good but I am still using them.

Those bees on the third box half way up are coming and going there cause the gap between the boxes is big enough to become an entrance.

They still make honey in them though.
Thanks
gww


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## gww

This is my dink.









Now it came out of winter as a single medium with not a lot of bees but a whole bunch of stores still in the comb (sugar water fed in fall). I had went ahead and added a box and split up the comb so that they could draw some laying room. The queen was little and laying pretty spotty. I gave them a frame and a half of capped brood (medium frames). To me it seems impossible that it could have this many bees cause it does not seem like it has had time to have many brood cycles.

After adding the brood and maybe a small uptic in flow, The laying pattern tightened up and the hive is booming (compared to what it was). It still has about 5 undrawn comb and so they have only drawn about 3 comb but they have made some bees. 

Mostly it is a learning experiance and it just surpises me. I probibly set them back today cause I took the three frames not drawn out and put them between brood frames splitting three frames of brood with empties between them. They had drawn one little lobe of comb in a cross ways to attach to the wall of the hive. I scraped it off and let it drop to the bottom of the hive and then surounded all empty comb with strait stuff.

The bees have picked up the pace and so must be on the start of something again. Not seeing it in the hive in added comb or stores but I am seeing a lot of bees wiggling thier butts in excitement.

I checked the swarm that I caught and it has about a little less then a volly ball worth of comb built and it is bringing in orange pollen. I looked at about half of the frames that are just packed with brood in a very tight laying pattern. I looked for the queen to see if she was marked but stopped at about half way through with out seeing her cause everything was looking good with out seeing her. I had given these bees about a 30 ounce coffee can of sugar water as thick as I could mix it and so it still had some seperated sugar in it so I added another 2 cups of sugar and some water and mixed some a little thinner rather then waste it and put that back on them. It was about half full. I was going to quit after the first boost but it was easier to mix a little more then throw away the hard stuff.

I did not look for queen cells being started in the rest of the hives though I did try and pay attention to wether they were still drawing comb. It was hit or miss, but I did see small festooning and there is lots of room on all and so I am taking a chance that if the flow really is picking up that they are switched to storage mode rather then swarm mode. I will still watch a little for swarm cells and split if I see them but am not going to consintrate on it like I was. Not the end of the world if I misjudge.

Went out at 8am and was still sweated wet by 9:30am.

I hope I am guessing correct on an uptick in the flow and that it last as long as possible. I sure don't see it in the plants yet except maby a small amount of yard clover coming on a little stronger.
It might be time also to be able to go a little longer between looking in the hives and not going near as deep as I have been which is probibly not as deep already as many do.
Time will tell. Good fortune to the rest of you.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

It has only been four days but I was worried about the dink hive cause it seemed like the bees were really on something. The dink hive had drawn out three frames and filled them in that time. I don't know what they did in the bottom box but it still had one frame not drawn out. They are back filling the brood nest but I did not see any queen cups on the top box which was mostly honey but had brood in a part of two or three frames. I am sure that I should have checked harder for cells but instead just pulled two frames up into an added medium. Both mediums before this addition were wall to wall with bees.

I do not know what this tells me. I am thinking it might tell me that before I added the frame and a half of brood that the hive was not at critical mass to be able to grow even if stuffed with stores or if the hive is just a late bloomer. The queen was a spotty layer but that has gone away. 

I pulled the empty coffee can that I had fed the swarm I caught with. It does not have tremendous activity out side the hive but seems to have used the sugar water to expand its brood nest a little and looks to be growing normal. It is on its own now until fall when I feed for weight.

Unless I change my mind, tomorrow, I am going to get in the rest of the hives and look at the ones with two supers each on them and see if the bottom supers are capped. If they are, I am going to pull them about two hours before dark and set them on their sides and see if they clear of bees so I can extract. I have never tried this yet but think we are on a good enough flow that it should work with out any robbing. Time will tell. I know that two of the supers had quite a bit of capped honey two weeks ago but don't know if most of the honey is capped enough to not need a refractometer. The hives are super noisy and so I know they are drying nectar like crazy.

I did see some sweet yellow clover blooming in some road ditches even though there is none on my place. I saw persimmon blooming but did not see any bees on it.

Got my fingers crossed for tomorrow.
I just can not believe that the dink is catching up and maybe beating a few of the other hives.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

No honey in the hives that is capped enough to extract yet. Infact, I do have a chimney of brood still not hatched out in a couple of the top frames that I do notice the bees are back filling as they hatch.

I had two hives that had a frame or two pulled up into the top boxes that had bee coverage on them but the boxes under the top ones were super loaded with bees to the point of bees boiling out over the edges when I moved the boxes. No new drawing of comb in the top boxes even though the comb there was covered very well. I had other hives that had the same comb make up but you could see a little festooning on some of the bars in the top box showing they were accepting the space (that is how I took it) So on the two that it still did not look like they were drawing comb in the top boxes, I pulled another frame with some brood in them (that looked like it was being back filled as it hatched) and moved it up into the top boxes and replaced with empties. I hope this stops those bees that seem to be crowding themselves even though they have space above.

I am going to do my best to stay out of the hives till the 10th of the month.
Cheers
gww


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## GregB

gww said:


> ....
> I just can not believe that the dink is catching up and maybe beating a few of the other hives.
> Cheers
> gww


Like people have been saying - wintered nucs are the next year's boomers.
So whatever comes out of the winter as a dink is still a keeper (in my book).
It wintered - that says it all.


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## gww

Greg
Early spring the dink did not seem to be expanding and then it just exploded. It just does not seem like enough brood cycles could have possibly went by for the amount of bees in the hive now. It had just a couple of seams of bees and a spotty laying pattern and one medium with most of the comb still filled from fall. I had a sugar block on it and had noticed late march early april that this hive had built a tiny bit of comb in the feeder shim and so I added a medium and split the comb up between the two boxes and then it just sit there going nowhere and was behind everything and then boom, now it is ahead.

I have one or two hives that have very active entrance activity that would make you think they have a million bees but when you open them they are actually a little behind on build up on other similar sized hives. You sure have to take a few things in to decide how a hive is doing cause comparing individual items like flight activity does not tell the whole story. 

Of topic, my stupid apple trees that I sent you pictures of did not really bloom except for maybe 20 flowers on two trees. 20 flowers is more then I have ever seen and so maybe it is just an age thing with hopefully next year being better.

I have slowed down on my bread making cause I went through my 100 lbs of free flour and so now am buying flour for my self and not giving away as much bread to everyone I see.
Cheers
gww


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## GregB

gww said:


> Greg
> Early spring the dink did not seem to be expanding and then it just exploded. ...........
> 
> Of topic, my stupid apple trees that I sent you pictures of did not really bloom except for maybe 20 flowers on two trees. 20 flowers is more then I have ever seen and so maybe it is just an age thing with hopefully next year being better.
> 
> I have slowed down on my bread making cause I went through my 100 lbs of free flour and so now am buying flour for my self and not giving away as much bread to everyone I see.
> Cheers
> gww



"not seem to be expanding and then it just exploded" - this is how my bees are.
Granted I am up North and this was a very crappy and late spring - their late explosion is good (in my book).
They stayed small and half-asleep until into May (was a good thing with our snow until mid-April).
Well, look at them now. Whew.

This is one of those northern traits (some call it "russian" or whatever).
They stay very conservative and save resources until they are very, very, very sure - spring is here. 
Once they are sure, THEN they explode quickly. 
May or may not be good for you, but good for me.

Off-the topic:
well, on those photos you did show me flower buds; 100% sure; so it maybe was not many of them.
One of my trees bummed me this spring - was really sure it would bloom finally. NOT. Another year waiting.
Bread making - too busy here, unfortunatelly. I make break in off season. Maybe after plantings are done.


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## 1102009

gww,
I did not give my dink a brood comb and still it exploded.
The mite situation is another matter but I see them finding the mites and opening cells, I want to learn so I leave them be but will do a mite count with CO2 in june.

The bee numbers: my hives backfilled badly this year because of the flow but it seems I was wrong and some old black comb in the dink was filled with larvae which I thought full of nectar.
I have to look more carefully.


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## gww

Siw....
I could look but not see. I have never seen a mite or deformed wing yet but that does not mean they are not there. 

Msl posted a video on the breeding program that you posted what you were trying to participate in right after. In this thread I have mentioned bees in the hive shaking their butts which I took as a sign that the bees had hit on something good to forage on. In the video on the breeding, it showed bees shaking and claimed that it was because of high mite and the mite irritated the bees and that is why they shook. Tom Seeley has this video explaining different Shakes and trembles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBlCO0QZA0Y

They all look the same to me, and so I don't know if my hives are on a flow or have one heck of a lot of mites. I do know that my dink has grown faster and surprised me and you would not believe how small the queen in it is.

I make almost all of my judgement based on capped brood and its pattern. I try to add other things like growth rate, bee shaking, bee density and entrance activity and try and put the whole picture together to decide what I am looking at. That should be enough if I am interpreting correctly what I am seeing. looking further may come but I have bad eyes and think it will still take a bit. It was only last year that I was able to see the size difference in drones and workers and find a queen once in a while. If the bees keep living, I will see all things in good time.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

You can watch here how it looks when bees groom or try to shake off mites.
The "rodeo bee".
It´s totally different from the waggle dance.
If they are molested by mites they use their feet.

If it´s paralyze they act differently too and the surrounding bees act differently.

I always see waggling, mostly the flow dance, but sometimes the bees shake other bees to wake them up to work 

https://chelifer.de/video/


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## gww

Siw...
I have seen grooming at the hive entrance and at the water hole. Storch in his book "at the hive entrance" (or something like that) says that bees also do similar movements to dislodge pollen that sticks to them and becomes uncomfortable.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I tried to do two fly back splits today. 
Here is one of the hives I messed with.









I wanted to take more pictures but find that very hard to do while I am working bees and my back got to hurting, need a stool to sit on.

I am not sure how this is going to work out for a couple of reasons. I had to go though more then 20 frames to find the queen on the first hive and she was on the last frame I looked at. I had went through the first box and not found her and so set the box aside and watched for bees fanning their tails to give me a hint which box she was in. On this hive that did work and I found her on the last frame in the second box. 

The hive was back filling terribly and there was hardly no real big spots of brood. The queen looked small but there were no queen cups drawn yet. It had all but 3 frames drawn out on three boxes and the top box was mostly honey. So, I got the queen in the right place where the old hive was but I am not sure of the resources in the two boxes I moved to different stands. One of them may not have young enough brood to make a queen cell with.

The other hive, I went through 25 frames and never did find the queen. The third box on this hive only had a couple of frames fully built out. It got more cloudy all of a sudden and the bees noticed it and were jumping out when I would reach over the hive for a frame. I had both hives open for a long time and touched every frame and so I don't blame the bees. I got stung once on the wrist cause my sleeve pulled up but they did not go for my feet and legs even when I accidentally dropped one side of a frame and knocked all the bees to the ground.

So on this second hive, I need to decide how to handle the queen thing. I could go listen to the hives and check again when the sun comes out or I could just wait eight days and go in and move stuff where I want it then. Surly they will make a few extra queen cells for me to move around. I do wonder if the hives being separated eight days will make the smell different enough the the part with the queen still in it won't except a queen cell? I guess they could make their own then.

This was not nearly as easy as the flyback that I did last year where I had no queen to look for and just gave the old part a queen cell. Finding the queen was what made this split hard at all. The rest of any problem could be handled in 8/10 days when the cell is made but not finding the queen. The bees on the second hive did not stick there butts in the air on any box to tell me where the queen was not.

I went from nine hives to 13 if I can get them to work out. I still have about nine empty hives if I want to do more and probably 3 more hives that may not make much more then their 3 brood boxes by the time the flow is over and so won't make much honey. I don't know if I want more hives and no equipment to handle emergency's though.

Wish me luck.

On a side note for the heck of it, a picture of part of my wifes garden.








Any advice on how to proceed is welcome.
Thanks for reading.
gww


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## Steve in PA

Good luck!

I just broke up a big hive last night for a fly back. Running 8 frame deeps made the math work very well for me.

I sat 3 5-frame nuc boxes on a cart next to the original hive. As I took out the frames 1 at a time I carefully looked for the queen. If she wasn't there I put the frame in a nuc. It worked out really good she was on the last frame I checked. The resources of the original hive were evenly distributed to the nucs.

The math works because with 16 frames originally I have 1 left over to leave in the original with the queen.

I filled the original box with a mix of foundation and starter strips then took the nucs to my mating yard. In a month I will know if I was successful as I don't have time to learn grafting this year and I don't buy queens.


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## gww

Steve
Good luck. I did not really check for even resources as well as could be done. I am thinking it all can be fixed when the queen cells start getting capped. I will move stuff around then (though I might go out and see about finding the queen one more time today).

I find doing all of this to be harder then it had seemed when I was just thinking about it in my mind. Will you feed at all?



> In a month I will know if I was successful as I don't have time to learn grafting this year and I don't buy queens.


This is my attitude also. I am not ambitious enough to need to graft and so I leave it to the bees to pick well. 

I have the old bee part filled with empty frames and the young bee parts mostly full though I did put extra boxes on most of them due to having a couple of drawn frames that needed to be put somewhere.

If you can find this thread back in a month, I would be really interested in how things are going for you.
Good luck
gww


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## gww

Ok houston, we have a problem, help.

Here is the original hive spot that I could not find the queen on. The bearding one.








The single in the picture on the left is the one that does have a queen in it.

Here is the moved part of the hives with the last two being the ones that I am pretty sure one of them has the queen that I could not find in it. The single on the very end seems to have the most flying around at the entrance (not foraging activity). Both are loud but it could be due to the heat and fanning. If I open one, are the odds that the queen is in the end one with the most confusion at the door.









How do I fix the bearding and what is going on? There may be very little brood in this part cause I did not find the queen and move the frame she was on to this hive. Is it possible that it is robbing? It does not look like that to me but maybe if I left no brood, it could be?

I have a feeling my next trip into the hives is not going to be greeted as well as the first one was cause the bees seem to be a little wound up.

Is finding the queen and moving her the only way to fix this?

Any help out here?
Thanks
gww


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## Steve in PA

I'm not an expert but I have seen nucs beard when it is hot.

This is my new favorite split. On May I did one with my best queen. They filled a 8 frame deep with brood and comb quick. I added a 2nd box, also in June. And last weekend I put a super on it.

We had a monster Locust season so that probably helped. I'm hoping that the clover just starting is the same.

I did move a few honey frames into the nucs from the main hive so I am not feeding. I don't know if that was wise, but i did it.

I brought home 1 Cinco de Mayo split last night and will check it/move to 8 frame box after work if it is ready. I will PM pics instead of clogging this thread.


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## gww

Steve
Nobody cares if you clog this thread. When I started it, I was in a panic and needed help. After I got the help, I just kept adding my inspections to it and have already run all but a few off. I just like it cause my memory is bad and this is the best notes I know how to keep. Some still help me out every so often and I am thankful for that. I think most people like pictures and so it is a shame not to share them.

I also used honey combs. I did not scratch them and did not really see any pollen in my frames but oh well.

It could be bearding and I was advised to put a super on and that would help with bearding but right now it is mostly empty frames and I have none drawn that I could give it. I do think part of the bearding may have been no comb to cover and no nurse bees to hand off their load to. This may work in my favor and get the wax portion of the bees going but it could be heat.
Cheers
gww

Ps, if they had a queen or a cell they draw better sized comb for brood.

Ps ps The other one that has a queen is not bearding like the one that does not have a queen.


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## Steve in PA

I checked split #2 from my Cinco de Mayo split. Queen spotted and everything is in order. They had 2 frames of mostly capped honey too.

At this point, any splits I do will be flybacks.


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## Steve in PA

I would not worry about the bearding. This is the 1st split I ever made a few years back. Actually, that is the mother of this year's Cinco de Mayo splits. Anyway, they bearded just like this frequently and they were queenless at the time. The date on the photo is 6/11/2016 so #2, my best queen, is 2 years old this week!


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## gww

Steve
Your queens are the same color as mine. Nice pictures. I just did not like the brood pollen picture in my hives. I thought about trying to make a few queen cells just in case but think I am going to let it ride and recombine if it goes bad.
My eyes might be bad but I should have seen some open brood but mostly I saw back filling. I don't mark my queens, I think if I did not miss a superceedure, I have one that is on its third summer.
Thanks for the report. Looks great to me.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

The split I made yesterday that was bearding so bad cause of (queenlessness I believe) has had the bees move in overnite. I had added a brood frame from a different hive that I hoped had at least one larva young enough to make a queen with. I think it was still a failure cause the bees are still running around acting kinda stupid on the landing board.

If the sun comes out, I have to check space and if any honey is capped on my production hives and I will look for some combs that I am more sure of the youngness of the brood. I will keep adding till the bees act right. I could just make some queens using a queen excluder but think I am going to wait five days and see if any of the splits have started more then one queen cell that I could transfer.

Out of the splits I made, I did not really see any good young open brood and it makes me wonder if the queens had quit laying a bit but it only takes one egg and so I am going to play it out. If it works, I will think I am smart and if it doesn't I will think of myself, "what an idiot".

My opinion is we need rain. Even the plants the bees don't use much seem to be behind in my area. I need the flow to intensify cause we do not, here, have much time, I think.

A side note, I think I must have screwed the bees up a bit with all the movement yesterday. My empty, robbed out warre hive that a bee has not even looked at has bees coming and flying around the entrance. I think it is lost foragers from the flyback splits and they will probably be hanging around till they die.

Another interesting (in my mind thing) is on bee navigation. When I was setting the stands up at the end of the row of hives, I was amazed at how many bees from the old end hive was flying to the new stand before going to the correct hive. I seen the same thing last year when I put a new hive on the end but this time it was just stands. Kinda makes you think bees have a rough placement of where their hive is in the scope of things and switch to smell when they arrive. Of course I could be all wet.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I know this is a bit much but figure that those who are not interested don't have to read it but I would like to look back on it next time I screw up and so I keep going.

I got in all the hives today but only to look at room. My supers have some capped honey but also have brood in them. I was half expecting this and not upset or anything yet. I did decide to try an experiment that may help me if I don't get sided tracked or may not even work at all. On the two that had two mediums above the three mediums I use for a brood nest, the top supers are only a frame or three drawn out. I reversed them with the completely drawn out and filled supers. This put the empty space below some new brood. No queen excluder. I am just curious if the young brood and new comb and empty space will be enough that the hive draws a couple of queen cells up there. My opinion is if the queen can still get to them no cells will be drawn but it is a lot of space.

I don't care if they don't but just want to see for learning purposes. I may be able to save some of my splits if they do. 

On my small swarm that I caught, it had drawn out about 60 percent of a ten frame medium. I have been worried cause I have not been seeing pollen coming into the hives. I saw them bringing in a small amount of tan pollen and so I am guessing the other hives not bringing some in is based on the other hives need for it. 

The split that I could not find the queen on to put in the old bee, old location part that was bearding, I put one more comb of half capped honey with a two inch line of brood (some of it open) and on new comb into the hive. I put it in an empty box above the main box cause there are just so many bees. I then watched the entrance (which I wish I would have did first). They were bringing in small amounts of tan pollen also. This makes me think they already thought they could make a queen with what they already had or by real chance, the queen I was looking for was hiding in the slatted rack and is in the hive. Either way, I don't think I needed another frame of young brood.

In five days, I should have some ideal of the status of the splits I made, time will tell.

I have no ideal what the heck the bees are getting from the warre hive that was robbed long ago. It is pretty noisy inside and I am pretty sure it has to do with the splits I just made. I did not think the bees would salvage wax and I am pretty sure some swarm did not sneak in it and that it is some kind of robbing or lost bees. 

The bees were all so very nice today which makes me think flow but I sure do not see good gains in the hives at all except for the swarm. The have been sitting where they are for half to three quarters of a month. The activity at the entrance has shifted up and down during that time but not what is stored or being drawn. The hives are not seeming to all be doing the same as far as brood laying either as all the brood in the supers on the big hives reflect compared to the ones I split.

I think if looking at last year, the flow only has a few more weeks if we are even really in one. My plants in my field look small compared to last year. I do not really know where we are and how to tell yet. 
Cheers
gww

Ps I did not see pollen coming into the split that I know has a queen in it and has the calm bees. Go figure


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## gww

On one of my flyback splits with the old bees in it, I gave them six or so medium frames to draw in a single medium hive. It has been two days and last night half the bees stayed out side the hive bearding. I did not want to bother them for five days and thought I had time but got scared and added another medium full of empty frames and pulled one of the middle frames up. The bees had started drawing on every frame and maybe I might have made it 3 more days but I don't think so.

I think about 70 percent of all the frames were drawn out with bees drawing on every frame. The brood frame I pulled up still had old brood and was backfilled where the brood had hatched.

I write this for anybody who has questions about wax drawing. They say it is the intermediate bees that draw wax. All I can say is that may be true but put in the right situation, the old bees are comb drawing machines. One other observation. My big hives just seem to be sitting there and not really adding much to what is in the hives and I thought that over the last couple of weeks that there may have been a small lull in the flow. The old bees in the split are finding enough out there to draw and fill comb like crazy and it makes me think the big hives are just lazy.

Of course when you do a flyback split where you collect all the foragers, it does give you a very lot of bees in a small space. If you give that many bees nothing to store stuff, they have to do something and they are capable of doing it.

I just write this cause it impressed me tremendously. 
Cheers
gww

PS When you have enough bees to start on all the frames at the same time, they draw such strait and perfect comb.


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## 1102009

> it makes me think the big hives are just lazy.


:scratch:
I think they are satisfied with what they have.



> The old bees in the split are finding enough out there to draw and fill comb like crazy


They know they can´t survive without a comb nest. They need space for brood and stores.

Ps. Your wife`s garden is wonderful! Wish I had a veg garden as big.
I´m harvesting salads and red beet right now.


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## Steve in PA

I am working this evening so I checked my hives today. The fly back with the original queen has 3 frames of foundation mostly drawn. The queen isn't cutting them any slack either. She's laying in cells that aren't complete yet.


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## gww

SiW....
Fresh produce good.

Steve
Looks like they are coming and going and finding something for you. I am running mediums and my old bee part of the splits are crowded big time. The population will go down big time when the all start dieing. Got to take advantage of their comb drawing ability while it is there.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I am still struggling. Today is the 5th day from when I did my fly back splits counting the day that I did them. It does not look like it is going too well on the queen making department to me.

I still have never found the queen on the one but have not looked at the original hive part that I had added a frame of what I hope was a few larva young enough to make queens with. I got too hot and had to quit for awhile. If they made queen cells, I don't know where she is cause I don't see any new laying (if my eyes are even good enough).

The only thing I found in the first hive was this.








Compared to the bees it looks pretty dinky and I did not think it would be quite capped yet if it was a good one. The bees were protecting it and fussing over it and I had to move them with my finger for the picture. 

They all have some carbs in the splits









The next split I did not see anything that was viable and looked hard for the queen or new laying (just in case). What I don't get is that the hive is calm (all of them were) and I saw this one bringing in some tan pollen on the few foragers that is still seems to have kept some how, not many. Queenless, calm and pollen doesn't add up. I was hoping to find a queen cell to drop into it but the bees are making no extras or even enough to solve their own problems. I still have to do something here.

The next one was trying hard.








However, all the started cells looked dry with nothing in them. They had a lot of them. I did find two partial cells that I at least saw larva in and moved one of the frames to the first hive that seemed to have the small cell in it. These cells are not developed quite as much as the first one and was more what I was thinking I would find. I am still worried for two reasons. The cell development is not as far along and so may be a harri karry type move on the bees part and non of them were swimming in royal jelly and just looked more like larva. At least this one frame did have some pollen in it.

If my memory is not going south on me, this was the only cell I found in the fourth one but at least it was wet and not dry. I really can't see and had to take these to the side and prop one end of the frame on the ground and shine a flashlight up in them.








I never saw bees so unwilling to give me a good cell or two but I was worried when I made the splits cause I could not find any young stuff that I was sure of. Even though it was two whole hives, it looked like they had not been laying for a bit. I am not sure how this is all going to work out. I don't know whether to leave them alone (except the one I found nothing in) or just keep robbing from the other hives and dropping frame of open brood in and seeing what they do with them. 

Hummm, what to do?
Cheers
gww

Ps. I already know my pictures suck. I wanted to take more but am not a multi tasker and was dying of heat.


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## 1102009

Im not an experienced beekeeper and this s only my humble personal interpretation, not that the bees talk to me ( yet) however hard I try...

In my eyes the situation looks as if you did not use the right time, the bees were not ready to multiply even if a queen might result with this cells. They seem to prefer to use the flow.

It´s not always that bee colonies separate into two parts every year. And there might be some problems if they are forced.

That´s why we group plan to use the swarm mode. This could mean loss of swarms or multiple nucs with healthy queen cells.

And that could mean a difference between emergency and vitale queen cells. I rather go for the natural swarm urge now that I experienced the difference. It was amazing and I´m still in awe f how prolific a colony could be that swarmed.


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## JWPalmer

Glenn, the emergency cell in the first picture did not look that dinky too me. Remember that the cell is actually half an inch longer when you consider the horizontal part. I have full sized queens come from cells just like that one. Capped on day five is ok, day four is not. 

I know we disagree on the use of pollen sub but you might want to try adding some on your next spilts to see if you get more cells. They will only make what they can feed and it is pollen that is needed to make royal jelly.


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## gww

Siw...
I agree with what you say mostly. I just thought that these hives were not going to make much honey this year and it seemed a waste not to do something productive with them.

I have three more that I could have played with also but figured I would just experiment. For what you want to do, my methods are probably not good. It may sound sad, but I am not going for queen quality but more for salvage operation.

I figure if I get a queen good enough to keep the hive going and growing, I can replace her later if I want when times are better. Could this lower my stock, probably but I am dealing with mutts anyway and so having a few numbers make it though winter gives me another chance at it come spring.

We should still have some flow going on but the kind of split I made forces the bees to use what is already in the hive cause I removed all the foragers. If I did care more then I do, I could have made the queen cells on top of my strongest hives and then did the split after they were capped. Since I do not plan that well, I have to trust the bees to help me.

JW
Thanks for your thoughts on the queen cell. I have my fingers crossed. On the pollen sub, I have zero doubt that it might help but just don't buy things and don't plan or have systems in place yet to collect my own. The one frame in the picture has enough pollen but I am sure the other hives are lacking and it might be why there was not much open brood in the hives when I did the split. 

I am just running from self created issues and getting by each hurdle one at a time. These were just box splits where one box goes here with whatever is in it and one goes there. I was still expecting it to work out some way but not the best way. I could have put an excluder over a really strong hive with some brood above it and got better bee density for feeding and still had foragers to get what might be needed but I took the easy way with faith that it would probably work in the end. Of course to get it to work half as--d might be more work then doing it right.

So it is just this emergency that I am handling now though I am keeping track of the better ways for next time if needed. Thanks for your suggestion, I am sure it is best.
Thanks guys
gww


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## 1102009

gww,
why work so complicated?
Just make a small split with queen or if you don´t find her split half half, after some hours or a day look or hear which hive is queenless and place this at the old location with foragers so the cells are fed accordingly?
If it does not work combine again until more eggs and young brood is in?
If the broodnest is honey bound take out an outer comb with nectar and give it back later to the splits? So they probably will raise more brood and swarm mode is prevented?

The queenless should raise cells like that:
http://www.vivabiene.de/g20p371-baa-neue-Koeniginnen.html

One of my co-workers splitted he wanted to have queen cells to use for different small nucs. He nicked the just hatched egg cells to have that area as cells to cut out. The first time it did not work, it was too early in year.
He combined again and waited two more weeks now it worked beautifully and he has a little queen breeding project with juicy cells. It was just not the right time then.


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## gww

Siw


> why work so complicated?
> Just make a small split with queen or if you don´t find her split half half, after some hours or a day look or hear which hive is queenless and place this at the old location with foragers so the cells are fed accordingly?
> If it does not work combine again until more eggs and young brood is in?
> If the broodnest is honey bound take out an outer comb with nectar and give it back later to the splits? So they probably will raise more brood and swarm mode is prevented?


Except for finding the queen in the beginning, how is just setting three boxes of a hive in three different places complicated. 

I can always combine again if a queen in each is not mated.

I was not worried about swarming cause I think, knock on wood, that swarming is over for the year here. 

This was done for pure increase of hive numbers on hives that were not going to produce this year. It probably won't hurt the mite load in those six hives if they work out either.

My way seems not very complicated, I take it on faith that there is enough young larva in each box to make a queen and if not, add brood or combine.

I knew it was getting late from prime time but wanted to do it while catching the end of the flow so the young hives could get some foragers before the bees thought about robbing. 

I could have made the cells on top of a strong queen right hive if premium cells was the goal and it would not have been much more work but I had faith the bees would make stuff that was "good enough and was easier. If I was going for the best, JW's suggestion of pollen patties would have been good and feeding to have a flow would have been even better. However if it works, what I did is much simpler.

It is a good experiment that I have not done during this time of year and I was expecting better, over confident on my queen finding ability and second guessing and wanting to see has made it harder. Had I just did it and left the ones that looked normal from outside the hive at the entrance, I bet it would have worked on most and I could combine or shake out the ones that it did not work on and still have more hives from doing it.

I was surprised that the bees did not do better and make more and better cells compared to when they are preparing to swarm, but it is still a good leaning experience and all this extra work and looking and asking should make me understand more about bee keeping.

I know lots of ways to split and make queens from reading and nothing is that hard but the doing is always eye opening and puts actual experience to help see what they meant as much as what they wrote.

It was hard on me and the bees getting in the hives everyday in weather that is trying to kill me while I am killing bees. But is is worth doing and next time I might not even look. I do say this on your hive with out a queen being noisy. All of these hives are calm, none are flapping their wings like michael palmer video. I am also training my eyes that may not be working correctly.

I knew I was not timing the splits in prime time and that I was not giving the bees as much help as could be but still expect it to work but maybe not on every one. I thought about notching some cells but figured the bees would find enough to protect themselves. I could be wrong cause I am having a hard time seeing things that are over the top good and the stuff I am seeing is right on the edge of failure but I am usually lucky. Time will tell. I write this not to say that your suggestions have no merit but to show that I am a minimalist and deserve what I get. I need the suggestions for those times that my sloppyness does not work so I have things to add to what I do till it does work good enough for me.
Thanks
gww

Ps I knew it was not prime time and the hives did not think of it but I also know if I lose four of them over winter, I will still be as good as I was if I did not do it. I may not end up with six hives when done but bet I end up with more then two that can make winter.


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## JWPalmer

The problem with just splitting the boxes is that the brood is not evenly divided. When I went into my #4 hive to get larvae for my grafts this past Sunday, the top box was all capped brood. Had to get into the bottom box to find what I was looking for.


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## gww

Jw
Yes, there are risk. My view on it is that it only takes one egg though. I did make sure that there was some stores everywhere though I have so little stored pollen that I did not go so far as to divide that but more relied on the bees having a few small bands of it above where brood is laid. For better or worse, the boxes where full of bees and after the split, I knew there may be some disparity in what was left after the foragers left and there is a little. But in the end, they have drawn comb that they will be emptying due to few foragers starting out. So if I get a queen, she will have a place to lay and if the bee density is enough, they will all grow but just at different rates based on how many bees they start with. Sorta like a two brood frame split compared to a 4 brood frame split. Both work.

What you said is the reason I went back in to make sure the bees did have queen cells. It they get a queen, the rest can be worked out as easily as switching places of hives.

I did see what was in each box cause on the first one, it was the second to last frame that I found the queen on and the other, I looked through twice and never did see the queen. I knew when I made the split that I was not seeing any open brood to speak of in any box and so knew the odds but blamed it a bit on my eyes and took the chance on the basis that the bees only need to find one viable to make a queen. 

I looked at the old e split yesterday afternoon and it only had one brood frame in it and I had added another brood frame from a different hive that I did find some open brood with some larva big enough for me to see. They say foragers don't feed queens as well (I did move the frames with bees on them) but the bees found something on both frames and the cells look a little better. My view, more bee density and lots of help to bring needed things into the hive.

I took it on faith that in each box there would be something to work with cause even looking, I could not see in any box of the hives I split stuff to be sure of.

I do not understand the slow down of laying by the bees at this time of the year in these hives when I had no swarms and they had not already started cells. It had to be that the flow had waned and the queen had slowed down. I need to figure the flows out better if I am not going to supplement with feed when I do this stuff. I thought flow wise, I should be good till early july and maybe I will and it was a small lull.

I can look but can not see. Ray told me, reading glasses or magnifying glass. I base most of my hive inspecting and thought patterns on capped brood pattern cause it is easiest to see. I take it for granted that as the capped hatches the queen tries to refill. Sometimes I get lucky and see the bigger larva as a bonus. If this quits working good enough for me, I will have to get a magnifying glass.

I was hoping with practice that I would get a little better at seeing the smaller stuff just though training my eyes and I am working on that but it might come down to needing glasses during inspections.

I could tell on these two hives there was not much though.

I still have one queen that I don't know where it went and the hives are all calm and so that is not telling me anything but that maybe they are all confident of getting queenrite. I have other hives to use to keep dropping resources to anything questionable and can combine when sure something did not work.
Love the suggestions while all of this is going on. You comments do help me formulate going forward and for next time. Of course I am not above repeating some mistake more then once.
I am a guy that is in panic mode but also don't take it too seriously. 
I expect to get better over time and you guys do help.
Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

gww,


> while catching the end of the flow so the young hives could get some foragers before the bees thought about robbing.


I don´t understand this. Which bees think about robbing?
The bees have watchers before those become foragers. So if they are well provided ( because you feed or have given them honey comb) you need watchers in that hive ( or robber screens if you have weak splits).
The scout bees of other hives search for access into weak hives if there is no flow and if they are successful they tell their own foragers and those start to rob.

I can see egg or young larvae only if the sun shines on the comb, so if I need to see it I use a sunny day. No chance when it´s cloudy.


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## gww

SiW


> I don´t understand this. Which bees think about robbing?


I was thinking all bees have the potential to rob. When I got my first hive and I mentioned to the guy I got it from the different rates of build up and stores, he said one of them could have had more robbing pressure and that even in a flow bees will rob if it is easy pickings. I am almost positive that the little warre did not build up last year due to continual robbing pressure. It did not kill them but they did not build up even during the flows.



> The bees have watchers before those become foragers. So if they are well provided ( because you feed or have given them honey comb) you need watchers in that hive ( or robber screens if you have weak splits).


I do not pretend I know the make up of a hive and so can only say what I thought. 

I thought it was the older bees that were the guard bees. I thought that mostly the young and nurse bees were docile and that is why you can dump them on a different hive and they would be accepted by that hive even if not carrying gifts. My mind may have made the shift that it works both ways and the young bees are accepting of the old bees in the same fashion. Just what I was thinking, not that I am right. 

If as you say, the intermediate bees guard the entrance, if I make a purely young bee split, they will still have a small force to guard the entrance cause you will continually lose some of them over the next week cause when they did their first orientation flight at the old location before coming back into the hive for a week and so they will some of them slowly leave for a week after the move.

If I take a hive that was strong in two mediums and spread them out to three different places and in three boxes, just by virtue of that they are weaker then they were and add that some are purely young bees and have no queen and I figured (right or wrong) that that would be a thing that would have more potential to be exploited by the bigger hives then it was before the move.

I saw the other day a comment from michael bush of when would be a good time to make a late split and he said ten days before the flow ended. I figured part of that was for queen quality and part was less robbing pressure. He did not say that was why, it was my interpretation of why he might say 10 days before the flow ended.

As far as seeing eggs and the sun. My hives are right up against a cedar line to the north. If you could have seen me turning my back to the hives and holding the comb up or walking ten feet off to get a better lighting and trying not to turn the comb on its side where it might break out but instead moving my head all around, you would surely got one heck of a laugh and I am glad it is not on video.

I was taking a good flash light and looking up into the queen cells trying to make sure if it was dry or there was something in them. 

What I normally do is look for bigger larva and see if the pattern is big but getting smaller and then guess on the rest. I think I have seen eggs with my naked eye a couple of times but am always worried if that is what I really saw or if it was the lines from the cell on the other side of the comb with the sun just shining right. 

The only saving grace in all this is my belief that the queen will most times lay a small amount of brood all year long and it might only be a few in the dearth or winter but most times there is probably a couple of eggs in any hive. I am sure there are times with none but believe there are not many times and they are not long. So I sorta look at it like you would on buying insurance or not, what are the odds.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

> I was thinking all bees have the potential to rob.


In a crowded bee yard there is always silent robbing maybe, but the real robbing frenzy, killing a hive, if it was a potential in every colony like a genetic trait, no beekeeper would have more than one hive in his yard.IMHO.

This frenzy , once again IMO, is often started by the beekeeper by placing open honey somewhere. In my mail contact to Erik he send me a photo how he harvests. He takes of the supers with lids on them, places them on a ground and later harvests when he has done this with all hives. I look forward to see this managements in 2 weeks when I´m in sweden. I have never watched a work flow of a commercial beekeeper.

Also I observe in my location that many beekeepers neglect to feed the bees after harvesting the whole stores. What if the brood nests are big open brood and have not much honey domes?
People talk about robbing exactly after doing this. I would not blame the bees getting desperate to feed their brood!

My queenless splits were very small this year because the bigger ones swarmed and got caught. There was no traffic for some time. The bigger ones and the former dink, now filling the box, did not rob them or try to.

The not swarmed hive I made almost half half because I had problems to find enough very young larvae or eggs too, the nest was honey bound. 
I placed the queen near because I wanted to even out the foragers more and so was it. Some foragers were lured by the queen pheromones and went in the others stayed at the old location.

I have seen a picture with a small nuc with queen hanging on the rim of the queenless full hive box until a new queen was raised. Pretty cool, I will try this sometimes. Like raising queen cells on top of a queen right hive but not as much work and opening hives.


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## gww

SiW
I find I can leave a cup of sugar water out during a flow and the bees will ignore it. Earlier in my thread you will see a picture of my sugar blocks that I pulled off in spring. Later in the thread, you will see those same sugar blocks that I did not put away properly and the bees were all over them. The bees could care less that those sugar blocks were sitting out until they did care. I notice the same about the bees and me. There are times that the bees always come find me and check me out and others where they do not. When they do, I know they are looking cause not much is out there. I think watching the water bowl works to see if there is a flow or not and bees being there means as much that there is no flow as it does if it is hot. In the bad times with real stress, the bees will sting me when I sit down by the hives. Luckily this is usually not very often but is regular certain times of the year.
I don't use robbing screens and just use reducers but I also know it can change in one day.
If you pay attention, it is usually ok but the potential is there and it happens fast when it happens.

Making up early nucs is one time it can get bad.
Cheers
gww


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## 1102009

My first mentor hanged comb containing crystallized honey at his fence ( this is illegal here because of the spreading of AFB spores but he did it anyway) this did not induce robbing.

In bee class my teacher forgot to close a box with honey combs we wanted to extract this started a frenzy.

I wonder if the honey combs smell of a special colony and if I donate it it might draw the original hive. So far not, but I have screens and small entrance and the elgon bees have serious entrance defense.

Same with donating brood combs...mmh. Perhaps. Every colony must have it´s own perfume.

To getting stung: when I left my day job some days ago I was stung in the small toe by a bee on clover, me walking to my car. God that hurt! But no swelling. The bee was trapped in my sandal.

One of the queenless at the yard tried to kill us when we opened. I believe the new queen was still on mating flights and this was one day she was partying with the gents. The left behind were stressed because they awaited her, I saw fanning but wanted to see anyway. A mistake! 
Some days later they were very calm, same hive. Must have been a good party!


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## gww

Yesterday after two days in a row of just tearing away at the inside of the hives, I had two bees just hanging around my veil and going up and down me. Normally I can back off and they will forget. These two just stayed with me the whole time. Only two and I was scared they might whip up some help. So today when I was sitting in front of the hives and walking behind them and standing to the side to see if they were bringing in pollen, it was those two bees that was on my mine. I get stung and it hurts but doesn't really bother me but the thought of getting stung can give one bee the power to buzz me and make me go away.
Wearing open shoes like I do, its a wonder I don't get stung lots more and like you said, just walking in the clover and not even working bees. I did get stung as a kid a few times cause we went bare foot a lot.

Cheers
gww


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## gww

I got into most of the splits today.
One has the one small cell that I took a picture of.

One has two cells drawn on brand new comb and they are bigger and prettier.

I finally found the queen in one of the moved hives. It has been ten days and I looked for laying and thought that the brood would be big enough to see very easily but all I could see was dark shiny cells and I don't know if it was honey or brood. It got cloudy enough to hive the sun and I thought I should have seen easily. It is supposed to rain or I would have waited a day or two to look and the brood would have been capped if there was any. It is no wonder I could not find the queen the few times I looked before. She is the smallest one I have seen yet and does not have the bright orange-ish tail that most of my other queens have and it is more dark. The hive is bringing in pollen and I do know she was laying before the move and so I am going to take it on faith that everything is ok here.

A couple of the splits are going through stores and they still have some but I am going to have to move more to them or feed before it is all over.

I have two mediums with the exception of a couple frames capped and it seems that the brood has all hatched and they are clear for extraction. I have another medium that looks the same on a three medium hive but is I take it, I won't have the brood nest of three mediums. It seems that the hives have started reducing rather then go up into the fourth medium and drawing wax and so I reversed this and put the medium with only a ladder comb or two under the filled medium. I think I could get some honey if I am willing to take the hives down to two mediums rather then three. I had thought I had kept the hives clear of having honey domes right above the brood nest. I do not know if it was the bees were not strong enough or the honey dome made them happy enough to live with what they got rather then expand more.

I am sure hoping the flow is not coming to an end just yet. I saw a bunch of bees on my neighbors blue hydrangea and now know where some of the white pollen is coming from.
Cheers
gww

Ps I did see larva about to be capped in my other old bee split that did get a queen but that did not seem to be bringing in much pollen

ps ps I do have one hive hotter then the rest


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## gww

Ok, I really suck at extracting honey.









It took me and my wife (who is a fast efficient worker) nine freaking hours to extract 5 gal from pulling the supers to replacing the wet supers back on the hive. And I still had one this morning left that I had to put on a hive.

It was hot and the hives missed the extra space of the supers being on them.









I pulled one super that had four frames of brood in it. I had looked that morning and pulled three frames that were capped and stopped and just pulled it. For all I know I pulled the queen. It might be a favor if I did get the queen cause this is my hottest hive and I might pull her someday anyway. It is in no way unworkable but just something you can notice compared to the rest of the hives. I left the four frames of brood and all the bees I shook off of three supers from three hives in my yard last night.









I was pretty sure that putting three hives worth of bees in a box of brood was a death sentence for said brood due to robbing but I woke up and when I opened it, the frames had good coverage and were calm and so I set them back on my hot hive. 

All the extracting equipment is out in the grass being cleaned for me and so extracting was more then nine hours cause I am not done yet and this for 5 gal of honey? Bee keepers are crazy or I just suck at extracting.

I tried using a leaf blower to clear the supers of bees and it did not do a good job. The brood could have been part of the bees hanging on so hard and the misshape of some of the foundationless comb probably provides some protection from the blower. In the end, I moved the supers to my yard and pulled one frame at a time and used a clump of grass to brush the frames free of bees. I have no complaint on how the clump of grass worked on removing bees but I did leave little pieces of grass every time I carried a frame into the house and kept getting a piece or two caught in the sliding door every time I closed it.

Not much of a honey harvest but maybe the bees will still have time to refill the frames, maybe not.

I can not believe how hard extracting is. It makes me consider crush and strain.

I think everything is back to normal in the apiary and now just to wait and see how many of the splits end up queen right.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

This is the next afternoon after the pictures in my last post.








The after math after extraction is a lot of dead bee. It could be from confusion from when I blew them out but my thought is that it was a robbing situation due to just the excitement cause except for pulling supers and using a leaf blower, the hives did not change that much except losing a little space. It may show the lagging of the flow also. Do most see this many dead bees when the pull supers for extracting? Do those that do several extractions a year have this happen every time? I am not worried, just curious of what is normal. All the hives seem to be back to normal today and so it was a short term thing but pretty dramatic if you ask me.
Cheers
gww

ps, the picture doesn't do it justice but there were quite a few dead bees. They did seem to be mostly congregated around the hives that supers were pulled from, and I have some small hives in and splits in this apiary and they seem unaffected. I know I am not that rough and did not really mess around long for bees to really get interested in open hives. I set the supers on the ground blew them and moved them.


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## JWPalmer

Glenn, I helped a friend extract two supers of honey last week from a dead out. With three of us it took six hours. In our defense, a lot of the honey was crystalized and we were using an uncapping fork because the comb was too hard to use a knife. But that also included squeezing the cappings and hard comb and doing the first rendering of the wax. Lot of work for two gallons net and maybe 1/2 lb of wax. Somewhere along the way, a 12 pack disappeared.


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## gww

Jw
That was my mistake, had I made a twelve pack disappear, I may not have noticed the nine hours and hurting back so bad. It is a good suggestion.

I have never crushed and strained but a comb or two at a time and those times it was new wax and I found it very easy compared to spinning the comb. It may not scale up very well.

I do find that getting the honey that the bees have made to be real hard. I am not a good worker but my wife is.


I am glad to have the bucket now that it is done but have found no short cuts yet that make me think next time is going to be much easier. I saw your new maxent extractor. After you use it, maybe you can give me a report on how long you have to spin to get well extracted combs.

I am going about ten minutes every four frames and I have room to adjust speed (at least till I get more blow outs) but am not sure what is normal. My extractor is home made and I have only used it three times. I might be leaving them a little wet even at ten minutes. Either way, it would be nice to know what you have luck with time wise.
Thanks
gww


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## JWPalmer

We did just three frames at a time radially. Cranked it as fast as possible for about four minutes. That seemed to get most of the honey that hadn't turned to sugar. Several frames were still real heavy, but we could see a lot of empty cells. I'm sure spinning longer and faster would result in dryer frames and more honey from newer comb.


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## gww

Jw 
Thanks for answering my question.
gww


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## 1102009

My big dadant square boxes and the smaller colonies I create are not easy to harvest, if you take only surplus and don´t want to feed.
I´m always leaving 5 kg in spring and summer plus the broodnest honey.

So my management is to take plastic boxes to my outyard which can be closed to the bees and give no smell . I have extracted frames and new ones with me and I open the hives and pull the capped medium frames, brush off the bees and put those into an emty box. Before closing the hive I provide with new frames, placing the nectar in the middle. I learned this is better for the bees to expand and not build thick and thin comb like with checkerboarding. They draw at the sides of the comb frames.

I never check the hives´broodnest when I harvest, I close up very fast so the bees can intergrate the new situation quickly. They don´t have to watch more space like when I put a second box on top.
I only do that when the hive is strong and I have no time to harvest.
After extracting I often have some parts of comb with crystallized honey, this I give back. In rainy periods they use it.

Before, I took honey frames which were open 1/3 too. But I had some problems with fermentation, having this honey too long in my container and it drew water out of air.
Now I cover the freshly extracted honey with pergament paper and wait until it starts to crystallize, then I stir it and bottle it. I hope this will be better.
The pergament paper takes all debris with it when I take it off.


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## gww

Siw
I don't really take honey from the brood nest per-say. Except the bees and me may argue on what is brood nest. I know they can live on one medium brood nest and make it through winter but I try to get the hives to three mediums so they have the size and room come spring to not swarm off the bat and have a population size that gives more foragers.

I only have mediocre success so for. However, I don't use a queen excluder and made a concentrated effort to get the brood nest to expand as high as I could into the hive with the ideal that would leave them all the space they needed if I hit a good flow or when they naturally contract the brood nest. Then I take the top honey off until I am back to the three medium brood nest that I want to go into winter with. I have been thinking of reducing the winter size down to two mediums. I do not crowd the bees as much as I should when adding space and if I did, that would probably help the bees moral and make it easier to expand faster. I keep giving them lots of space out of fear of getting side tracked and them running out and swarming. 

Like all plans, sometimes the bees or the flow make plans turn out different. It seems like everything has slowed down and it is earlier then I might have thought that it would happen and so in the dance to get it right, nothing was making the bees contract the brood to further down in the hive. I was very sloppy in that I checked but not hard enough to see and so got some brood in the supers that time or flow would have fixed. I do like taking the top off by the box cause extracting too small of amounts does not seem worth it to dirty everything up. I like to have any comb that I have on the hive and so store nothing yet cause I am always behind on drawn comb. Had I paid more attention, I could have switched some of the brood frames for honey from the brood nest but that is hard work comparing to just taking a whole box. I could have put a queen excluder on (but I only have one) and let the brood hatch and then extract or just waited a little longer though they might use the honey to raise more brood during a derth and that is a risk when more bees are not needed.

If a comb is not 90 percent capped, I leave it or put it back on the hive when I set the wets back on.

I just put all the honey in a five gal bucket and let it set for a week and then bottle it. I do open the bucket one time and put some suran wrap on top of the honey to pull any foam and wax and junk off the top.

I do not have a hydrometer but all my honey is really thick. It is always dark and not like some of the spring honey I see people bottle. I have not had moisture or crystallization problems yet in my summer pulled honey or my stuff I pulled last fall.

I work on the principle of space and thinking that three mediums is enough space for winter and then the last two years fed a couple of gal late sept whether the hives needed it or not. I do not weigh the hives or inspect except maybe to lift some boxes while looking for the last time and just feed the min I think will get them through even if they might already have enough with out the feed. I do disperse the last frames I extract in fall to the small hives and so this feeding fills some of them. I fed three gal each hive first winter and only two gal last winter and put sugar blocks on most of the hives that were not at my three box brood nest that I was trying for.

I do all of this, not cause it is the best way to handle it but because it takes no thinking to do and my bees have survived with this minimum.

I am trying for a process that is kind of cookie cutter in nature so that it can be repeated with out thinking and then I only change small things here and there to see how it effects what I am already doing.

I find all the adjusting to instant changes to be hard cause I don't have enough experience to see the small things like when the flow can be counted on and when it normally ends and what rain or drought does to it and so that part is going to take time. So planning for best results of taking advantage of flows is also going to take more time.

I find it pretty hard to know anything yet cause I have still not did it long enough to know what should be normal and cause and effect. I still get in the hives all the time thinking I will see this based on the past and am surprised to not see what I thought was going to be there.

I am a tiny bit better now then when I started though and so I just keep playing.
Thanks
gww


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## 1102009

> I keep giving them lots of space out of fear of getting side tracked and them running out and swarming.


Same feelings here but I now abandoned them because the bees showed me they wanted to swarm despite giving space.

I´m not lucky with swarm prevention but as I see swarming a positive behaviour of a healthy hive I care no more, second i´m not disturbing the broodnests anymore.
But that´s a hobbyist researchers priviledge. 

I also have no excluder so if there is brood, I just leave this frame alone.

I rather extract small amounts of honey so not to have a mountain of work tasks before me. The extractor I clean with hot water, 5 minutes.
But that´s the priviledge of a researcher too who is not very interested in honey but loves to receive a little gift from the bees.

I know I´m crazy  but as some go shopping I spend my money for this hobby.
I´m only estimating the honey the bees collect to tell the unbelievers that tf bees bring honey too.


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## gww

SiW


> I know I´m crazy  but as some go shopping I spend my money for this hobby.


And I am crazy cause I think of things to do that will allow me to stay a hermit and stay at home to do my playing around.:applause:
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I looked in a few of the splits (It has only been 24/25 days since made up).

One that I thought I saw a virgin queen in earlier was dry as a bone. I assume robbing cause I had put about a quart and a half of sugar water on them about a week ago. I did see pollen on a couple bees legs inside the hive and so it may have been queen right but I said heck with it due to every frame being dry of stores. I news paper combined it back with the old queen right part of the split sitting right be side it. The one with the queen in it had plenty of stores. I did get some dripping and so a small amount must still be coming in flow wise.

Picture of news paper combine and also the four hives I opened.









I put a super with only two capped frames of honey and the rest empty frames with the bees in it on top of the dry hive that I combined. They may kill each other but at least they will have enough stores to not starve to death till they can eat through the news paper. I mean the hive was dry.

The second one that I am waiting on a virgin to lay in, I could not find the queen or see eggs (doesn't mean that eggs are not there). I pulled a frame from the queen right hive that had some larva. It was the frame that had the queen and finally the queen looked bigger. I took my putty knife and flicked the queen off the comb I was taking and hope I did not hurt her but don't think I did. I took that frame over to the sun light and followed the dots of big larva out to where I thought the small stuff was. I had some worthless reading glasses on that kept slipping off my nose or fogging up when on my nose and did my best to guess of proper aged larva or eggs and notched the cell walls with my putty knife. I put this in the hive that I was not sure of the queen. I think the hive has one and I can't see and I did not wait long enough but now I am pretty sure I don't have to worry about laying workers if I am wrong. 

I went to the next hive that I am waiting on a virgin and had about the same results. It still has stores but looked like it had the fewest bees out of the splits. So I got into a bigger hive and got down in the second box looking for a frame of capped brood that might also have a few young larva on it so I could do the same thing I did on the other hive but with a bigger boost then I gave the other one but could not find what I wanted. I found a nice full frame with some open larva on the edges but could not see something that looked small enough to make a queen with. By then I had had so many hives sitting open and a few frames pulled and sitting out so I would have room to make the transfer of comb that it seemed like I was starting a robbing frenzy and so I just closed it all up with out finding what I need and I will try again on a different day.

I still have one more hive that has a virgin in it that I don't know if it is laying.

I can not believe how bad I am at this. That little bit of searching on three/four little hives with only one really having a lot of bees in them took me two hours. That is just crazy. It is no wonder that the bees might be interested in robbing when exposing honey comb that long.

I did finally brave up and do my inspection in short sleeves and no gloves (just a viel) and only got one half sting on my arm on the inside of my elbow. I say half sting cause it did leave a stinger but was not barbed deep enough to hurt or shoot poison in and I just brushed it with my putty knife and it came out and there is no mark at all on my arm. It is like it did not happen. I will say this, working the hive in shorts, crocks and a short sleeved lose fitting shirt, did not make that much difference cause I still came in completely soaked and dripping wet. My shirt is hanging on a fan drying as I type.

I am sitting at three queens that I am still not sure of and one less hive then I started today.
Cheers
gww

Ps one fear with the combine is that maybe I should have used one sheet of newspaper instead of two cause I gave no upper entrance and the bees can not carry water or fan out the hive to cool it. Time will tell


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## gww

Ok, an update. I took another six gal or a little more and so the total was about 10 gal over all.

I had two more splits not get queen-rite and so I combined two more this morning. I put one on top of the only split that had success in getting queen-rite and the other one on top of the swarm I caught earlier.

Because I am a slob, I see two possible problems with what I did. One is that I can never see eggs and so if enough time has went by that they had went to laying worker, they may kill the queen in the hive I set them on. This is possible cause there was enough time for all of the brood in the split to hatch and someone told me it was usually the last brood to hatch that developed into laying workers. The second risk is that the bees that were on the landing board and in the slatted rack may go in the hive and kill the queen cause I laid them up against the entrance that I combined the hive too. Either way, I am sure there is going to be some be death while they work it out cause they have all day to fight. The entrances are reduced though.

So the grand total of my efforts is going to end up with ten hives instead of the nine before I started or I am going to end up with one hive less then I started with if the two queens are killed by the added bees. That would be funny. I had much better luck last year with my sloppy ways and 100 percent worked out. 

The difference last year was I had swarm cells to work with and so it was the bees ideal to expand and not mine.

Oh well, all's well that ends well (enough). It is dry and I think we have been in a derth since middle June.

Your thoughts are always welcome.
Cheers
gww

Ps I am sure the bee yard is going to be a mess for a bit with a lot of lost bees and bees killing each other and there was a small amount of robbing going on already before I did anything.


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## trishbookworm

Here is an interesting way to test for queenrightness: if you add a foundationless frame, assuming that you're feeding or there is a flow, you will find that if there is a queen, the bees draw out worker sized cells. Even if she hasn't started laying yet because she just got mated. If the queen didn't make it back, they will draw out larger sized cells, like for drone or honey.

I have had mysterious failures when splitting too - best success when catching hives just before they swarm - but I'll keep trying and eventually read and believe the books which advise a particular method, instead of half-butting it.


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## gww

trish
I too had thought about getting queen cells ready by some method before just breaking up some hives but I am spur of the moment lots of times and just do stuff. The spits I had work best are the ones the bees made me do by making queen cells. This was actually my first time of just picking a couple hives and trying something. I knew some of the things I could have did better even while just doing what I did do. Thanks for the tip on cell size. 

One thing did surprise me about the ones that did not work out. They were storing a whole bunch of pollen in the drawn comb. I had high hopes cause they were foraging properly and bringing in some pollen and so I figured it would work out.

The biggest mistake I probably made was not feeding some syrup to the splits while they were drawing out the queen cells and instead just relying on the bees using the stores I moved with them. It may have made no difference but I have it in my mind that it might have also. They had plenty of capped stuff but no foragers and I was not impressed with the cells they drew.

I expect to make a few more mistakes and experiment a bit and maybe do like you say and try a real proven method rather then as you say, half-butting it.

My next mistake may be that I should have just shook the hives out and just moved the resources but I guess time will tell.

I did see one thing I have never seen before. When I set the one split over the news paper, the bees started climbing out the hive in masses, almost like an abscomb but when I started to put the inter cover over it, they started climbing back into the box. I had never seen anything like that and don't know if it was heat, light, smell from the lower hive or old bees just knowing they were not in the right place.

Thank you for the comments and tips.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok
I looked at the combined hives today. One has new capped brood and I can see some bigger larva. I say this one is good. 

The one I added to a small swarm that was still building up is a little scary yet. It has capped brood and some older larva like the other hive (I just can not see eggs and did not see small larva) but was louder and more aggressive towards me and did not have brood in the top box like the other hive did and so the brood could have been there when I made the combine. 

The bigger larva makes me think it might be ok and we are in a derth and so lots of new laying may not be something that should be expected. I did not see any drone brood and so that should be a good thing in this situation in that the workers did not kill the queen and lay and an unmated or poorly mated virgin is not laying. 

I am just going to let it run its course and see what I have in spring. It was the second to last hive that I opened and so I had some robbing started pretty hard by that time and that could have a bit to do with the noise and aggressiveness and so I will just let her roll and see.

I opened one last hive cause it was one of my biggest ones and it had a lot of action at the entrance and so I figured it was probably the one making the most effort to be doing the robbing and so I thought I would make it a little worried about itsself. I really should have left it open a little longer. 

I did take a look in the top box which was an extracted super. The interesting thing that I found there was that it seems to have re-purposed some of the drawn comb. My memory is not good and I can not remember how full it was but it seems that the bees have completely removed the wax from a couple of frames (foundationless). No comb is being drawn anywhere. 

Stores are tight but not empty except the swarm has a lot for its size. Today we will have a chance to see if they all still can defend their hives cause my looking did start something. Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, since you combined on the 16th, any eggs laid then would mostly be capped by today or tomorrow at the latest. If you didn't look at every frame in the hive, you could have missed where there was eggs and smaller larva. It's probably not a big brood producing time right now anyway.


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## gww

Danial
It looks like I am going to lose one that I was not expecting too. I just went and looked and saw that the very first hive I opened today has bees all over it and it is getting robbed or robbing is being tried hard. None of the others are being robbed and it makes me wonder if I smashed the queen or something. It could be just that it was the first hive I opened and the hive robbing it has no reason to look at the other hives yet.

The bees have laid more then two frames of brood since the 16th in the one hive I combined and so I was not worried about finding small stuff. I could not tell on the swarm hive cause they did not break from the original swarm laying area and so unlike the other that had brood in places there were no brood before, I could not tell for sure on the swarm hive. The hive that is getting robbed had a queen all along and has plenty of brood in it and I don't get the robbing.

I absolutely know the hive that is doing the robbing but guess I am going to let it play out and see if the hive can defend its-self. The hive only has about a three inch opening and it makes me think I killed the queen looking or the bees did while I had it opened. Something is wrong for the bees to recognize that hive as the one weak enough to rob. 

I did get new brood but think that was due to stores in the hive and not forage and also cause when I combined, it put stored pollen on top and made the hive different then the bees would have (plus a brand new queen just started laying). I do not believe that most of the hives are actively laying brood due to derth and that could be why the swarm hive looks different then the other one which I am not worried about. I am convinced that I don't really know what I am doing here or seeing.

I am very curious of how your year went.
Thanks
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I would cut that robbed hive's entrance way down, and add a robber screen. All you need is to fashion a piece of screen over the entrance to make an entrance off to the side. 

My year mainly was just motoring along without any major events. I did sell maybe 6-7 colonies thinking I would have had more to sell, but I just didn't get to making nucs like I thought. I did have some super building colonies with new queens this spring that I wanted to keep, but had too many already and didn't want to sell the ones that weren't so hot. I wanted to re queen them, but it hasn't happened. I did some splits and caught one of my swarms, but other than that I stayed even with things. I think I am at 23 or 24 hives. Some of the splits sputtered since I didn't feed them at all at first. 

The main flow was largely a dud with the extremely dry year we are having. There was very little sweet clover around this year. Since early May I don't think we've had much over 3 inches of rain. I may end up with around 45-50 lb average honey with my colonies that have stayed in production, which isn't too good considering last year. May had that exceptional flow for 2 weeks, which brought in about what the main flow did. One hive did manage possibly 100 lbs it looks, and another 75, unless they have consumed some, but a couple aren't doing much at all. I may be pleasantly surprised though, since I haven't taken off too much yet while I wait for more to get capped. Maybe next week will be harvest week. 

I am at capacity considering the time I have had to work them in the spring. That's when it counts, and if I am busy then, it gets a bit of a stretch sometimes. I still deal with my hands and a propolis reaction. Wearing nitrile gloves all the time and watching what I handle is a bit of a drag, but it keeps my hands relatively ok, though I seem to always have a small area of irritation on them somewhere. It could be caused by other things besides just propolis, like things they are exposed to during work.

I don't keep up with this forum as much. Since the sell of it, it's gotten annoying with ads and junk. It's a joke on my phone so I don't go there with it anymore. 

I hope your years of bees keep you entertained. I do check your progress here when you post most of the time.


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## JWPalmer

Daniel, I only have my cell phone to use for Beesource. If you exit out of enhanced mobile view, it will restore the site to how it used to look with no pop up ads. (Except for that Amazon prime ad that somehow got through.)


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## 1102009

In sweden I visited with someone who builds himself hives like this:

The bottom box is 40l and has natural comb. The top boxes are with foundation or used for feeding. There is a door on the bottom box he can do a check.
I believe there are hives like that to be bought but he builds his himself.

He says, the queens never go up ( no excluder, they prefer the natural comb. The bees rather swarm. The swarms go to a high tree and then go into a box he had placed at his shack.. 
All his swarms do that. He just takes the bees and put them into the box he wants them to be.

The broodnest is never disturbed. The top boxes above the first top box are harvested. Most of his bottom boxes now are frames with walls of straw in between, these he plasters with cow dung.
He is going to over a hundred hives, working them alone.

Lazy and easy beekeeping.


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## gww

Danial
Thank you very much for your report on your year. It reflects my year pretty good except at making average honey of 50 lbs is way above what I am doing so far. But over all, it sounds almost exactly what I saw including the sweet clover and the timing of things that came into the hive. Good to know that I am not crazy and my bees are not much different. 
Thank you for taking the time to write it. 

I should reduce more but have the hive around 3 inch opening right now and they will have to be tough or die. There are lots and lots of dead bees in front of the hive already but the robbing hive did not wake up early and start on it yet this morning and so I guess I will see how it goes. 

SiW

I was wishing I would have just stayed out of the hives this last time. I don't seem to learn much when getting in and also think about the thought that even if I did find something, I may not be willing to do much to fix it at this point and so in the end, I just make it worse for the bees. I did get into the hives more this year then ever. I did not make it past 5 days with out inspecting where as last year my goal was to stay out for ten to fourteen days. It was a conscious effort on my part to learn to look better and know what I was seeing better but I am not sure I learned that much by doing it and am going to try for less intervention next year (maybe).

I still may starve my bees to death if we don't get some rain cause I did take their stores down pretty hard just to be able to get anything to extract and there is nothing out there to forage on right now. 

It will be interesting to see what fall does and how winter is this year. I have to rethink my management and also decide if I want to mix it up more and try and make bees or honey or both. I have been letting the bees kinda decide and these last two years were very different from each other and so I am still confused and it will take a few more years to decide what my potentials are. I do not have it down good enough to pick a direction or management that I feel comfortable with yet. I am just good enough that I am meeting my first goal of just having a few bees around and keeping them in a way that I don't have to buy anything (of course this winter will be the tell). Where I jump from there is going to take a little more time. 

I have been in the hives a bunch of times this year where I really accomplished not much except to just see. I may need to be a little more task oriented and not get in as much if there is no need. I do not think I helped the bees any this year. I hope in the end it did help me a little but am not sure.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

In the middle of my third winter. I still have ten of ten alive right now knock on wood. I did see two or three sick or crawling bees come out of my oldest (I think queen and the only hive that has never been split, I don't think superceedure but might miss that.) It is still alive though for now.

It was 49 degrees out and forecast for 60 degree high. The warmest day in the forecast. 

This is the earliest that I have seen this in my chicken food.









Bees were checking me out hard while I sit on the buckets watching them and also everywhere else I went. Must be hungry and wasting a lot of energy on it.

Still a whole bunch of winter left for bees to die or starve to death.
Time will tell.

As a side note that is not bee related, I cut down about a five inch oak to get it ready to try to grow mushrooms once.

How are you guys doing so far and any other thoughts.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Hi gww. It's good to hear you and bees are doing well. I haven't been reading much on here lately, but saw an email with your update and decided to write something. It's been nice for a few weeks and I have had bees flying several different days lately. So far, I went into winter with 25 and they all seem to be alive at this point, though I don't keep track of them too much in winter. Over a week ago I caught them all flying a little, so that was good to me. One last fall that swarmed in mid September didn't succeed in queen replacement, and October was a bust for flying weather here, so I let it go. I do plan to check them quickly tomorrow for some with small sugar bricks on, to see that they are supplied. I should check a few hives that don't have anything on top, but don't know if I will find some of that gumption to do it.

I knew of an Aldi with .79 bags of sugar in early summer for a few months, 6 bags per day, so I stored up a few hundred pounds and didn't need to use it much last fall. Even the August dearth didn't happen even with a very dry year. There was a 40 acre alfalfa field that was cut, then bloomed again in late July, but didn't get cut again. It seemed to keep just enough flow going to give the bees just enough to motor along till the fall flow came. It rained 5-6 inches in a couple days just as the goldenrod was blooming and saved the day. 

I didn't give the bees enough attention last fall, but September had the biggest rush of fall flow I have seen yet, even with the 25 hives in the same location. Several swarmed on me in early September. Shame on me I guess. I was glad for the rush because they didn't get much in October with sometimes too rainy, half the days too cold. The cool weather made the goldenrod last as long as I have seen it last. Too bad the bees didn't get to keep at it. I was counting on a fall harvest till that. 

Don't know what to plan for this year. I still deal with the propolis reaction on my hands, but can avoid most of it with diligent use of nitrile gloves. Not too much fun though to avoid touching anything to get propolis on other things, like door knobs, tailgates, etc. I don't know how successful I am about that. I might make up some nucs to sell off a few again in spring if something else doesn't get me too busy. Too easy to expand without trying and hard to reduce the herd.

Enjoy the mild winter this week. 

Dan


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## gww

Danial
It was great to hear from you and I am glad your bees are doing well. I did not have a great fall for bees gathering excess. I put two gal on them late sept and some small left over sugar block from the year before. I am not confident they are not going though their stores fast in this warm spell cause they sure are gathering dust. A couple of the hives are coming in just packed with it on their legs and I am sure it is flour and chicken feed cause I see them on it.

I still have about 100 lbs of sugar in the garage but unless I break pattern, I won't open them till the first 65/70 degree day in feb march or april when ever it comes. I could get bit but have my fingers crossed.

I wonder if they are trying to lay a little brood in the hives that are gathering? That could be bad, maybe?

I hope your splitting and selling goes well. Sounds like you are as big as you need to be till you retire.

It really was good to hear from you and I hope you report in every once in a while even if it is not just in response to a post of mine.
It ain't over till it is over and I hope to get to mid april in good shape and hope the same for you. It will be curious to see what happens weather wise between now and then.
Cheers
gww

Ps dust on leg if you have good eyes.


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## DanielD

gww, I think the bees know where the season is and won't get too fired up brooding at this point. I understood it that nectar flow is the trigger for brooding up, but could be wrong about that. They go through a pile of honey with brooding. I should be checking the chicken food dust here just for kicks. 

You may be right about the, 'till I retire'. I could use another location, but I wouldn't want it very far away or I wouldn't get to it often enough. I could have a spot 30+ minutes away, but not sure I want to do that. I have considered scaling way back to just a handful of hives, but it's fun to get all the buckets o' honey in July. It is a lot of work though and one daughter got married last April which reduces my slaves to 3, including my wife. They are very good sports with it all.


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## gww

Danial
My dad is twelve miles away and I have not been able to make myself put a hive there and I am curious about the forage there.

My wife makes it work here and the only thing the kids do is get hand outs. They got there own kids.

Check the trash cans at the gas station and see if there are bees, probably as good as chicken feed.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Different locations can make a difference. i had a location about 12 miles out last summer, but when I put three hives there, they lost weight while the ones on my property gained. It was during summer and the other location was 75% trees and lake.


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## gww

Danial


> It was during summer and the other location was 75% trees


Google map show my area to be close to this and dads to be more open and crop land. It is a big enough difference to make me almost curious enough to get off my butt and try it. I can not believe how lazy I am.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Yeah you lazy guy, you make your bee hives starting with a tree. I don't think I would want to do that.


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## gww

Danial
If you only knew the truth.
Ha ha.
Cheers
gww
Ps only took four years to get about 20 hives built.


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## gww

I just thought I would put an over all kinda view of my dumb interpretation of where I am this year in case I want to someday look back and laugh at myself.

I still can not make heads or tails of what I see when I see it. 

I only looked at about half of the hives today. My impression was that most were still lite as far as stores go. Not much wax is being drawn yet on any real scale. I have a few that I can see quite a few adult bees dead in front of the hives. Last time one of these had real spotty brood but this time had some good laying patterns.

I had one small hive that was a split last year that pretty much had almost all the brood hatched out, poor pattern and I could not find any new brood being laid. I did not see the queen and I did not add a frame of brood. This hive had lots of drone in it and it had some dead bees through out the hive and inside the hive. It did not seem to be laying worker cause I would have seen some capped drone brood if so, you would think. Me being me, I will probably not intercede and see what happens. The bees are active and bringing lots of pollen in and we had lots of rain and it could be queen shutdown due to starvation or brood disease or queen-less. Maybe it superceeded and I missed it though I see no sign of broken queen cells. Time will tell.

I had another hive that I saw the queen in that I did find a broken queen cell and only hatching brood (no new) and good stores, last time I looked. I had put the honey on the bottom of this hive so the bees might move it. The queen was a skinny little thing when I saw her. This hive now has capped brood and so it seems to be ok.

I had a smaller hive that I found an almost finished (3/4 way) queen cell on a honey comb. I broke it open and it was dry. I tipped the brood box and it had lots of queen cups but all seemed dry. What I don't understand is how much honey this hive has in it compared to others I looked at including bigger hives. They seem to be just barely starting to draw some wax. Looks like I put a few empty frames in the brood nest and changed their mind or they are just a lot healthier then the other hives.

The bees are very busy but I am not sure on what.

I can not make sense out of what I see and so I am just going to keep watching. I may lose my end hive that had dead bees actually in the hive and no brood. I could try harder to intercede but am not sure what I am dealing with. It might be a case of good riddance. Of course, I could change my mind tomorrow and do something different. I am just winging it.

There is not one time that I look in the hives and still don't feel like a dumb ass when it comes to reading the signs.

Over all, I am satisfied that I still have live bees and they may make a little honey.

I did notice the smaller hives and especially the one with almost no brood all had the worst attitudes of my nice bees. I did only get stung once in about an hour and a half or two in the hives but I do work slow. I could tell the difference in hives though.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

I will add my thoughts through your post here: 


I just thought I would put an over all kinda view of my dumb interpretation of where I am this year in case I want to someday look back and laugh at myself.

I still can not make heads or tails of what I see when I see it. 

I only looked at about half of the hives today. My impression was that most were still lite as far as stores go. Not much wax is being drawn yet on any real scale. I have a few that I can see quite a few adult bees dead in front of the hives. Last time one of these had real spotty brood but this time had some good laying patterns.
Any time of year I find they don't build any comb unless they need it, so if they have a place to lay and store, there'd be little comb built unless you put an empty in the brood nest. Also, this time of year they seem to use up most of what they bring in for brooding. I most of the time don't see too many extra frames of stores unless there's an unusual flow like Russian Olive or Locust trees. A full week of cold and wet with no flying can run them dry in May. 

I had one small hive that was a split last year that pretty much had almost all the brood hatched out, poor pattern and I could not find any new brood being laid. I did not see the queen and I did not add a frame of brood. This hive had lots of drone in it and it had some dead bees through out the hive and inside the hive. It did not seem to be laying worker cause I would have seen some capped drone brood if so, you would think. Me being me, I will probably not intercede and see what happens. The bees are active and bringing lots of pollen in and we had lots of rain and it could be queen shutdown due to starvation or brood disease or queen-less. Maybe it superceeded and I missed it though I see no sign of broken queen cells. Time will tell.
Sounds like this one swarmed. They can swarm fast and all signs can be gone except some capped brood after a week. The new queen generally won't be laying till all or most of the brood is gone. If most of the brood is emerged after a swarm, it would have been over 2 weeks ago. 

I had another hive that I saw the queen in that I did find a broken queen cell and only hatching brood (no new) and good stores, last time I looked. I had put the honey on the bottom of this hive so the bees might move it. The queen was a skinny little thing when I saw her. This hive now has capped brood and so it seems to be ok.
Queens are small before they mate. Maybe another swarm and the new queen is in business. 

I had a smaller hive that I found an almost finished (3/4 way) queen cell on a honey comb. I broke it open and it was dry. I tipped the brood box and it had lots of queen cups but all seemed dry. What I don't understand is how much honey this hive has in it compared to others I looked at including bigger hives. They seem to be just barely starting to draw some wax. Looks like I put a few empty frames in the brood nest and changed their mind or they are just a lot healthier then the other hives.
They can build some pretty long cups sometimes, but it may be a sign they are close to swarming. What did their brood look like in this one? Maybe it swarmed a while back and they were able to store more nectar because no brood was being fed. Maybe that 3/4 queen cell was a used one. 

The bees are very busy but I am not sure on what.

I can not make sense out of what I see and so I am just going to keep watching. I may lose my end hive that had dead bees actually in the hive and no brood. I could try harder to intercede but am not sure what I am dealing with. It might be a case of good riddance. Of course, I could change my mind tomorrow and do something different. I am just winging it.
I am sure you make more sense out of things than you used to. You may benefit from having someone nearby walk you through inspections for a while. One thing to always consider is the time cycle of brood, time cycle of swarming, and what you see. What's up with the brood tells you everything about the queen and it's queenlyness. 

There is not one time that I look in the hives and still don't feel like a dumb ass when it comes to reading the signs.

Over all, I am satisfied that I still have live bees and they may make a little honey.

I did notice the smaller hives and especially the one with almost no brood all had the worst attitudes of my nice bees. I did only get stung once in about an hour and a half or two in the hives but I do work slow. I could tell the difference in hives though.
When they are planning to swarm they often seem to get crabby. 
Cheers
gww

Hope it all helped.


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## gww

Danial
I think, but I am not sure, that I have been in the hives that might have swarmed enough that the timing would not have been there for them to hide it from me. I have not got in every hive every 5 to 7 days but have been spot checking and getting an average using about half the hives once a week or every warm day.

I also have traps at my house that usually let me know cause even if the swarm does not end up in the trap, they usually check it fast. 

It is not impossible that I missed stuff cause the weather has not been good.

In my case, I have not found the brood telling me everything cause many times it looks so bad to make me think disease and then later it looks solid. I only know one bee keeper and he offered earlier that if I helped him, he would help me. His hives are the only bees that I have seen in my whole life that were not mine. I have not used him too much for two reasons.
1. He is probably busier then I am and I hate to bother him (and I feel guilty when I owe people)
2. He is a resource that I don't want to ruin. He knows 50 times more then I do but I know some things he doesn't cause he does not need to, he has his routine that works for him. I hate for him to advise me and then me not do it because he may take it wrong and I don't want to burn bridges. 

One thing that he does is he reduces space to minimum early spring to crowd the bees. If they make queen cells, he splits. I usually add space as early as I can get in the hive to the point of disheartening the bees. I throw empties in the edge of the brood nest as early as I can. I realize some of this slows the bees down which is my goal of sorts, buys me time before swarming really gets going. I am foundationless with no extra comb.

On the crabbiness, I thought of swarm intent of being one reason. I love when you take what I said and put your thoughts to it. To me, it does reflect that you know more about bees and bee behavior then me. Your advice has calmed me down many times, especially early on when waiting on queens to mate.

I do not inspect the brood more then to see the pattern and look for cups and whether they are wet or not. Even then, I will only tip or only pull three or four brood frames and figure it good if I find nothing doing just that much.

I do have issue with brood and what I see cause the hives are not all the same and like I said, it can look almost diseased one time and then clean up and be solid in a couple week.

I did think the one that I found the broken queen cell and then seen the skinny queen, might have been a superceedure due to the amount of honey that they had below the brood box which I moved even further down to the bottom. It is now got brood and so I think that one was called right. I don't think any of them have swarmed but know I am sloppy also and that my little tactics of keeping track may have failed. I also have memory problems and can not remember what I have did with every hive every time. 

This is also the first year that I have only been looking at half of the hives every five or so days. Last year I looked at all every time. Trying to get smarter and do less.

Have you had any swarms yet? Are your bees drawing wax yet? How are your hives doing? Are you making splits or holding steady. Have you got used to wearing gloves and is that helping with the allergy? Only answer if you feel like typing of course.

I am always thankful for any thought you are willing to give.
Thanks.
gww

Ps Most times (not every time) I can only see capped brood and the pattern. I can look for larva and eggs but very seldom do I find them and when I do it is because of some very big larva getting smaller. I look but don't see. You ask about the pattern on the hive with the 3/4 built queen cup. The brood pattern was good and capped and I do not think they swarmed. They are using the bottom box though. I did not rotate boxes and several hives do have comb in the bottom box that they don't seem to be filling or using yet. They would have to go down to use it.


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## DanielD

I was thinking swarming because this is the time of year and didn't think supersedure I guess. It sure could be that since they are similar iin result. I know lately here the weather has hindered some inspection when I wanted to check hives, and swarming happens fast. I have had now three hives with a failing queen this spring. All three swarmed last September I think. Poorly mated queens I presume. 

One think I look for is, does the queen have plenty of room to lay today, and are the bees keeping a spot open for her. If they aren't keeping cell areas open for her, they are probably swarm mode. Sometimes if I am not sure, I keep digging till I think I am sure. One thing you write about brood looking bad, then good, could be just the time of emerging. Sometimes a frame looks bad because it's just the right time to see a frame of emerging brood where they don't all open up at the exact same time. I think frames can also be jumbled up time wise with ages of brood. 

There's also an issue with European foul brood, where a hive can battle it for just a short while and after a few weeks get a handle on it. May is the most likely time it's supposed to appear. You should read up and study that subject and see if they are experiencing a bit of that. It can come and go when conditions change in the hive, like a larger flow volume or a change of buildup or queen change with brood break. 

I am glad I have been helpful sometimes, but be aware that I am only sharing what I think, and don't have it all figured out myself. 

I haven't had any swarming yet, but need to check today most of the hives. I find small amounts of wax drawn where there was partially drawn foundation being completed. I have extra drawn comb yet so I keep them with some extra now. My hives that remain are building up well enough. Several are getting very large and strong, but I am using them to equalize smaller ones and discourage swarming. 

My hands are surviving ok. I tend to get a reaction on one of my wrists sometimes, probably from taking off and re using a pair of gloves. My hand have become sensitive to too many things so I wear gloves a lot. 

I can see new wet brood and eggs if the comb is dark enough and the sun is out, but I am having some struggle to see them now. Just the pattern of older open brood in the middle to just a wet spot going outward in the cell tells a lot, and I am assuming the empty looking cells around all that is eggs or soon to be eggs. the whole cycle of brood should be seen on the frames, including empty polished up cells. 

I am lazy too gww, but about reading and typing words, but I enjoy the communication with you when I get to it. 

It's been a splendid spring this year. It has been steadily increasing temps instead of going to 90 right away, and there's been so many perfect days in the last month. Even today. I have also not been too busy in the shop, which isn't so good for the wallet, but it makes it easier to enjoy the property this spring.


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## gww

danial


> One think I look for is, does the queen have plenty of room to lay today, and are the bees keeping a spot open for her. If they aren't keeping cell areas open for her, they are probably swarm mode. Sometimes if I am not sure, I keep digging till I think I am sure. One thing you write about brood looking bad, then good, could be just the time of emerging. Sometimes a frame looks bad because it's just the right time to see a frame of emerging brood where they don't all open up at the exact same time. I think frames can also be jumbled up time wise with ages of brood.


I am going to try and remember to considerate on this the next time I get in the hives. I do notice that pollen is taking the place of some brood in the middle of it.

I have been reading the efb stuff that has recently popped up on this site and it was in my mind when looking at the bad brood patterns. I have always had some hives with bad brood but have always seen changes also. I get paranoid and then it goes good. The one hive did look the worst I have seen but the big hive was pretty bad two weeks ago and it is good now. I should look harder at times but sometimes stuff I see stumps me and it is time to close up and think about it for a little bit. 

You must not be stealing enough honey if you are getting september swarms.

I looked at the bad hive first yesterday and was half heartedly looking for a good frame of open brood to put in it but did not easily see anything that I thought fit and so decided to just see what happens for the learning of it. I am still thinking on it. It is a cheap insurance to put one in but I may learn something by taking the risk and not doing it.

I agree on the spring being slow and steady. I did think we lost some bloom due to it being knocked off with rain and this last spell had me a little worried cause it became enough rain. I did read a book that michael palmer suggested on honey production and he promoted that he always did worse in the wet years. If the bees can fly, that seems counter intuitive to me. I hope it does not dry up too bad and it would be nice if the flow could last longer then mid june this year. 

I also wish I could make myself take a few more pictures when I inspect. I start with good intentions but then say heck with it when the time comes to do the work. 
Here is the only picture I took all year long during and April inspection.








Thanks 
gww


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## DanielD

Last September the flow was way stronger than I expected and the swarms got away, 5 or 6 maybe. I wasn't observant enough and probably too lazy or distracted too much about the hives last fall. I haven't had to deal with fall swarming before. They brought very little in October and nothing in November, plus I didn't feed them there was so much on. I did put on bricks though. 

I checked about a dozen hives this morning and they are bringing in extra right now. Russian olive again. I have a couple hives up to 6 mediums, with brood in 4, and very strong already. My very small hives have built up well too, plus I am adding a frame of capped brood once in a while from the big ones to ward off swarming. They aught to produce good if I can keep them from swarming. I am on it this spring. I plan to get through the rest today to know where they are at. It's been cool and wet and I didn't get into them for a while. 

I would guess a wet year could be a hindrance to honey making. We have enough moisture in the ground to assure a good start to the main flow right now. It's looking good. 

I don't see any brood on that frame gww. Ha. They need some space maybe. I think about pictures sometimes too, but propolis and a messed up camera comes to mind when I think about grabbing one.


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## gww

Danial
Good luck on your inspections today.

That was a brood frame and the point of the picture though after I took it, I knew the brood could not bee seen. It would be easy for them to hide queen cells when covering like that if not shaken off. It was a cool day and the bees were sticking like glue. Probably not that good for the brood being cool but sure was nice for me. I get hot.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Inspections went well. All are building up well. Some started very small but are getting big enough that they may do well during the main flow. I most of the hives got more space today. A couple can wait till Monday I think. I was thinking about your observations about a hive having bad brood patterns and the next week they looked good. A couple hives had some frames that looked scattered, then the next box down had full capped frames one after another. I did see a pollen frame that had scattered new brood on the frame within the pollen on the frame. It may be that the bees are removing the pollen for the queen and it couldn't wait. There are oddities like that which can cause brood scattering. 

I was just being funny, or trying to, about not seeing brood on your frame. It looked like a hive that was packed with bees. 

I enjoyed my bees today, but finished till next week.


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## gww

<p>
I usually enjoy inspecting once I get rolling if the bees are not jumping at me. I have inspected four times and only got stung twice and so think my bees are ok since I wear shorts and crocks and a short sleave shirt. That does not mean that I don't lose some time backing off and letting the ones that circle me calm down. I use lots of smoke and that may be part of the reason I don't see my queens too often.</p>
<p>
I always feel better when done though but usually a little confused also. The typing a little of what I see, helps me think about it and put some sense into what I might have seen and feed back helps with that. So I half dread and half can not make myself wait long enough for the next inspection. I like to guess what is going on inside based on what I see outside and when I look, I am usually surprized at the difference of truth compared to immagination.</p>
<p>
It is good to hear your hives are doing good. Mine just being alive seems good to me. I have more space then the bees need on the hives and do have empty comb in most but they really fill space fast when the brood does hatch. I will know more when they get it full and start drawing wax hard. I do not think they are consintrating on wax drawing too bad yet cause even the emties that are in the actual brood nest itself is not all drawn out yet and it has been a couple of weeks. I know they can draw a medium frame in a few days when they get rolling.</p>
<p>
I think I am where I should be at this time of year for my management style but am not positive due to not doing it long enough. I am also surprized that I have not lost control of swarming like I did my very first year and that makes me question health of the bees but I think I am ok.</p>
<p>
I will quit bugging you now but was happy to get a read out on your bees to compare mine with.</p>
<p>
Thanks</p>
<p>
gww</p>
<p>
Ps Something wrong with this site or my computer with how my spacing is coming out in the text.</p>


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## DanielD

I don't have enough time to be slow and calm with the bees, so I suit up with jacket and veil and nitrile gloves. I still got zinged maybe 4-5 times today. they can get through the gloves if they want to. One sting happened and I then realized the thumb of my glove was torn off. One hive got testy on me today, but the rest were going about business mostly. I go a bit quickly and this time of year I tear into them fairly good.

It's funny that you benefit from typing that it helps you understand a bit better. I feel like I understand what I am seeing and can keep track fairly well till I have 20+ hives, but then don't want to type it out because it makes more sense in my head than typing it out. 

Swarm control is the biggest thing for me to keep in check. You've done pretty well with your bees, being foundationless and no treatments. If you keep splitting and growing like I did, you may get a bit woozy when you get past 20. If you have all kinds of spare time, maybe you can deal with it just fine. 

You aren't bugging me gww. Good to hear you're doing well with the bugs.


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## gww

Danial
I have only made a few spits that the bees did not make me make. I am not really trying to expand but I get scared of not having as many as I have also. I mostly just go with the flow and go for a little honey. The only splits I did make was to see how to do it and what to expect. 
I don't know which way I want to go but am not unhappy staying static cause I have very little ambition. I am not losing money by doing it this way and it has not become a job which I don't want.
I do enjoy the learning and am having fun playing around.
I have something wrong with this site and do not know how to fix it.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

GWW:

I finally made it through your thread and it was a real treat to read. A few observations:

1. You are too modest- I've said it before, but I am impressed with your depth of knowledge and ability to synthesize the accumulated information that you have quickly taken in over a three year period. I am sure (like all of us) that you want to have a better handle on this beekeeping stuff, but you have certainly made it a pretty far pace down the road in a relatively short amount of time.

2. You've been successful (IMHO)- If I followed correctly, you have only lost one colony through winter over the years?

3. You've got a lot of life experience- How many guys can say they have kept bees, run a Chinese restaurant and own/operate their own sawmill?

4. Narrow Frames- I saw one photo where you had 11 frames in a 10 frame box. Was this just cramming an extra in or have you experimented with 1-1/4" frame spacing?

5. Swarm Traps- It sounds like you typically try to run all 10-frame medium equipment. Based on one photo I saw, are your swarm traps typically comprised of one (1) 10 frame medium box?

6. Queen Coloring- I was surprised to read that you said all your queens are a consistent (and light) color. The queens I have interacted with thus far range in color from amber/yellow abdomens as you referred to, to very dark brown to the extent you can scarcely discern the banding. Just goes to show that even though you and I live fairly close together in relative terms, our genetic pools are likely very different.

I do appreciate all the contributions you make here, and I will look forward to new installments on this thread.

Sincerely,

Russ


----------



## gww

russ
I am a screw up. I just combined back a hive that I had sold a split out of and I don't know if either side has a queen but one side was starving and so I just set it on the other side with out news paper. It is right now time for mating flights and so if there are even queens, they may kill each other. I found a hive yesterday with lots of queen cells that look like swarm cells to me that are almost ready to cap. I found them cause I gave some bees to a guy that accidentally had an extra queen bought. It would be a lot of typing to go into it all.

To your questions and comments.
1. Answered above sorta.

2. Yes, so far knock on wood, I have only lost one hive over winter. I have had a few splits that I put back together for various reasons and so do make mistakes but none that have caused me to go down in hive numbers depending on what happens with what I am currently playing with. 

3. " run a Chinese restaurant" Like mentioned in an earlier thread, I married up, my wife was the brains after I got her into the position with a bad ideal.

4. Narrow frames. Well, sorta. I make my own frames and cut 1/16 less then 1 and 3/8th but they don't come out consistent and some are probably smaller then one and a quarter and some are probably wider. Mostly I can get 11 in a box though crowded some times.

5. I run ten frame deeps for swarm traps with the ideal that if I ever need equipment, I will be able to cut them down to mediums.

6. Don't put too much into my queen color. I have only seen one queen this year and I have looked hard a few times though mostly I inspect for general health. Who knows what my queen colors are but the ones I have seen are close to each other.

I got scared cause of the queen cells I found and tried to look at more and maybe make a split before they were completely capped (They are close) and before I lost my queen but it started raining and so I may lose some bees real soon which for the time of year, amazes me. Was not expecting this and may not have even knew about it if that guy did not have an extra queen that needed taken care of.

I could do much better but admit that I still don't know much, am confused and throw in lazy and I am surprised that I do as well as I do.
I can't believe you took the time to read all this stuff, you must have really been bored.
Cheers
gww

Ps, You can see that a couple of the guys that answered my pleas for help in this thread, really did help me quite a bit.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I can't believe you took the time to read all this stuff, you must have really been bored.[/COLOR]


Well, to be fair I have been reading 10 - 15 minutes of it a day for a week-and-a-half. That said, you have a lot of good advice and thoughts to offer and so I knew it was worth investing in.

Keep up the good work and keep learning!


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## JWPalmer

Glenn, your thread is certainly entertaining. While I have not sat down and read them straight through like Russ, even if he spent a week, I have followed the thread since you started it. By design, or a serious case of good luck, you have done well. Keep it up.


----------



## gww

Russ
Thanks for taking an interest.

Jw
Thanks for the kind words. My view is every dog has their day and sometimes you are up and sometimes you get beat down. I have been lucky so far.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

On the split I sold from a hive that I also split after the sell and that I mentioned that I had recombined with out seeing either queen or using newspaper.

It has no capped brood yet but I did see this.








I wonder if she will darken a little more as she ages. She is pretty lite colored now. 

Since she is not a giant, you can see why she is only the second queen I have seen this year.








Not that much size difference from the rest of the bees. I still saw some live drones in the hives. I did not see any capped brood but did see one side of one frame with some large larva. I didn't see any small brood but that does not surprise me as I never do. The bees have way too much comb for the bee density and I have never seen so much pollen stored in comb but they only have one frame of honey and so will have a hard time growing much unless we really have a good fall flow.

I just posted this cause I am too lazy to take many pictures and so thought I should save the one I did take and here seemed like a good place to do that.
Thanks for reading.
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> It has no capped brood yet but I did see this.


GWW:

Thank you for the update I'd say if you've got a live queen and developing larvae chances are you are on the right road! The queen looks alright to my admittedly inexperienced eye, just judging against several of the queens I have seen in my yard.

Keep up the good work!

Russ


----------



## gww

Ok, update. I am now down to 9 hives as I had one die. I got busy lately and have not had time to try and be a better bee keeper. Due to the time I have let pass, an autopsy would do no good as the hive has been robbed clean. I have at least one more that will die over winter if I don't add food. 

I am not sure of how the rest are cause I only opened three hives not counting the dead one and they had enough and so I am taking it on faith that the rest are ok.

I am not willing to attribute the dead hive to mites or disease (though not impossible). The reason I say this is because this is a hive that I pulled a bunch of brood frames from and gave to somebody that had accidentally bought an extra queen that he had no where to put. My belief is that he got the queen from my hive with that brood or the hive had already swarmed though I think it was too late due to it being in july. We did see charged queen cells being made when he took the brood cause I had to call him and tell him to make sure and destroy all of them before placing his queen if he wanted the queen to live. I am pretty sure we left one of two cells in the hive. I think we killed the queen or lost it and the new one did not get mated. I should have paid more attention. I am sometimes over confident. The guy gave me 40 bucks for the bees and it should have worked but now was an expensive endeavor. My fault though and a good learning experience.

The hive that needs feed is the other hive that we took a medium of bees from including the queen and most of the brood. I had split the two boxes left by the box with out looking to see if there was a queen cell in both boxes due to how hot those bees were the day I did the split. When I looked at them later and seen one queen, I just combined them back cause I did not see the other queen. It is a hive now with one box of bees and brood and one box of basically empty comb. I am pretty sure it is plenty healthy enough to make it through winter bee wise but not good enough to gather enough stores before frost. I really don't like late splits that happen about harvest time. 

So now over 4 summers, I have lost 2 hives and have nine left. This is going to be the first year that I am not going to prop any of them up by giving them a couple gal of 2 to 1 in oct (except maybe the small one just to show I am not crazy). Hope I don't start any robbing on the small one but it does seem like a pretty good fall flow is on right this minute with me seeing bees on the small amount of golden rod and the tons or frost astors that is out there. If I hurry, I will be ok. The two hives I opened seemed to have the third box full of honey and so if they don't swarm, they should be good and the others should be close with out having to look at them. I say this cause one hive has filled that top box since I took the honey in sept which was the last I had looked in them.
They are bringing in pollen and so probably going to have a healthy round of brood for winter bees. 

I will of course know more come spring.

My very best producer was my oldest hive that I never split or did anything else to but that might have superceeded sometime though I never noticed it. I got about 50 lbs excess off of that hive. However, I only got about 130 lbs over all from all ten hives with nothing coming from a few.

I usually am done about now and will not weigh or open the hives again till the first 70 degree day of spring whenever that is, weather in feb or april.

I do enjoy looking at the entrances on any day warm enough for the bees to fly though.
b-th b-th b-thats all folks.
Cheers
gww

Ps the combs in the dead out still look good and I am going to leave them as it should frost by oct 20th or so. I hope they survive that with out wax moth and believe they will. I could move them to a freezer with my other four that I have store but want to see if they survive in good shape. If they do, next year will be the first year that I have a chance to see what my bees might produce if given draw supers. I am foundationless and have never had enough comb to give them and they have had to make the comb for the excess honey that I take. If I had to have a dead out, this is the one positive.


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> The guy gave me 40 bucks for the bees and it should have worked but now was an expensive endeavor. My fault though and a good learning experience.
> 
> ...
> 
> This is going to be the first year that I am not going to prop any of them up by giving them a couple gal of 2 to 1 in oct (except maybe the small one just to show I am not crazy).
> 
> ...
> 
> If they do, next year will be the first year that I have a chance to see what my bees might produce if given draw supers. I am foundationless and have never had enough comb to give them and they have had to make the comb for the excess honey that I take. If I had to have a dead out, this is the one positive.


GWW:

As always, I enjoy reading your posts- I read this one last night and then came back today and read it again more carefully to make sure I understood everything.

In my very limited beekeeping experience, I have found that every manipulation is an adventure, and often fraught with risk- It seems I'm the guy that always shakes the queen out of the colony when looking to add resources to other colonies, so you might very well be right concerning your dead-out.

Either way, as you mention the drawn comb will no doubt come in real handy with your other colonies provided you don't have a swarm move in before you put those combs away .

I am looking forward to hearing how your plan to offer no welfare to your colonies turns out. When I go through all my colonies in the next couple of weeks I am leaning toward the same approach provided it looks like they have sufficient stores, based in part on your experiences.

Keep up the good work, and best of success with your support of the struggling colony.

Have a great weekend.

Russ


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## gww

russ


> I am looking forward to hearing how your plan to offer no welfare to your colonies turns out. When I go through all my colonies in the next couple of weeks I am leaning toward the same approach provided it looks like they have sufficient stores, based in part on your experiences.


Just keep in mind, my only experience so far is adding at least 2 gal fast in the beginning of oct and some times a few with sugar blocks to boot.

I have no experience of doing nothing but will by spring time.

I saw your goerge E. post on taking care of comb on your thread and was thinking you might have posted it based on my leaving the comb out.

Time will tell how all goes but I feel pretty confident and the only thing left is to see if I should have felt that way.

I will keep learning through your thread even if I don't comment every day. It is still a highlight of my day that I try and keep up on.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

You're a good guy, GWW. Keep up the good work- I've learned a whole lot from you too...

Any references to George Imirie and protecting drawn comb at a time you are talking about leaving out are strictly coincidental 😉.

Best of success as you close out the season.

Russ


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## RayMarler

In back reading this thread...
You have mentioned, back in May, that sometimes the brood looks bad and spotty, and then it clears up. Several things can cause this, but what I have surmised at times in my own hives, is that when it's colder in the late winter/early spring, the brood can be quite spotty and then it clears up as the weather warms... the reason may be that when it's colder, they need more open cells in the brood area so that "heater bees" can enter the cells and heat the comb and brood. As the weather warms, the need for heating comb and brood reduces so the brood is not as spotty then.

Heater bees are the bees that go into cells, disconnect their wing muscles and then exercise those muscles to create heat. That warms the comb and brood around them. I think this explanation has answered what I see, at least some of the time. Maybe it is the answer to some of the times when you see the same thing.


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## gww

Ray
Thanks for the tip. Hope you are doing well. I would come and talk at the chat room but have been really busy trying to get moms plumbing in her 100 year old house running as strong as it should run and keeping the old ford tractor working.

Plus I have had some doctors appointments and am not used to the time those things take as I have not had that hassle for most of my life.

I am really glad to hear from you in this thread cause I would have never survived my first few years with out yours and Daniels calming influence as issues came up. You showing up here gives me a chance to point that out again to everyone that might read this.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

GWW:

How's everything looking in your home yard so far? What did you ever decide to do regarding supplemental feeding?


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## gww

Russ
I only put two gal on the small hive that I took a split from in july (the one that did not die). The others are on their own and I have my fingers crossed. It got cold early this year. I saw two hives doing orientation flights the other days and so know at least a few have some young bees and as long as the food holds, I am feeling fine.
I had to buy a new computer and so have not been able to keep up for a few days and deer season starts Saturday and so I am moving on from bees for a short period.
Cheers
gww

Ps I tried to take pictures of my feeding method but could not get the pictures to transfer to the computer. When I get the gumption, I am going to see if the blue tooth works with this new computer as I did not have that option with the old one.


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## JWPalmer

Good luck with deer season Glenn. The bees will take care of themselves.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I only put two gal on the small hive that I took a split from in july (the one that did not die). The others are on their own and I have my fingers crossed. It got cold early this year. I saw two hives doing orientation flights the other days and so know at least a few have some young bees and as long as the food holds, I am feeling fine.


I'm looking forward to watching how things play out for you, GWW. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on it working out great for you.

Best of luck to you in the tree stand- thankfully it looks like it is going to be warmer next week than this week.

Russ


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## gww

Just because I got a picture to blue tooth to my computer, I thought I would show how I drop about two gal at once to my hive.










Anybody hungry? Apple fritters?








Cheers
gww

Ps Jw, fingers crossed.


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## Cloverdale

I’ll take some of those fritters! :thumbsup:


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## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> I’ll take some of those fritters! :thumbsup:


Me too- do you deliver to W. Kentucky?

p.s. Glad to see you got the Bluetooth functionality working out- now you can be truly wireless.


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## JWPalmer

I love apple fritters. Bought some from Walmart last week and they were terrible. What is your recipe?


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## GregB

Do share the recipe.
I got lots of apple to quickly process/use up while still good.
200 pounds maybe still left.
Drying, saucing, juice/apple butter, freezing; some will try to store fresh for a bit.


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## gww

I have made these twice and used this recipe sort of.
https://www.seasonsandsuppers.ca/apple-fritters-yeast-donuts/
The first time I had no lard and so used butter. I did use the cake flour.

The second batch that I like better. I had some milk that was three days past the date but still drinkable and not turned. So I used milk instead of water and did use lard and used all purpose flour. I liked the texture of the all purpose flour best due to it being a little chewier. I triple the recipe and so get about 24 to 26 of the type that are in my picture.

Making cinnamon rolls or bubble bread is easier to make but some times fried just taste good.
I figured these frozen would make a handy treat for deer season but have had most of them already ate and only have about ten left and they were only made like on tuesday. I do know that they do taste great even after being frozen though. These two times were the first two times I have ever made apple fritters cause I am cheap and unlike greg, still have never gotten an apple off of my five trees. I have made quite a few peach pies though.
Cheers and good eating.
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> The second batch that I like better. I had some milk that was three days past the date but still drinkable and not turned. So I used milk instead of water and did use lard and used all purpose flour. I liked the texture of the all purpose flour best due to it being a little chewier. I triple the recipe and so get about 24 to 26 of the type that are in my picture.


Anything that has milk, eggs and fruit in it and is fried in lard is called good eating in my book.

I look forward to giving this recipe a try.

Russ


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## gww

Ok
The few post back where I had a dead out and was going to brave it and see if the comb might survive till spring in place turned out to be a mistake. The wax moth have destroyed the three mediums and so 30 drawn frames down. So now I only have 4 drawn out supers for spring. I knew the risk but wanted to see in person. Next year such things will spend a bit of time in the freezer. Bit of a waste egh.








Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> ...I had a dead out and was going to brave it and see if the comb might survive till spring in place turned out to be a mistake.


Wow, GWW. They completely eviscerated that comb- sorry about this. I unfortunately had to learn this lesson the hard way this year too- decided that the swarm traps have to come in before July 4th for sure and maybe late May around here.

Otherwise, how are your bees faring? Lots of pollen coming in with this unseasonably warm weather?


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## AR1

Litsinger said:


> Wow, GWW. They completely eviscerated that comb- sorry about this. I unfortunately had to learn this lesson the hard way this year too- decided that the swarm traps have to come in before July 4th for sure and maybe mid-May around here.
> 
> Otherwise, how are your bees faring? Lots of pollen coming in with this unseasonably warm weather?


Hate wax moths. 
More than 50 degrees the last few days here, and the bees are flying. One of five hives is dead. I gave one to my niece and it didn't get fed, so that's probably why. No honey at all this Fall. Popped open my 4 today and all are alive and working the sugar. Put a bit more in two of them. 
I have three traps out that due to the weather I couldn't get back to check on. The landowner has hunters so I couldn't get back in the late Fall. Doubtful there is anything in them but mice, but I like to imagine there may be bees.


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## gww

Russ
No pollen since our first frost that I have noticed but I also have not been watching the hives hardly at all. It was almost 70 degrees today and so I couldn't resist. The bees were not really flying today but all had bees at the entrance and so I figure I still have 9 hives for now. 

I leave my traps out all year and no longer worry about comb in them. Last year I did not even empty them of mice and wasp and such. I just threw a q-tip with lemon grass oil in every so often. I still caught one and the most I have ever caught is three in one year and so until I get desperate for more bees, I will only do it half way.

I hope your holidays are going well for you.
Cheers 
gww


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## gww

AR1


> One of five hives is dead


Was that your really late queen hive? I am still curious of how that one might do.
Good luck
gww


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## Cloverdale

gww said:


> Ok
> The few post back where I had a dead out and was going to brave it and see if the comb might survive till spring in place turned out to be a mistake. The wax moth have destroyed the three mediums and so 30 drawn frames down. So now I only have 4 drawn out supers for spring. I knew the risk but wanted to see in person. Next year such things will spend a bit of time in the freezer. Bit of a waste egh.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers
> gww


----------



## Litsinger

AR1 said:


> ...but I like to imagine there may be bees.


Hope springs eternal, right? Good update, AR1. Here's hoping that your colonies that have held out this long make it through.

Here's to a prosperous New Year to you and your family.

Russ


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## msl

> I knew the risk but wanted to see in person.


that is you to a T


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## gww

Debbee
Thanks for the sad face. I thought I would try it cause it was so close to the frost date and I had had single combs in empty boxes never touched for years. This comb all packed together must have been much more interesting to the bugs. It is a self imposed error that I sorta knew was going to end up this way but I just wanted to know for sure. Now I know for sure.
Hope your holidays are going well.
gww


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## gww

msl
How true.
Hope you are well.
Cheers 
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> ...so I figure I still have 9 hives for now.


Thanks for the update, GWW. Sounds like your overwintering efforts are shaping-up well (as usual).

Here, 11 of 12 colonies have recently begun bringing in a very light, almost white pollen in pretty healthy quantities- hoping they don't get fooled into brooding up too much, too early... can't imagine what is producing pollen around here already.

We had a great Christmas celebration and I sincerely hope you and your family did as well.

Have a great evening.

Russ


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## gww

Russ


> Thanks for the update, GWW. Sounds like your overwintering efforts are shaping-up well (as usual).


Long as I don't mess around and starve them early spring. Very first year of not feeding and this is another thing I am just wanting to know and as you can see, I am not above being mistake prone while just wanting to see things.

Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> Long as I don't mess around and starve them early spring. Very first year of not feeding and this is another thing I am just wanting to know and as you can see, I am not above being mistake prone while just wanting to see things.


I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out- but I fully expect it is going to turn out just fine!


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## JWPalmer

Glenn, I hate wax moths too. Trying something new this year also. Most of the comb I brought indoors to the bee room was destroyed, even after spraying it with Bt.k. Had a lot of moths flying around the house for a while. The remaining supers were left on the hives for the bees to patrol. Feeders were placed above them so there would be constant traffic on warm days. Will see how they fared come springtime. In the meanwhile, I have about 50 medium frames to clean and rewax.


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## gww

jw
squarepeg leaves his supers on the hives for the bees to care for and I think it works well for him. I looked today and the four that I have in the freezer still look fine. I only kept the freezer on for a few days. I had a big commercial freezer go bad and I have taken all the selves out of it. I have it outside in the weather and I am hoping to sorta use it as a sealed shed. Maybe freeze in the house and then move out there and see how it goes. I am not too worried about mold even if it happens but so far see none when I have opened it over the last few months. Wish it would not have went bad, could have made some money back on it but when getting lemons, make lemonade.
Good luck with you.
gww


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## A Novice

This year, I put my combs in the shed, and left a 15W LED bulb on from August to October. I had no moth problems.

Earlier, I had left a few combs with some bee bread in them loose on the shelf, and the wax moths made a mess of them. After cleaning up and turning on the light, I left a few combs on the same shelf. The light appears to have kept the moths away, as I didn't get any more.

Disclaimer - Wax moths are a relatively minor problem this far north, as the winter kills them off pretty effectively.


----------



## JWPalmer

While I had wax moths in the house, I did notice that they exhibited typical moth attraction to light sources, mirrors, windows, ceiling fans, etc. I think a bug zapper in the bee room would be a good addition. Should at least keep them from proliferating and slow down the reproductive process. Not sure I want two empty supers on every hive going into winter. Only have one on several hives right now. I am also considering placing a bug zapper in the apiary since I have power out there. A timer could make it only come on at night when the bees are not flying. No idea if bees would be attracted to one if were on during the day and I do not want to find out by experimenting with my bees.


----------



## gww

novice
You should put your location on you post and we would know your coldness. This is a suggestion and not a criticism. Thanks for the comments. I have seen guys that make open racks to store their comb on so they are in open air with good light. If I would have set the supers on their side and left both ends open and even out in the weather, I probably would not have had issues except for maybe wood rot. I keep all my unused hive outside now and so don't worry too mush about rot (might come back and bite me later though). 

I have a general lazy streak and have never done any of this stuff before and so I always do the easiest thing I can think of until it bites me and I have to do more. The 15 watt light is a great ideal. I don't have good electric where I have good storage room at this point in time but do like your ideal and also the result of your shelf experiment. Thank you for mentioning it.

I thought I would be ok due to being so close to frost date but apparently it did not get cold enough inside the hive where the moth nest actually was or at least not in time. I did learn one thing though. It did not take the moth too long to compleetly fill the hive cause it was not bad when I first noticed the dead out and we were really close to our first frost which came early. They must move pretty fast or I did not look very good.
Cheers
gww


----------



## AR1

No, that one is still with us. Low population compared to the others but appears Okay. I'm not planning to dig into and disturb any of them until the snow is gone in the Spring. Pointless since I wouldn't have anything to do that would help them at this point.


----------



## AR1

gww said:


> novice
> If I would have set the supers on their side and left both ends open and even out in the weather, I probably would not have had issues except for maybe wood rot. I keep all my unused hive outside now and so don't worry too mush about rot (might come back and bite me later though).
> gww


I stack them all in the garage. I hate the thought of my home-made boxes getting rot, so pretty much everything gets a coat of paint every year. I value the wood itself, since most of it came out of my dad's barn. I helped him build the livestock pens when I was a kid, and now am reusing the same wood for my bees 50 years later. Some of the wood was from his uncle, so maybe 80 years old. 

I buy the returned paint at Farm & Fleet or Ace for <$10/gallon. Sometimes odd colors. Last year line marker paint, for painting stripes on parking lots was really cheap. So I have some very vivid yellow, red and blue boxes now. Interested to see how well it holds up in the weather.

Boxes full of comb go outside when the temps are below freezing, which seems to kill moths.


----------



## GregB

AR1 said:


> I buy the returned paint at Farm & Fleet or Ace for <$10/gallon. Sometimes odd colors. Last year line marker paint, for painting stripes on parking lots was really cheap. So I have some very vivid yellow, red and blue boxes now. Interested to see how well it holds up in the weather.
> 
> Boxes full of comb go outside when the temps are below freezing, which seems to kill moths.


Being a cheap-skate, I pickup free paint only (craigslist, etc) - whatever it is - goes.

Moths - this is how the mid/late fall dead outs are the best - you clean the bees out, then have the entire winter to use the hive as in-place storage (no moths).
Until then, I use the live hives as storage units - bees take care of it all.


----------



## gww

This is how I store my hives. It seems like no matter how much space I get for storage, it never stays empty enough to use. I built a 50 by 20 pole barn two or so years ago and though I have some hive stuff in there, no real room left.








Cheers
gww


----------



## DanielD

gww, I can relate to you needing to see for yourself about the moths. I tend to just think something won't happen in my case, until it happens. Robbing was my biggest eye opener early on. 

This fall as it cooled down, empty supers that had to come off, I left them outside on end and they did fairly well. It was when nights were getting pretty cool in October. If I put them in the storage shed they would have been pummeled like yours was. How do I know that? The ones in the storage shed were getting moths. I consider moving all comb outside when it gets frigid for a few days in case something is wintering over in the stored combs.

A Novice, that's an interesting result using the light on with comb. I would like to know if anyone else had such a result.


----------



## gww

Danial
It was great to hear from you. Hope all is well. I could not have made it this far with out you.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Gww, everything is good. I have been quite busy for a few months, but have an easy day today, which means not such a rush. I haven't been on here for some time though. Good honey harvest per hive, but queen mating has not gone too well. 

Encouragement goes both ways here. Good to hear you are still buzzing there.


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## gww

It is 59 degrees today and the bees are mobbing the maples in my yard. They are bringing off white or yellow looking pollen in and I assume some nectar.

I have one hive that is only two mediums high and is the one I fed last year. It is the only hive I have an entrance reducer on and has had bees covering the entrance in some pretty cold weather.

So, I took the three mediums that I let the wax moth destroy the comb in and combined all the comb left in it into one medium. There were a few full combs but mostly just partials with holes or the bottom parts eaten off. It is some pretty raggedy comb with some webbing and cocoons here and there. I put this on top of the above mentioned hive. It is probably still to cold for this but time will tell.

The hive looks really good at the entrance but not as good from the top of the top box. I looked down and did not see any real stores in it and so it is a good thing for the maples. I did not pull frames to see for sure but am pretty confident they are pretty empty.









This probably means the rest of my hives are on edge of starvation as well. However, they are still all alive and I am going to let it ride and see where it takes me. I am not going to pray for snow though.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Hi gww, it is good to hear the maple bloom is getting close to me up here. I was expecting by next weekend first pollen with the predicted weather. I am watching the maples closer this year since tapping sap for maple syrup on my one tree in the yard. No bud break yet but the sap has slowed considerably today. 

If the weather has enough warm days to fly the maples should keep your bees going, but if it goes cold for a week, that would be a concern if they are going dry. March is considered the biggest risk of loss I think. they are brooding up and almost out of food. 

One year in mid May we had a cold wet week so I checked on some and found several to be bone dry and pulling open brood. An emergency feed on the ones needed saved the day and warmer weather happened a couple days later. I would suggest checking for actual stores if I were you, and add for a little surplus. March is a risky month for bees if they don't have a good storage anymore. If there's some flying weather most days I wouldn't be concerned as much.

I have concluded a hive with an extra super of honey at this time will be a lot stronger in May than one without. They have more food to expand faster. My big busting hives always has had extra stores coming into spring. I have early on wondered if I needed to extract the extra for room, but they manage to consume most of it by May.


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## gww

Danial
I am still reeling from my first year when we had that strong early warm spell while the hives had stores and everything decided to swarm. Don't get me wrong, it was a blessing and why I have nine hives now. However, I have decided to gamble knowing it slows them down tremendously, cause I like my hive numbers more then I like as much honey and splits as I can make. 

I could do as you say and make sure and may regret it when I don't but probably won't do it till it is 70 degrees for a day or two. I do believe we are going to get week long cold spells yet but also see that the forecast is min flying temps for the next week if it does not change. I am going to hope that the bees have it figured out and don't over brood for their resources. If I make a mistake, I will try and not repeat it next year but am just seeing how it works this year. 

I realize that I am not taking advantage of what could be possible with the bees and the brood they could raise with more resources. In Doolittles book written in the turn of the century, he called it giving the bees "millions of honey" and thought it was necessary for massive production. I, on the other hand have the goal of slowing the bees down so that swarm worries come with much warmer weather then is possible with super strong hives. I don't really want to kill them though but do want to see if that is where it goes. Hope not and I may still get scared.

Just cause I may be crazy and not always listen to good advice, I hope you keep giving it cause you have saved me with your thinking a few times already.

My goals are to sorta see what is possible with little resources and effort. I get into the hives sometimes even when not needed just to look but also am trying to do very little while there so I can learn when to do stuff and when not to for my kind of bee keeping which is to never spend money or buy things I can build myself. I am still playing at danial boone where I get by without stores. I did buy bee repellent for harvest though. That and a turkey feather as a bee brush.

I am a terrible sales man and still have a couple of gal of honey from last year and probably a gal from the year before and I only made ten gal each year and so making honey is only so nice. I only keep the number of hives I got for disaster, so if several die, I will still not have to buy bees. Stupid way to keep bees but they are much better to me then my chickens are. I have came out ahead every year from year one and so that was the goal and I am meeting it. Granted, only a couple of hundred ahead and being very good to my kids ahead. I like it though and would do no work with out it and so it is probably good for my health also.

All my maples are in various stages of death now. I don't know if they are silver or red but do not think they are sugar maples. I have always thought about getting the sap but it is one thing I never got to and don't think my trees are suited for. I am curious about you doing it though. I would love your thoughts on it and if you like doing it or not.

I did grow mushrooms last winter but am out of that now.

It is great to hear from you and I hope your bees are well.
Thanks
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I am going to hope that the bees have it figured out and don't over brood for their resources.


GWW:

I always enjoy reading your updates, and I am glad that your experiment in minimalist Fall feeding appears to be working.

More generally, I agree philosophically with your goal of wanting bees that are equipped to 'read' the environmental cues and plan appropriately (most years) in my specific locale.

It sounds optimistic that you've got stock that mirrors your goals, so I expect that is 90% of the keys to success.

Good luck to you in this coming year- and congratulations on yet another highly successful overwintering.

I'll look forward to your continued updates.

Russ


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## gww

Russ
I like to know what might be possible in handling bees even if I take a different rout. Who knows what the future will bring. I have little ambition but might have more in future years if I figure other things out in my supply change. If I had an avenue of cheap, accessible equipment, I might try and raise some bees to sell. I can not do that building my own and don't want money more then I want lazy.

Getting to yours and my situation of trying to raise bees with out treatments, I do wonder if my holding the bees back from their possible potential, might not be a benefit towards survival (as long as big mistakes are not made walking the edge). Since mites reproduce in brood and eat fat bodies, maybe having depressed bees fits the time line to not let mites get out of hand. I don't know this but it does play on my mind and in my thinking toward actions I take.

Of course if you starve a hive to death, you don't need mites to kill them.

I go more by feeling then by knowledge cause I have no comparisons to my own experiences. I am trying to pay attention and reading others actions for potential but do what I do.

It is nice to know there are many ways to skin a cat but you can only try so much stuff cause it takes real time to try it.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

gww, I understand your desire not to split or have piles of honey. I remember going from 9 gallons one year to 95 gallons. It was fun to pile up all that honey in 5 gallon buckets, but took a while to figure out how to sell it. That's been 3 years ago, and I finally have caught up and only have enough left for some regular customers and us till July. I was mainly thinking to verify and know what the bees have in stock if some long cold or wet weather comes along. I just like to know what hives have plenty and which ones are barely ahead on stores. Again, I don't feed unless it's critical, but it takes some looking to know that. Most of my feeding is bricks in winter for just in case.

I do get it about your not spending money and experimenting to see what happens with no intervention. It sounds like you are on track then. 

Regarding tapping the maples, I just made up some tapered tubes with what I had and attached some tubing to them into some buckets with a lid held on with bricks. There's a lot of advice online about weather and timing, which I am just figuring out. A friend got me started last year and we only have one bigger maple, but we got about 9 gallons out of it this year, which boils down to a quart or better. It's dandy tasting stuff though. 

A silver maple has silvery undersides on the leaves and they are messy trees dropping twigs and branches a lot. Sap boils down at different rates for different tree species, but average is 40 to 1. you can use any maple, and other species.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Getting to yours and my situation of trying to raise bees with out treatments, I do wonder if my holding the bees back from their possible potential, might not be a benefit towards survival (as long as big mistakes are not made walking the edge). Since mites reproduce in brood and eat fat bodies, maybe having depressed bees fits the time line to not let mites get out of hand. I don't know this but it does play on my mind and in my thinking toward actions I take.


GWW:

Good insight- from my very humble vantage point, I see a lot of wisdom in this approach. The only thing I would tweak regarding your thoughts personally would be the idea of 'depressed' bees. Ultimately, my sincerest hope is to have healthy bees who are able to respond appropriately (i.e. brood rearing timing and intensity) to their external cues. I do believe that when we 'bend' the curve to help them, we may at times unwittingly harm them by inducing heavy brood rearing too early which not only means more mouths to feed (and to your point) more opportunities for mite reproduction, which only leads to compounding interest as our relatively long season wears on.

All that said, I think you are wise to only tinker on the edges of what you have been doing. It has been working for you, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?


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## gww

Russ


> The only thing I would tweak regarding your thoughts personally would be the idea of 'depressed' bees. Ultimately, my sincerest hope is to have healthy bees who are able to respond appropriately (i.e. brood rearing timing and intensity) to their external cues.


The thing is, it takes a whole year or two to see what is happening when you do something with bees. I can have many ideals but time is what proves stuff. I agree with you though.

Danial
Last year is the first year I did not have at least some sugar blocks on some hives. I keep heading to a lower standard towards failure. I hope I am smart enough to recognize when I have stepped over the line but am not sure I am. Time will tell.

On the maples. I may try that at some point. I also heard that sycamore taste like butter scotch. It does seem like a lot of fire for what you get in the end but I have thought about trying both. My original thought was that I had chickens and so was using the extra eggs for waffles which I was eating every morning. I thought if I got bees, I could eat honey. In the end, I learned I liked syrup better then honey on my waffles. It worked out cause the few bottles of honey I could sell bought lots more syrup then honey. I buy the cheap fake stuff and so I may need to get off my butt and try and make some real stuff.

I hope to hear about your bee keeping a little this spring and summer and maybe hear how you do on this years harvest. I have always enjoyed knowing and comparing my little operation to yours. See if you have another 200 lbs hive this year. My biggest so far from one hive has been about 50lbs.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> The thing is, it takes a whole year or two to see what is happening when you do something with bees. I can have many ideals but time is what proves stuff.


No argument here- now that you have 5 years under your belt I'd humbly suggest that you have a good baseline to work from to see what impact small 'tweaks' you make has on your overall success.

I'll look forward to reading how Spring unfolds for you- if I were a betting man, I would put my money on it working out .


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## gww

Ok. I lost one more hive and am down to eight hives. If I count the one that died or I killed last oct, that is 20 percent loss this year. 

All I saw in the dead hive was a few capped drone and quite a bit of honey. Maybe a little over half of a medium give or take. I had seen bees taking pollen into this hive but knew the traffic was down at the entrance on my two end hives. One good thing about the way this hive died is that the comb has not been ate up yet by wax moth. Maybe just enough bees in it to protect the comb?

I miss-judged the other hives. I put my four supers on them and pulled a few half brood combs and put in empties on the others. I thought I might be a little early and that the hives might be low on stores. They surprised me and may be ready to swarm soon. I don't judge this from bee density but more from stores and how much room they have. 

Here is one example. These pictures are from the second box of a three box hive.
















That is quite a honey dome and it means most brood is contained in one medium. 

So for my adding my four supers from last year, I put two under the full boxes of honey and two on top if there was any brood (even half combs) that did not have a honey band on top of the comb.

The rest, If they had brood in the top box (even if only a few half combs worth), I pulled a comb or two each and put in the empty boxes and put empty frames in their place in with the brood. I did not look for queen cells or dig lower then needed to accomplish just adding space and have no ideal about the hives other then stores on top. It might not be enough and it might be too late but I am out of shape and that was all the energy I could come up with on my first venture into the hives. I am a fair weather bee keeper and today was a really fair weather day where everything was right.

We are just now getting out first few dandelions and I should be on time but the bees must have did better on the trees then normal or I am a slob and they started with more stores then I thought they had.

I did not see a bunch of drone brood in what I pulled but did not really look very deep.

Now I need to decide if I want the honey in the dead hive or want to shake and use as supers or want to use it in splits. Maybe I will catch a swarm. Maybe from my own hives.

I do seem to be getting lazier as the more years I get in and so I don't even know myself what I am going to do.

I had all the hives open and did pull some frames and no stings and so the bees are happy right now. 

Well, this is my little update. 
Cheers
gww

Ps The guy I sold a few bees to last july said all his bees made it through winter.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> So for my adding my four supers from last year, I put two under the full boxes of honey and two on top if there was any brood (even half combs) that did not have a honey band on top of the comb.
> 
> The rest, If they had brood in the top box (even if only a few half combs worth), I pulled a comb or two each and put in the empty boxes and put empty frames in their place in with the brood.


GWW:

Good update- sorry to hear you had a late colony failure.

I read through your update a few times and was curious (if you don't mind):

1. So all your colonies were found brooding in the bottom box of the stack?

2. Assuming (1) is correct, you found the core of the broodnest in the bottom box, most colonies had brood starting in the second box, and a few had brood in the third box?

3. Assuming (2) is correct, you added four (4) boxes to all colonies generally as follows:

Those colonies with no brood in third box- two supers between boxes 2 and 3 and two supers on top of former box 3?

Those colonies with brood in third box- two supers between boxes 2 and 3 and two supers on top of former box three with some brood pyramided up?

Best of luck to you this Spring.

Russ


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## gww

russ
I do not communicate clearly. I only had 4 supers in total. So, One each hive till I ran out with some going under the third box and some on top based on what was in the top brood box. Some were pure honey and so to add space on top of brood, it took under supering. Any that I found with brood in the top box, if the brood did not have a big band of honey at the top of the comb, I just put the super on top of the hives. When I ran out of supers and only had empty boxes, I baited those boxes which also opened the brood nest a little. I found no full combs of brood in the top boxes but did find comb with brood. I did not dig any deeper then to be able to add space. I still had to pull quite a few frames as any brood I did find was center of the boxes.

Most of my brood nest are not in the third box and I only got to the second box if the third box was full of honey and no brood. I did not really get down into the nest and for all I know the bottom might be empty but I don't think so.

I was in that place that I was scared of letting the bees start making plans to swarm and not knowing if they had even got into spring build up hard. There were nice enough days to get in the hive earlier but it was a swamp here. We got wind yesterday and so today I did not sink to my ankles when walking to the hives and so I got in them today but only to buy myself some time, just in case.

I was going to add space if they needed it or not but all the capped honey in the hives kinda scared me that I might be pushing it and the bees might not have room.

Bee keeping for me is like mushroom hunting. I usually have to see a couple to really start seeing. I always feel lost. I will look closer when I don't have to mess with all the hives and can pick just a few to look deeper. I have seen hives boiling with bees harder then I saw today but I am not used to seeing all that honey on top and so it was harder to tell and I did not concentrate on brood nest.

I sometimes forget things I do see and that is why I type it down. This was my first time in this year.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Bee keeping for me is like mushroom hunting. I usually have to see a couple to really start seeing. I always feel lost.


Thanks for the clarification, GWW. That makes a lot more sense- I suppose I was WAY over-complicating it.

My how do I identify with always feeling a bit bewildered when doing hive inspections. It has helped me to:

1. Think twice before opening them up- have I really thought through what the consequences of my inspection might be?

2. Having a clear purpose in mind before I go in- why am I doing this right now?

3. Considering 'what if I find...' what am I going to do? Usually nothing, but I want to be prepared to take decisive action if necessary.

Even then I seem to always have more questions than answers- this seems to me to be one of the charms of beekeeping, however- always something new to learn.


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## gww

There is still a little pollen being carried into the below mentioned dead hive. I am assuming the hive is got a small amount of laying worker or something. I did not go through the hive and look at every frame. I did see in the second box a few capped drone brood and saw that there did not seem to be signs of a cluster of any sort that looked like it might be covering brood when looking down at the top of the frames. Very slow traffic but for sure pollen loads coming in.

It just goes to show that pollen loads coming into a hive is not sure sign of life.

I just found it interesting. I am going to have to break it down further and just see what is there. If I could make 15 more days and not have wax moth issues, I could be in good split territory or I could just shake the frames and use as supers for what I have. Decisions decisions.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok.
So I looked in three hives today. One I looked into cause something just does not look exactly right from the traffic to and from the hive. It is carrying in pollen but just not as many bees coming and going. The things that bothered me while looking inside was that there was not a lot of brood and what is there is pretty patchy. I looked for a queen with no luck and I did see some larger larva but did not see any pattern where I could follow the large ones down to smaller ones which is normally the only way I can get close to seeing smaller larva. 

So it has had a queen in at least the last 5 days or so. It had enough honey and bee coverage in it to support more and better brood and so I wonder what is going on. I did not see any queen cups dry or wet or old queen cell bits. It has been 21 or so days since I last was in the hives. I think this hive might bite the dust. Just too much honey and no real brood. 

It is not laying worker type brood that is there but no young brood to raise a queen with that I could see and really only one full medium worth of bees. It is enough bees and lots bigger then any swarm I have ever caught but something just seems off. I thought about adding some young larva to the hive to see what would happen but then just decided that the bees may know what they are doing and I will check later and see what it looks like. 

In a different hive I did see the queen.








Skinny queen but nice brood pattern huh? This hive had much less honey in it then earlier but did have some real wet stuff that was dripping when I held the combs wrong. This hive did have several dry queen cups space on comb edge but no worries I think.

The next hive was one that I had pulled two brood frame up to bait another box and put empty frames in their place. It now has even less honey in the hive but I can see what they are doing with it. In twenty one days they have did this with the empty frames.








Both frame are about the same and layed up on both sides. Nice brood pattern huh? I always feel good when the bees are drawing wax.

I may have seen some drones in the hives but did not see any capped drone brood which is a little weird with me being foundationless. I usually have drone brood to spare.

End of update or whatever the above can be called.
Cheers
gww


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## GregB

IMO, this entire thread needs to be just moved into the TF sub-forum where it belongs (possibly renamed).


GWW, did you ever bother checking your mite levels?
OR is it about some serious isolation?

I could be seriously interested in a queen from you.

How is it possible that some guys just "keep bees" while others treat non-stop, and yet others count the losses non-stop (that would be me).


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## gww

Greg
I have no ideal about why I am surviving. I have no other experience then what I have did. I do know that people buy packages around me and that some around me lose bees. It might just not have been my turn yet on the bad. 

I don't count mite or worry too much about them at all. Let me take that back. I worry but not enough to do anything about it. I see all kinds of things that worry me or that I don't understand. I have many time had dead bees pile up in front of the hive but they still live. I have seen pure black bees and bee crawl up grass and fall back down. I only make ten gal of honey off of ten hives and most would count that bad. My bee keeping is so easy though that I count that as fine. 

I offered a queen to a guy that live a couple of hours from me if he wanted to drive and get it. I told him he could take a nuc and I would let the bees that were left make a new one. I just don't want to make queens cause my way of getting queens is usually just a fly back split (some which don't work out and I have to recombine) and so my problem is talent and wanting to put in the effort. If you were my neighbor, I would let you come get one and I would watch and learn while you did it.

I will keep your request in mind and if by chance I get a spell of ambition or the bees decide to swarm and I have the fore-cite to get an extra one mated, I will try and figure out how to mail one but I make no promise.

I do say this though. Most of my bees have come from either my hive swarming or swarms I have caught over a 30 mile radius and could have come from someones bought bees. They may not be special.
Cheers
gww

PS I do lived 7/10th of a mile from a 400 population town and so am in the boonies sorta.


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## GregB

gww said:


> Greg
> I have no ideal about why I am surviving. .......
> 
> Cheers
> gww
> 
> PS I do lived 7/10th of a mile from a 400 population town and so am in the boonies sorta.


For sure you are remote.
I got 500K population around me and God knows how many backyard bees (likely into hundreds and/or thousands colonies in a single county).

Actually, a friend lives just outside of our county and his package bees (a single package bought 5 years ago) are still alive - chem-free.
He has losses, but this is the original commercial line he got - just standard splitting once per summer - all he does.
He is pretty isolated in a small village.


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## AR1

GregV said:


> For sure you are remote.
> I got 500K population around me and God knows how many backyard bees (likely into hundreds and/or thousands colonies in a single county).
> .


When I drive to work I see 3 beehives and I know of a few others, all within a half-mile of my small-town home. Closest is about 200 yards. Who knows how many more there are? The local park keeps a dozen within a mile of me, and they farm out hives to people who want to try beekeeping for a summer. Bees everywhere.


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## gww

There are bee keepers around me with in flying distance. I am sure of it. I know one at 1.3 miles but he also doesn't treat but I bet there are a couple that I don't know about also.

I got one neighbor out side of flying distance that lost four two years back and I don't think has more but his wife bought three quarts of honey from me.

My neighbor across the road from me who died last year told me one of his neighbors behind him had bees.
Cheers
gww


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## GregB

gww said:


> There are bee keepers around me with in flying distance. I am sure of it. I know one at 1.3 miles but he also doesn't treat but I bet there are a couple that I don't know about also.
> 
> I got one neighbor out side of flying distance that lost four two years back and I don't think has more but his wife bought three quarts of honey from me.
> 
> My neighbor across the road from me who died last year told me one of his neighbors behind him had bees.
> Cheers
> gww


Well, heck, that is some treatment-free bonanza going on in your neck of the woods.
Surely milder climate than I got up here - it helps some survival.
But still there is something in the air - not the Gotland island for sure, and yet you "just keep bees". Darn!


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> In a different hive I did see the queen.
> 
> ...
> 
> I may have seen some drones in the hives but did not see any capped drone brood which is a little weird with me being foundationless.


Good update, GWW. I am sorry that I have not replied until now as I have been away from my computer.

That is a good looking, and very light-colored queen. Are most of your queens fairly light in color or do you have some with dark abdomens too?

What do you make of not having much observable drone comb?

Have any of your colonies swarmed? Have you had any hits in your swarm traps?

Keep up the good work- I always enjoy reading your updates.

Russ


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## gww

Russ
No swarms from my hive or looking at my traps that I know of. I am not making it out to the hives several time a day like I did the last few years. Partly cause the weather has been weird and partly due to me not being quite as active as my normal self used to be.

I don't know what to make of the lack of drone brood except maybe the hives are building up slower or that me putting more early hive volume on the hives then I ever have before has this effect. Mostly I don't know.

Queens? I only saw two queens last year. I have seen darker queens but over all color seemed to be on par. My internet friend says that my queens are Italian. I tell myself that every queen I do see, that I am going to make a fly back split till I get back up to ten hives. However, when I did see this queen, I decided I was too lazy to do the split.

Outside of the rainy days, the bees seem plenty active at the entrance, including the hive I have questions on and so things seem to be going well enough. 

Better luck on your swarm gathering. It is a shame that the bees did not decide your Russian scion was a better place to land. It would make life easier.
Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I looked in four hives and took my time. I opened up the one I was worried about and still did not see any capped brood but did see larva big enough that capping should happen. The only issue is that I saw big larva last time, 9 days ago) and so there should have been some capped brood. That part I don't understand. With the should have had some capped due to larva last time ideal put aside, I was thinking maybe swarm that I missed, superceedure or brood disease. I did finally see a queen in this hive and so decided to call it good even if it is not. I thought about pictures of the larva or queen but had the hive open long enough that the bees were getting antsy and my camera is so bad for small stuff that I got to thinking it would be a waste of time.

I either felt better or should feel worse after opening more hives. The next one I opened, I could find no queen or brood except just a few that should hatch any second. I was thinking I had opened another dead hive but the bees were calm. I did not find a queen in this hive but it still has honey. In the end, none of the four hives had any real brood and so I got to thinking that they must all be ok and it was just a time of the year flow type thing. The bees are active and bringing in pollen and have honey but must not have enough nector coming in and the cool weather might also be fooling them a bit. I could have also caused some of this by all of the extra space I put on all the hives.

Every time I get in a hive, I realize just how dumb I am about bees.

I was going to add a comb of brood (just in case of no queen) to the second hive but after not finding any I figured it must be a normal flow and ebb and so just decided to give more time. I may not have been able to find brood to add any way.

Either way, all hives had enough bees to do well if they have a queen.

I don't discount missing a swarm this year cause I am a fair weather bee keeper and if the bees swarmed or superceeded when it was not 70 degrees then I would have probably missed it. 

All I know for sure is that I don't know very much. Maybe in june I can look back and figure it all out.

Cheers
gww

Ps I still saw lots of drone in the hives but no capped drone brood (or almost no brood period) in the hives.


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## crofter

GWW;

Seeing larvae without seeing the proper ratio of capped cells is not a good sign. If the area of eggs, compared to the area of open brood, compared to the area of capped brood is not in the right ratio, something is failing at one of the stages. Of course weather conditions and other things can throw a wrench into that simple comparison but it is a good rule of thumb.

This messed up ratio is one of the things that can be observed in European foulbrood. Not saying and certainly not hoping that is the situation for you, but that ratio thing is something to keep in mind for inspections. I kick myself for not spotting the EFB much sooner than I did. Consequently I made the worst moves possible by combining the weak with the strong: wrong, wrong, wrong!


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## gww

Frank
Yes, I have kept up with your situation and it did go though my mind while looking.

The combining part is probably pretty late for me since I put the comb from the dead out in October that was not destroyed by wax moth on a hive and the dead out this spring has had its resources spread to others.

I have seen weird brood before at weird times in previous years that later just looked great. That is not to say that I know nothing is going on. I always worry on things I don't understand which means I worry a lot. While I was looking I was trying to remember the photos of the orange slice looking brood I have seen posted on the internet. I thought real hard about a picture till I thought about my dirty hands, crappy camera and bees that were getting antsy. I went so far as to shake the bees off the comb but not so far to get my camera out of my pocket.

I guess there is always next time though the camera won't change.

Either way (even if it hurts me), I should know a little more later.
I really appreciate your comment. People helping in this thread is the only reason I have made it this far.
Cheers
gww

Ps I never see eggs and only see small larva by following big larva down to small. I do see capped brood though and I don't seem to have any that is not old looking and not much of that.


----------



## crofter

Here are a few pics. The pearly white larvae are OK. The greyish ones with ribs are doomed. Some orange slumped ones are infected with secondary bacteria. Some in cells uncapped managed to survive longer but most die pre capping. Some of the larvae are noticeably twisted in cells ( belly ache position)


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## clyderoad

Your photos offer good, clear examples of efb crofter.

gww: I'm hoping you don't see anything like in your colonies. Time to monitor any open brood throughout your yard though.


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## gww

frank
Thanks for the pictures. Good job. I had looked at a bunch on the internet also but if it is like plants, I do really bad comparing the real thing to a picture.

Your third pic has some similarities but also has some things I did not really notice in mine. I wish I had looked at the empty cell near the brood better then I did to look for scale.

One thing that makes me feel a little ok is that this previous posted picture from nine days ago and in a different hive then the one with most of the big larva.








This frame is now empty of brood. I did not realize this was the same hive I looked at last time till I looked at the picture and saw the hive placement in my apiary. I was trying to look at different hives except for wanting to see the "problem?" hive again.

To me that says something was going on with laying apiary wide. It does not answer the big larva 9 days ago and no capped larva now.

Now I wish I would have tried to take a picture. Of course, this picture was pretty close to the frame and it does not show much. I can not see what picture the camera is taking when outside cause my screen looks black if there is any light out. I never know what I am getting. Probably should have tried anyway.

It has been perfect weather for EBF due to being exceptionally cool, really steady wet and me adding so much space to the hives.

The pictures help but my memory being what it is, I am going to look at them again right before looking in the hived next time I decide to get in it. Right now they do not click in my head has being close enough cause I am having a hard time remembering what I saw in my hives. I did look well to try and follow the big larva to the small and had no luck. I don't remember seeing turned larva but might not have registered it if not clued in to look though I think I would. I did not see real discoloration though I may have seen a few with little orange-ish little strip on the oldest but not matching the pics of where you would see the tracheal.

I think I would have noticed melting or stomach ache. It is just going to take more then one or two looks for stuff to register with me.

I may have had some kind of problem for five years cause my brood is very seldom like the pic above except really hit and miss though the whole year. I always see crappy brood to come back later and see better and I always worry. The big larva hive is weirder then normal but I have worried before also. 

It is supposed to get to 85 in a day or two and then cool down again and get cloudy. 

I might get a second look or I might wait till the next 70 degree sunny day.
Thanks for your effort here. I welcome your thoughts including on what I just typed even if you see me messing up. 
Thanks
gww


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## crofter

Things can appear quite different at the onset of efb when there are still plenty of nurse bees. Infected larvae get cleaned out quickly and you may not see any discolored secondary infection. As things advance and nurse bees scarce and overwhelmed you see more corpses laying around.

It is not easy getting good pictures with focus on the bottom of the cell. My original photos is really degraded here by forum file size shrinking. My photobucket is no longer giving me free hosting so I cant direct you there. 

I think now though you will have enough info to check it out better. Map out an area and check it later to see if the small brood is progressing toward capping stage or being yanked and relaid. Mixed aged brood laid close together is a sign too that some is failing and being relaid.

I sure hope it is allmost anything else.


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## gww

Thanks for your help frank. I usually write something here after each inspection cause it helps me think things out and helps me remember a little better.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

frank
Just for a laugh.

I posted this on may 15 of last year and this hive eventually took off.



> I had one small hive that was a split last year that pretty much had almost all the brood hatched out, poor pattern and I could not find any new brood being laid. I did not see the queen and I did not add a frame of brood. This hive had lots of drone in it and it had some dead bees through out the hive and inside the hive. It did not seem to be laying worker cause I would have seen some capped drone brood if so, you would think. Me being me, I will probably not intercede and see what happens. The bees are active and bringing lots of pollen in and we had lots of rain and it could be queen shutdown due to starvation or brood disease or queen-less. Maybe it superceeded and I missed it though I see no sign of broken queen cells. Time will tell.


I still can not make heads or tails of what I see inside hives (though I keep trying).

Don't get me wrong, I am still perplexed by seeing big larva 9 days ago and nothing capped but have also seen hives tighten up when a good flow hits, I could have a long standing problem or this is just seasonal and I am too dumb to recognize patterns.
I will do what I always do, I will look again and hope I learn something with repetition.
Thanks for the help, you too clyderoad.
gww


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## Cloverdale

gww, Im reading the titles of the threads and wondered, has your day been saved yet? Seems like you’re doing good.


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## gww

Clover...


> has your day been saved yet?


My day has been saved over and over by those that have responded to my pleas for help. My biggest issue is that I keep finding new pleas or repeat pleas to keep me off balance enough to keep it going. Slow learner I guess.

For as dumb as I feel most of the time, yes, I am doing very well. It is amazing isn't it?
Cheers
gww


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## Cloverdale

I like JW’s signature, “the bees are way smarter than I am” Theres always something happening with the bees. Someday ma6be I can relax an$ have a cigar, or I should say a tiparillo? They probably arent even made anymore!


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I posted this on may 15 of last year and this hive eventually took off.


GWW:

I have been reading your thread with great interest today from my phone and finally had the opportunity to sit down at the computer to reply.

First, I am genuinely sorry that your inspections today gave you alarm. I know what it is like to find something unexpected and now be confronted with the internal struggle of what to do now (if anything)?

Secondly, I like you am grateful for experienced folks like Crofter who are generous with their time and expertise in helping folks out- hat's off to Frank for that.

Thirdly, based on the success you have had the past five years, I for my part am unwilling to bet against your bees yet- I will be keenly interested to see how this plays out, but my money is on your colonies turning the corner and prospering once things really warm up in earnest in the next couple of weeks.

Finally, I saw that I inadvertently failed to respond to your scion comment- it is funny to me that with all the swarms flying around here of late, they have all chosen locations other than the scions, despite the fact that they get quite a lot of interest on warm days when the wax is softer. It was a fun experiment anyway...

I'm pulling for you- please do let us know how things develop.

Russ


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## gww

Russ
One thing is for sure, no matter what happens, good or bad, it will probably make it into this thread cause this thread is my memory and also how I work things out in my mind. It also does have the benefit of getting calming advice for things I need help on.

I see you are doing well. I wonder if your bees will be more likely to use your bottom boxes when your main flow overwhelms them. One big thing in my mind on your bottom boxes is whether there is any starter comb there (even one) and if upper entrances might be changing what abby warre's experiance with them was.
Still, it is quite an adventure trying to hive the swarms. Surely that is worth something. Better then just reading a book.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> One thing is for sure, no matter what happens, good or bad, it will probably make it into this thread cause this thread is my memory and also how I work things out in my mind. It also does have the benefit of getting calming advice for things I need help on.


GWW:

This is a good idea- you are smart to do this. A big part of why I post is to keep myself accountable to goals I have set. Your point of using this thread as a journal of sorts make a lot of sense to me.



gww said:


> I wonder if your bees will be more likely to use your bottom boxes when your main flow overwhelms them. One big thing in my mind on your bottom boxes is whether there is any starter comb there (even one) and if upper entrances might be changing what abby warre's experiance with them was.


Good points- I have studied this a bit further as I am considering next steps and noticed that:

Colonies that have overwintered twice are now working on the bottom (4th box).

Colonies that have overwintered once have not yet begun employing the bottom box.

So it might ultimately have something to do with built-in-place infrastructure being at least partially responsible.

The other interesting thing about these boxes is that they are not Warre boxes in the truest sense because each of them has a 7/8" opening in it- so as I am becoming more acutely aware, both the number and location of openings has an impact upon colony dynamics. 

Have you seen any improvement with the colonies you are concerned about?


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## gww

Russ
My grandkids showed up and except to walk to the front of the hives, I have put no effort in. I do have more worries for a different hive and so two hives to keep an eye on. This is mostly based on traffic and also the one not bringing in near as much pollen as surrounding hives. At least the one with the old uncapped larva is bringing in full baskets of pollen.

I put an empty frame on top of this one so I can remember. Pretty bad when you only have eight hives and can not remember what is going on in each.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

gww said:


> Russ
> 
> 
> I put an empty frame on top of this one so I can remember. Pretty bad when you only have eight hives and can not remember what is going on in each.
> Cheers
> gww


Pretty much me. ANd I don't even have 8 hives.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> My grandkids showed up...


In my humble opinion, a much more worthy use of your time. Reminds me of Proverbs 17:6 - _Grandchildren are the crown of old men, And the glory of sons is their fathers._


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## JWPalmer

I use bricks turned different directions to keep me informed of the hive's status. Mated queen, virgin queen, making a queen, needs more brood, etc. Problem is, I cant always remember which is which. :scratch: 

Deb, I think Black&Mild is a tiparillo.


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## gww

Well, Maybe finally I am going to have a bad year, depending on how you count. 

I got in about half the hives including the two that really bug worry me. The one with the big larva and no capped still does not have any capped brood. This is the one that I did see a queen in. I also did not see as much big larva today as I saw before. It has a lot of bees in the hive and I did not see the queen today (no surprise). It had quite a few bees dead in front of it compared to the two closest to it that have a board in front of them allowing you to see bees. It is harder on the ones with grass in front of them. It did look like there was a wad or two in front also like maybe a skunk has made a visit. If I had a queen ready, I might try giving a few of these hives new queens but guess I will wait till the weather warms and see what happens during flow. The bees are starting to draw wax in this hive which just amazes me a bit. Not a lot of wax but they are festooning on an empty frame.

The one I put a frame on to remember it seemed to have a problem also does not have any brood. It also looks to me like it really only has about three mediums frames of bees worth of cluster in the hive and not out foraging. I think this hive is a goner. Lots of honey in it and bees are still bringing in some pollen. 

The one I took the picture of earlier of the frame they had drawn and layed up and then last week the frame was empty and the hive had no brood was interesting also. It still has no new brood and I could find no queen (I do use lots of smoke as I go and that probably hurts with finding her). What was interesting was they has drawn a bunch of queen cups on that new comb but all the cups were dry. Are they telling me something? Maybe I crushed a queen at some point? Plenty of bees in that hive. Not quite the stores that my problem hive have.

Lastly, I guess I have to realize that the no brood thing is probably not a seasonal or flow type thing cause one hive has brood in it.








It has a couple combs like this and then some that are more spotty laid. This looks like pretty old capped to me.

It is going to be 53 degrees for the next several days give or take and so guess the bees and me will wait till later and see how it goes.

I tried to keep franks pictures in mind and all I can say is maybe. I may have seen one or two turned (stomach ache) but it still does not seem right. Even if it is, I will probably let it run for a while and see what happens. I am not sure yet but do think something is going on.

As a bonus, I did catch an oreintation flight out of my oldest un-split hive which I have not been through this year yet.
Cheers
gww

PS Lots of drone in all hives, the one hive with the small amount of bees looked out of wack with enough drones to give the appearance of a hive full of bigger bees. I saw small bees but percentage wise more drones to the small bees compared to other hives that looked normal.


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## Cloverdale

:thumbsup:


Litsinger said:


> In my humble opinion, a much more worthy use of your time. Reminds me of Proverbs 17:6 - _Grandchildren are the crown of old men, And the glory of sons is their fathers._


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## Cloverdale

JWPalmer said:


> I use bricks turned different directions to keep me informed of the hive's status. Mated queen, virgin queen, making a queen, needs more brood, etc. Problem is, I cant always remember which is which. :scratch:
> 
> Deb, I think Black&Mild is a tiparillo.


Thanks JW, I’ll probably hate it, its been a ***** age since I’ve tasted (not actually smoked, puffed  ) one but I will look for it. I bartered a carboy of Mead for nuc, I couldnt even finish one glass! (I’ll have it forever) but it was very good, sweet.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Well, Maybe finally I am going to have a bad year, depending on how you count.


GWW:

I am sorry to read about your troubles. Are your healthy colonies far enough along to consider giving your two trouble colonies a little boost of bees and possibly a frame of open brood?


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## gww

Russ
My colonies may be far enough along but I am a fair weather bee keeper and the weather has been a bit cool for that. I will probably let the colonies make it or die as individuals though I may make a split or two some time during the year to make up for it (to be determined later). 

I am interested in seeing where this goes.

I have not seen any swarm activity around here and don't know if I am missing it or it has just not happened yet. I see you are going to end up with more then six hives. When hives do good the potential can get out of hand.

I will be watching to see what I can learn just incase I have continuing issues that I do decide to address when I decide what action I might take in the future.

I had thought about adding open brood (if I could have found any) but did see a queen in one of the problem hives. I have did a lot of reading and am curious what warmer weather and good flow might do for my situation and want to see for myself. This may color future decisions based on what I see from here on.

I have always had a little pet theory that bad stuff can build up where a concentration of bees are had over a number of years. Even if there was a bit of european foul brood involved as frank and squarepeg have experienced, there have been several studies showing the ebb and flow of it based on forage.

I thought about making a few queens but then thought that if I split, I could end up in the same place as queen replacement (which might be one of my first efforts of response if any) even if the original hives die. 

Mostly, I don't think (I don't know though) that I am going to lose all my bees and since I have low ambition and am mostly working on hobby that cost no money, it is hard to really lose.

I have thought of lots of things I could do but also thought that doing stuff may lose me the opportunity to see what happens as the year progresses.

Mostly, I will watch and gather info till one day I wake up and the light bulb in my head say do this and then I will act. I don't know when that will happen or what those actions might be but do know myself and that that is how it usually works and mostly, I am a lucky guy that most things sorta work out in the end. Notice, I did not say smart guy, I said lucky.

Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I have thought of lots of things I could do but also thought that doing stuff may lose me the opportunity to see what happens as the year progresses.


GWW:

First off- I apologize for my delay in reply.

Secondly, I think your approach to learning is a good one. I am reminded almost daily that while reading and watching videos is very helpful and can help keep you away from some serious shoals, there are some things you can only appreciate by seeing it first-hand.

No doubt you will learn from your experience, and be a better beekeeper for it.

Looking forward to seeing how your season progresses.

Russ


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## gww

Well I caught two swarms. One in a trap and a tiny one in a tree. The one in the trap ended up being a hive and apparently bees entered it last year.










Tiny one.









It is cloudy today but I looked in the trap and dropped a quart of 2 to 1 on the tiny swarm. I did not see the tiny swarm bringing in pollen today.

The trap is a deep and I run all mediums.








I don't know if the picture shows, but this hive is full of bees in every crack.
This is what came out.









As you can see I put mediums frames in my deep traps. I normally move the bees out before they even start drawing much wax but my uncle did not pay attention and call me when the traps got bees in it.

Needless to say but me being me and it being cloudy, I did not feel like doing a cut out. The bees were very nice to me cause my traps are not level but they drew a box of really good comb on the frames but not below the frames. So my answer was to pull three frames and any comb that was on bottom, I just sliced off and let drop to the bottom of the trap. I did this with the ones that had brood on them down there. I put three empty medium frames on top of that comb. I put the three frames in a new box and put on top. I hate losing the trap cause I have a system of using my one spare to replace traps that catch stuff and now I will have to make another extra.

Either way, I will wait till spring when the deep will probably not have bees in it to clean up the frames. The bees were still drawing a little wax in the bottom of the hive cause they were festooning. 

The hive did not have a ton of honey in it (no room for honey that I could see. It did have capped brood and no space for new bees. I only pulled three frame and there were queen cells started though I did not see anything capped. They are long though and one seemed empty but I think one was wet and so I may not change there mind with the empty frames and new box. The wax is so full and pretty and new enough to tell it has not had tons of brood raise in it. 

It would be at the perfect state to make a split with if I did not have to mess with rubber bands and such and if I were the ambitious type.

If it does not swarm, it should draw some nice comb and may even make honey.

As a side note, I did not get in any other hives including the few I think are going to die but did lift the super off of my oldest hive and it is about half full by weight and so the bees are in storage mode. My prime flow should be over the next month I think and so if it warms up. I am going to have to add a super to at least one hive. I do have a couple problem hives that are just not right but I have not looked to see if any change has occurred from last time. Today was the first day for a while that is approaching 70 degrees and is not raining. It is going to get hot in a few days but stay cloudy and rainy. Been a weird year.

Cheers
gww


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## gww

Swarm today. My opinion, probably from the trapped bees in the previous post to this one. None of my bees look like they are prospering enough to swarm. I have not been in all of them but this is my guess.








It was much too big to land in the 5 gal bucket I put under it when I shook it. 6 foot step ladder. Got lots of stings when I shook them and had to go put on coveralls. Got stung after that through my hospital gloves and so when and got some leather ones. Had to shake and dump about five times cause I could not see the ball in the tree getting smaller fast enough. I thought they were moving down but wanted to speed it up cause it took a couple hours to get them all in the box. Nothing but a drop of lemon grass oil in the box and so I hope they stay cause they should build fast if I didn't kill the queen. Dern, I still need the strength to move them to their stand tonight. My lazy streak is kicking in and I keep thinking what does it hurt if I leave them where they are.

The trap had built out about two combs since I set it in the apiary and I had made a big gap in the side of the brood nest with empty frames and added a medium but if this hive, maybe too little too late to change their mind.

It was 11am when I noticed the swarm and I think they had probably just landed. Lot of flying still and only one bee looking at one trap in my back yard.
Oh well, exciting day.
Cheers
gww

PS sold two jars of honey today. I don't sell very many jars and the last one jar sold was a tiny swarm. This was a big swarm. Good thing I am not superstitious. ha ha.


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## Cloverdale

Looks like it could be two swarms.


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## gww

Clover...
I thought about that and thought that might be my problem getting them to fly down to the box with out lots of shaking but they are one swarm for sure now.

I would have took two if I could have told for sure. It took me three hours for a 15 minute job.
Cheers
gww

Ps If it was two swarms both of them would have been bigger the what I normally get. It was a lot of bees.


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## Litsinger

That is a big swarm, GWW. Congratulations to you- good work getting them wrangled into your box. I hived a swarm last year that lit me up pretty good while shaking them down and taught me not to take for granted that a clustered swarm will be completely docile.

If nothing else, you'll now think fondly of them every time you work them and the honey will taste that much sweeter.

Congrats again on a nice swarm!


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## gww

russ
Some day I might carry me a little hand sprayer with a little sugar water on them and see if that really works to keep them busy and too fat to sting. It is what I have heard but never been organized enough to try.
These were my first stings of the year and I was wondering if I would retain my low swelling and such but though I did swell, it already seems to be going away and so not like when I started 5 years ago.
Life is good. Hope you stay well.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

GWW:

I like that you are always willing to experiment and keep improving.

Glad to hear that you are building-up your sting 'immunity' 😉.

Thank you for your kind wishes- we are doing well by God's grace. 

Russ


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## AR1

gww said:


> russ
> Some day I might carry me a little hand sprayer with a little sugar water on them and see if that really works to keep them busy and too fat to sting. It is what I have heard but never been organized enough to try.
> These were my first stings of the year and I was wondering if I would retain my low swelling and such but though I did swell, it already seems to be going away and so not like when I started 5 years ago.
> Life is good. Hope you stay well.
> Cheers
> gww


Sounds like me. I rarely have things planned in advance. Right now I am considering more splits but am getting low on frames. Most of my frames always seem to be out in swarm traps. After a few times trying to cut out comb in swarm traps I decided I did not like that process.


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## gww

AR1


> I rarely have things planned in advance.


Me to a T.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Pretty sure I have another swarm in a trap. Think it is small. I will pick up tonight.








Caught three here over the years. It is not impossible that I am wrong as I did not see pollen coming in but I think they are in there. This is about 9 miles from my house.

The one I moved last night has been doing a continuous orientation flight all morning. A bunch are also flying all over where I moved them from last night and the cedar tree. They are not landing though and so I think it is going to be all right though it is still pretty intimidating walking down to my hives with all those bees in the air. 

I really need to get out of this lazyboy and go make a replacement trap. I might just steal one of the two that is in my back yard that I keep track of to know when to walk to the hives and check my cedar tree. God I am bad. Nobody could call me mister motivated.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

gww said:


> God I am bad. Nobody could call me mister motivated.
> Cheers
> gww


And yet, here you are. Sometimes no action is the right action. 

My theory is that everyone is crazy in at least one way or another. What matters is does the crazy work out or not. The human species is a junk-pile of compromises, some brilliant, others just loony. Brand new as a species and just beginning to work things out. Compare us to ants or bees that have been working out the same pattern of life for millions of years. They are finely tuned machines.


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## gww

Got another one today.








Cheers
gww

Ps trap has just been sitting there for the last 5 years.


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## AR1

Cool. Happy days. The mice, spiders and wasps have prepped the wood.


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## GregB

Good deal, gww.
Good to have confirmation that the trapping is actually working.


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## gww

If they live, this is turning out to be my best year not counting the one from my hives. First year anyone ever told me about a swarm in their yard and three in a trap was most I ever got in one year with year one being none and last year only one. Must be the weather. 
I don't know what I really have though, Queens? size? I know one was tiny and in my first year I combined a swarm like that with another swarm to make a bigger hive.

Time will tell how it works out but I am pumped up with excitement right now cause except for the work, it is exciting.. I did put a skirt on a bad hive body to make a trap. Still need to do one more to replace my little medium trap. Hope it don't fall apart while I take it down. I will say this. I took a year and lowered all my traps but I still have them too high and have to stand on my tip toes. Never again will I purposely go even that high with a trap.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I moved three swarms to regular hives today. One was the tiny one I took out of the tree. I had fed it three quarts of thick sugar water and it had drawn a six plus inch circle of comb spread out over about five frames. They are heavy little combs and there is no laying yet though I did see a tiny bit of pollen stored. It seems like it has been a couple of weeks since I hived this one. I forgot to look before typing. Either way, I could see no laying but I did see a super skinny long queen and so I am hoping she has been mated and might start any time now.

The second one I opened was also tiny and in close to the same state as the first one. I did not look much in this one cause I only set it there a day or so ago and didn't want to make them leave. I figure if I did not kill the queen, It will be ok even though I did not look for anything to prove queen. I figure the tiny tree one could have been left behind scouts but the trap one picked a home.

The bees that entered my only medium trap must have been desperate for a home cause it was a giant swarm.
New home.










Old home








My pictures never show how many bees are really there not counting the ones in the air. I don't think they have been there too long and they are drawing on every frame and the dirty dogs are drawing wonky in the middle of the frames. I think they started twenty humps, two per frame and then tried to miss each other in the middle and started over lapping. Needless to say, I moves stuff around on them so the gaps would not fit right for them and smashed stuff and cut some out. I did not have perfect frames to move to an added box and so I just put an empty box of empty frames under them. The were festooning and dropping in big clumps when I moved the frames and so I don't think they are 70% drawn on the first box yet and so I hope to have bought a little time for things to calm down and I can get back after it. I hope they take the hint on all the comb manipulation I have done and get their act together and go a little straighter. The box I put under them still had ruminates of wax moth and so we will see how they like that.

Lastly, I opened the swarm that was in the trap all winter and I am sure it is the hive that swarmed. It is not full of bees now. It is active at the entrance and the only thing it means is that I won't now get honey off it but it should grow great if the queen gets mated. Plus, if it was the only hive that swarmed, it let me hive another monster swarm out of my favorite cedar tree.
Thanks for reading and comments are welcome.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> If they live, this is turning out to be my best year not counting the one from my hives.


GWW:

I just finally finished reading all you recent updates- I am glad that swarm season has been good to you this year, and hopefully this helps balance out some of the challenges you have had with a few of your overwintered colonies.

I imagine the flow is really on up in your area about now?

Keep up the good work.

Russ


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## gww

Russ
The bees are active. I am not sure yet that I will get any honey out of all of them and if not, it would be a first for me though I never get MO average. Time will tell. 

It was exciting to get two of the biggest swarms I have ever gotten and the one that was already built out. That is like getting three hives instead of three swarms though one I let swarm and so don't know how to count it now.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Russ
> The bees are active. I am not sure yet that I will get any honey out of all of them and if not, it would be a first for me though I never get MO average. Time will tell.
> 
> It was exciting to get two of the biggest swarms I have ever gotten and the one that was already built out. That is like getting three hives instead of three swarms though one I let swarm and so don't know how to count it now.
> Cheers
> gww


GWW:

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on you coming out sunny side up. Did the late freeze events impact your flow too much?

Regarding the swarms, I'd say it is your yard so it is your rules . I imagine finding a swarm you weren't expecting is kind of like finding a $20 in your jacket pocket from last winter.

Good luck to you the rest of the year-

Russ


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## gww

I won't say I really inspected but I did open all thirteen swarms/hives in some way today. 
The two smallest swarms, that consisted of only taking off quart jars and not even removing the inter cover. Started early and it was already hotter then heck.

The two really bad hives I have been watching still do not have any capped brood of any kind in them. Yet the bees were pretty calm and I don't understand how the one still has so many bees in it with no influx of new bees. The other one, not so much and I don't see how they have gathered honey at all but they have added at least a frame or two that was not already there and a lot was already there. The one good thing is even with so few bees, they seem to be keeping four boxes of comb from being waxmothed, so far of course.

I do see bees in what looks like cleaning out dead larva and I still see a little big larva in it and so these hives do seem like they are going to go down due to the efb or what ever is affecting them. I would say that has to be the most likely problem though it still does not look right (to me) when comparing pictures. I just don't feel like making queens to try and replace and will let these hives go whenever they finally must. 

I have other hives that I think should be further along but I also know I am not really a good judge of that. 

I do see some of the bees have moved too lower boxes and am surprised that one or two of them seem to be putting more honey mid box rather then top super. I did not dig for brood but mostly stopped when seeing a partial frame with some capped brood on them. Good enough for me. It does show a bit of back filling even though they have empty comb to use. I stuck another empty beside one comb of brood and moves up a comb of honey to see if I could keep the bees motivated enough to draw one more frame.

The three swarms that were big are amazing. They are drawing comb. The big one that I caught in a medium box has finished the first medium, filled it with a bunch of honey (heavy) and has accepted and started drawing in the second empty medium that I put under them. It was nice that I did not have to bait this box. I am really going to all three of these bigger swarms hard to make sure I don't crowd them too much.

I have found that posting this stuff here works as my memory. Every time I get to wondering about when I did something or should I do something, I can look back and see when and what I did last. The ones with the pictures really help. So if I get to wondering when I hived a swarm, I can look back for a picture and not have to do a lot of reading. Oh well, no pictures today.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> The two really bad hives I have been watching still do not have any capped brood of any kind in them.


GWW:

Good update- if I am following correctly, does this mean that it has been over six weeks and there is still no capped brood in either hive? But you are seeing open brood, evidence of bees removing larvae and they are drawing new comb? 

While I am no expert, what surprises me is that there is no capped brood at all- most of the photos I see of EFB have a 'shotgun' pattern, but maybe with a significant infection there are no brood that remain viable. Have you thought about testing one or both?


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## gww

Russ


> Good update- if I am following correctly, does this mean that it has been over six weeks and there is still no capped brood in either hive? But you are seeing open brood, evidence of bees removing larvae and they are drawing new comb?


Yep, you heard right. I won't buy a test kit. I will use a tooth pic if I ever see any thing really bad or read about the milk test again. I am pretty sure that is not the problem but not so sure I will count it out completely.

I might see a capped brood here and there but just so there is no mistake, I am talking maybe 5 on a whole side of a frame. I did see a queen in one that looked pretty nice and fat compared to the skinny little one I seen in one of the tiny swarms.

If one of my hives would swarm, I would move a protected cell to the one with the most bees but the other hives don't look good enough for that either and we are probably at the end of expecting any swarms.

I am surprised at how few bees is in one of the bad hives and how many is in the other. Considering what I quoted from you above in this post.

Except for the rain still coming regular, on a dry year, I have seen our flow end around the 20th of june.

So, I am not really looking for improvement but am still finding the watching them interesting. I kinda want to add up the year of the whole apiary so if I ever sell some more bees, I am not setting up somebody for a fall. I never like losing any hives but also right now don't feel the pain in the big picture. I go every year expecting worse. This does not mean I won't ever address issues like this but I probably won't this year till I see more. I have thought about adding a frame of brood to these and also to my two small swarms. I still have not made my mind up on this yet. I don't think brood would be the same as a queen cell on the bad hives but I have found what makes the difference to be surprising here and there. I have only moved brood to a hive one time and that hive went nuts with just one frame. I have not ever reduced the space which I have no doubt would help the bees. They are keeping my comb clean if I have the guts to use that comb in other hives later. This is one reason to let stuff run its course. Might help me assess the affect on the other hives that sit right next to them. It is not much but I will see in the end.
I will keep posting how it is going and welcome comments.
Cheers
gww


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## JWPalmer

Glenn, the toothbpick test is for AFB, not EFB. The EFB test kits are not expensive, around $16. Left untreated, EFB could take out your entire apiary and leave you with boxes and comb that are unusable. If nothing else, you should move that hive a good ways away from the rest of your bees. I really hope it is something else.


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## gww

Jw 
I realize the difference of afb and efb. My post was to show the one I would most be fearful of. I might should be just as scared of efb from others reports of their experiences but my reading says that with efb, I at least have a good chance of the bees handling it. Not suggesting they will though. Nor suggesting I would never do anything about it. I have looked at franks pictures and I am not sure but my mind is telling me efb has to be most likely. I don't want to spend $13 bucks for a test to find out if it ends up only killing off two hives that might be too far along to save whatever I do. I also could have tried other stuff that people have suggested, like queen changes or feeding. I was unsure enough of what is going on that I let it go so I could see. I was thinking of other things that might have happened that needed eliminated like maybe a swarm or queenless and such as that. 

Now I have seen a queen and on the other, they never capped drone brood in worker comb and stuff like that. Me being a slow learner. It took a bit of time to eliminate some of the other things that could have been wrong and also for it to get warm enough to just see what that did. I did things different this year and so may deserve some issues. I miss judged the weather and put lots and lots of space on the hives before the bees could support that space.

So, putting it all together is hard for a dummy and I am willing to take my lumps and try to learn a little. 

Except for time, I really don't have a lot of money in my bees and don't want to put much in them and don't need much out of them and so I may not be as risk adverse as I should be if I had any sense.

My pride does not want me to fail but I will take some risk and put it to things I have read and see if they come out the same.
Cheers
gww

Ps I have not even decide yet that I will not use the comb in other hives. I might. I do not contest that I might also suffer. I am reading many experiences on this subject and even large scale bee keepers have differing experiences with efb.


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## JWPalmer

I was fairly certain that you did know the difference, but the post seemed to indicate otherwise. My understanding is that a lot of EFB goes away with good nutrition. What happened to Squarepeg last year though makes me nervous. He must have gotten a particularly nasty strain. That is not something I would wish on anybody.


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## gww

jw
I don't always listen but I do always appreciate any comment on this thread. Even if that comment is to make sure I understand something. If I were you, I would never think that I understand anything. That is both of our safest bet.
Thanks
gww


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## gww

I haven't got it home yet but believe they are in there.








They were not convincingly coming and going like they have been there long but I have other traps close enough that are not being checked also and so my instinct says they are there.
Oh happy days, right?

Looked in all the hives and the bad ones are still going to die and maybe a few more are bad also.

I do have some honey starting to be in the right place and I did sorta add some space but only pulled one honey frame to bait the box and so will soon see if they accept the space.

I didn't have the guts to pull one of the boxes from one of the hives I am sure is dead and I had a couple other hives that I had put the last dead out on that had 5 boxes on them that I thought were not doing well either that I looked at for a super. But those hives had put just enough honey in those extra boxes to make it not worth clearing the bees to use elsewhere and so the bees will have to draw new comb to use the space at least till I get around to extracting some.

The swarm trap that had an actual hive in it when I put it in my apiary has surpassed drawing out 75 percent plus of the medium I put on it and was drawing comb on top of the frames against the inter cover, I added another empty medium. I pulled one frame with some spotty capped brood that was being back filled with honey to bait the added box. 

The other two big swarms will probably need third boxes in a week or so cause they are going to town. 

My two small swarms are very similar and about a Styrofoam paper plate sized circle of comb draw and look almost identical in all ways. They will be lucky to get the single mediums they are living in drawn out by winter. I have had success wintering single mediums in the past with sugar blocks on them and will probably not try and feed them to get more done. I will think about whether I want to give them another box of comb after I extract or not. They both had similar little patches of capped brood and I will decide later if I think they need any kind of help. Probably depends on rain.

My thoughts for the day are that I have figured out that bee keeping with young smaller hives is much easier then bigger multiyear hives with old comb. I am having a real struggle figuring out what is going on with my bigger hives.  Some I know are in trouble and some don't look that good when looking in them but are bee strong and gathering well and so can't be that bad.

I was amazed in looking at pictures on the net how close pms could look like efb. I am as convinced now as can be with out buying a test kit that It is efb in some of my hives. Since I am not going to search out a vet and fix the problem with antibiotics until the problem hits me worse than it looks like it is going to now and I have wrote the two off and may get more but that will take time to see. As a side note, I am pretty sure that afb is not really an issue as there would be capped brood as that is mostly when it shows itself and I don't get brood to the capping stage. Had I acted earlier, I could have threw a capped brood frame in the bad hives to strengthen them but have not really seen good brood in any of the hives I have been digging though though I bet there is some in the big swarms if I cared enough but I figure I screwed around too long. I did sorta look around a little today in my big hives which leaves a story of why I probably should not be a bee keeper.

The story is, I opened my strongest bad hive and then left it open while I looked in some of the others. I ended up getting pretty hot during all this even though I was close to naked while inspecting. I had to walk 50 yards to get a super to add space to a hive and then when I had went though all the hives, I went in the house to cool down for a couple of hour. Then I took the grand kids for a four wheeler ride and when we went by the hives I seen that hive I had open still sitting in two different places out in the direct sunlight with no top. 

I threw my viel on and went down and threw the hive back together. Like the hive needed more then it was already dealing with. Now you know why I write some of this stuff down. No brain power.

Over all, even with the problems, I am still bee rich (mostly due to the swarms) and with low incentive to improve. I don't yet know what the honey year is going to be but can't say I am really going backwards since I was not trying to maximize or make a business (job) out of my hobby. Were I a business, I could point out the money I could have made and count it as a loss if I had maximized what can be done with bee. As it is, I am still going to make my normal and it will still be all profit and so not a hobby I have to pay for.

Now the question of any problems seen will be, how much is going to be fluke and normal cycling of nature and how much is going to be accumulated issues that grow to having to be addressed to survive. This is the question in my mind that will take a little more time to see. I will be honest, I will probably try requeening and feeding next spring if I see too much bad stuff and if that does not work I will probably not go the vet route but might go do what a vet would do with out him through some nefarious means. Some of this will depend on what happens to surrounding hives between now and then. My hives are in a strait row, side by side and so I should get my answers in all of this. I absolutely hate the ideal of not really being confident of what I see inside of hives and not knowing it well enough that when I do something different, I might not be able to see what that different thing actually changes for me. 

Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

GWW:

Thank you for your post- I always enjoy reading about your antics and your style of writing is engaging and descriptive. I can almost picture the situations you describe, and I like how you outline what you are thinking as you consider your next steps- very helpful.

I can also identify with your 'nefarious' approach, though I would suggest it might be better described as 'self-reliant'?

I also think the attitude of 'easy come, easy go' has been helpful in my own beekeeping efforts as I recognize that in some sense it is prudent to see my role of beekeeper as one who is a steward of a local bee population, both in my boxes, in my neighbor's boxes and in the trees in my flight radius and beyond.

So the swarm I lose this year might be the base for a swarm I catch next year.

I hope your flow holds out a bit longer- ours petered out weeks ago, though there are some Summer flowers that yield some nectar (i.e. Jewelweed, Partridge Pea, Bee Balm and Bundleflower) getting ready to bloom in earnest.

Until your next post-

Russ


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## AR1

Litsinger said:


> GWW:
> 
> Thank you for your post- I always enjoy reading about your antics and your style of writing is engaging and descriptive. I can almost picture the situations you describe, and I like how you outline what you are thinking as you consider your next steps- very helpful.
> Russ


Double. Very interesting and humorous.


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## gww

Thanks guys. Here is a little more humor for you. I am pretty sure the swarm trap was a bust. I have not opened it yet but I tapped on it pretty hard and heard nothing and there were no bees flying in right at dark. So, it might have three bees in it. Maybe left behinds of bees that were thinking about it and moved elsewhere with out telling a few of the scouts.

Win some and lose some. 
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I looked in the big hives on the 19th and four of the swarms today.

My purpose was to see if there was any honey ready to be extracted and that it was in the right place where I could pull by the box.

The big hives were a bit disappointing and I have exactly two supers in all that are not the heaviest I have ever lifted ready and capped enough that the honey will be thick. In one there were still spots of brood that was hatching out and being back filled as they hatched. They are ready if I decide to extract though.
My guess is only about 3.5 to 4 gal. One super is on what was my best hive last year which is also my oldest hive and one I have never split or seen swarm. I could have missed a superceed if it happened.

The four swarms I looked at were the one that I took out of my cedar tree and the one that moved into a medium trap and was super crowded and the two that I have mentioned as being tiny when talking about them.

The two small swarms had paper plate sized comb when I looked last and have not been fed since last look. Before that, One had gotten a gal and one got a quart. There was a difference in them now as one (received gal) has about 60 percent of the medium drawn out and the other has about 40 percent. I did not see any real festooning but they are foraging a little harder and do have capped brood and so should grow yet. I really should give both another gal but probably won't till the very end near 1st of oct if at all.

The two big ones are the best I have ever seen personally. Both have drawn out all but two frames of two ten frame mediums with the full mediums on top being full of very heavy honey. I believe it would be 5 gal between the two. They have drawn comb on top of the frames and filled with honey that gets exposed when I take off the inter cover. Thier brood on on the other eight frames and so they will still get bigger though even on those eight they have good bands of stores.

I did not really see any festooning on these two big swarms either. I still decided to screw the crap out of them and separated the brood by intermixing three empty foundationless frames every other frame. I find sometimes this late in the year they just live with empty frames in the lower boxes rather then draw them out and you have more work later if you decide to put draw comb there for winter. I pulled one full brood and the two partials drawn frames up and used to bait an empty medium between the bottom brood box and the box full of honey. I did not pull any of the honey frames up to see if they might have a patch of brood which would be a real separation. Being near what might be the end of any real flow, I have not faith that they are going to draw another box but they have the bees if the food is there. They also have almost zero extra space if there is food and I had not added space and so we will see.

Now for some thought of my apiary to date. Looking at the big swarms compared to my older hives does show a difference in vigor. When I think of franks pictures and pictures of pms, I have no doubt that it is one or the other. I probably won't mite test or buy a efb test to satisfy my curiosity but know the pictures I find are very similar. Neither would surprise me cause I have had these bees on top of each other for several years and also set the game against them this year with having too much space on the hives for bee density very early. Now I knew when I put the space or did not remove space early on that I might depress my bees a bit and stress them cause that was half of my plan. Depress them just enough to get past swarming knowing it might hurt production a bit but would make management really easy. 

The year is not over yet. I am curious on those few hives that have the worst expression of what ever is going on, and are still hanging on some how. (this amazes me as it has been a long time since I saw any capped brood in them) When the flow stops and I also take a bit of this honey and then let the bees clean my equipment, It has always got the bees to checking each other out to rob. I always find a bunch of dead bees in front of the hives during this but it usually dies down. We will see if those hurting hives survive that.

Over all, last year was kinda like this year so far. Last year I only had about 5 gal at this time but got another 6+ sept first plus after sept the bees still filled their top box with honey. All years before that, I got the bulk of honey at this time with no gain after and fed in fall. If it does not dry up this year could still beat last year and if it does dry up, this year could end up my worst year of bee keeping. Time will tell. 

I have been thinking of moving from three ten frame medium brood nest down to two medium brood nest. I believe the bees would survive it as I have wintered a single medium. Swarming does worry me a bit on this ideal cause it would be the exact opposite of what I did this year. The other thing is that once you do get the comb, it is much easier to let the bees take care of it then to have to store it till needed. I thought about this same ideal last year cause I could have took more honey but decided against it and went the way I went. I am still thinking and don't know my own mind yet.

Over all and knock on wood, the bee keeping is still pretty easy if you are happy with what you get out of what you got. I play a little lose with the risk and might get bit harder yet but find it very interesting watching it play out and seeing what happens. I am not that unhappy with what I get compared to what I put in but if the bees did too much better, I would have to get rid of a few cause I really am not good at the business part. I do wonder if I put some hives at my dads which is not 70 percent wooded like where I am what effect it would have on the bees. I could find out but just really like having everything right behind my house with no driving. 

5th summer and over all, no big swings on apiary production though the timing of the production has come differently. The bee health has always had me befuddled from day one and nothing has changed there except this year might be worse. What is funny is when I look at it individually, I always get worried and have a glass half empty attitude but when I look at big picture, seems about the same with set backs being fixes with advances in other areas and end result comes out the same. My original plan 5 years ago was 15 gal of honey per year and I have not made that but have been consistent with getting ten and have found ten good enough not to want get more stuff in a effort to get 15. 

I thought back then that 8 hives would give 15 but ten give me 10 gal. All years have been the same with just a few of the hives carrying all the excess production. It has not been the same hives every year though this year my oldest is good for its second year. So all the hives have the potential but hive dynamics each year are not the same in all hives and so each hive is different each year. Might not get my ten this year but might.

My hive loss does seem like it is going to go up. The question is still going to be is it fluke or pattern. 
Sorry for all the goobly glock written above.
Cheers
gww
Ps I hardly ever get phone calls and so answer with out any screening. While looking in the hives I got at least 5 scam calls with one telling me I won three million bucks. I told him I did not want three million and hung up. Geeeze.


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## gww

This post is not my normal but I wouldn't mind being able to see this later and here is the best place for me.
We are probably at the end of our flow and my wife wants me to mow my three acre yard.








I probably will mow it but do wish a good rain was coming really soon (had too much rain earlier) so there was still hope of a small re-bloom.

Hopefully the bees can get something out of the garden. I know cucumbers and zucchini don't offer much in such a small place but I do know the bees like it and they like sweet corn pollen well also.









I know it is not much but it is kinda pretty. It is not much work. I used to do it all the way around the garden but this year was lazier then most years. Cosmos and a few other flowers.









I noticed all my butterfly weed died out of my field this year. I only had a few but it seemed to be a plant that the bees hit hard and I was hoping it would spread and not die out.

I don't have the giant golden rod here and so if I ever lose the frost astors I will be sunk.

We are not dry but I hope for a good rain.
The bees are still being nice to me and not buzzing me when I sit on my bucket near the hive entrances and so food is not all gone yet. They are hitting the water hole though and it is going to get hotter not cooler. I always figure that flows are on their way out when I see this cause we have had hotter days then the last two and I did not see this.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I hardly ever get phone calls and so answer with out any screening. While looking in the hives I got at least 5 scam calls with one telling me I won three million bucks. I told him I did not want three million and hung up. Geeeze.


GWW:

Your posts always bring a smile to my face, and I am glad you are able to keep a good sense of humor despite some of the challenges you been dealing with in the beeyard recently.

Your garden plot looks good, and I am kind of envious of your PV panels- are you using that power directly or selling it back to the grid?

Keep plugging-away... I have no doubt that things will turn the corner for you.

Have a great weekend.

Russ


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## gww

Russ


> I am kind of envious of your PV panels- are you using that power directly or selling it back to the grid?


I am doing the pv the expensive way with a battery. I do this due to having an independent streak as at the time, ameren was offering a 2 dollar rebate per watt and you always lose when buying a battery. I wanted to do it my self and so spent extra for that privilege. I never said I had any sense. What is even worse is that I built a couple of wind turbines and put one of them on a 70 foot pole. There is no wind where I am except during storms. I just took it down last month. 

I only got two gal of honey first round. The bees are defiantly struggling and unlike before, I just left all the honey that was not capped or frames that had small amounts of brood on them. We must have a little bit of a flow still going cause this was the calmest honey I have ever taken and it also took the bees a couple of hours to get interested in cleaning up my extracting equipment. I took pictures to show this but the bees finally did get interested and so decided not to post them.

I could have took a bunch of honey off the swarms but wanted to keep them in a position to maybe still need to draw comb and so I didn't want to empty any of their comb. It is getting past comb drawing here unless a guy wanted to feed feed feed and I don't.

I did half win on mowing the clover. Got on the mower and the front tire was busted out of the side wall and would not hold air. It is supposed to rain tomorrow and I may get to it yet today but the rain gives a little hope of keeping some clover around. I did just now get the tire fixed.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I did half win on mowing the clover.


GWW:

Like you, I value self-sufficiency. Sometimes it is worth the extra cost or effort (at least to me) to know that I can support my family in the event of a significant disruption. The ice storm we had around here 10 years ago comes to mind.

My wife and I have an understanding regarding bee forage- she gets to maintain the lawn meticulously sheared and I get to keep the forbs on the surrounding 6 acres growing throughout the year. The attached photos are from the dock on our farm pond last night- the Blackeyed Susans have been particularly successful this year.

Keep up the good work and updates- I always enjoy the read.

Have a great weekend.

Russ


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## gww

Russ
Very nice. 
As far as the field behind my house, my wife would like that mowed also but I just don't till the frost astor have gone to seed and for sure after a freeze.
I don't know if that is the right way to mow for the best but is what I do in hope.
Cheers
gww


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## Cloverdale

Nice place, I would live a pond.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Very nice.





Cloverdale said:


> Nice place...


Thank you both for your kind words- we are blessed to have a place that our children can grow-up on where the greatest worries are ticks and falling out of trees.

Here's to a successful second-half of the bee year for you both.

Russ


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## AR1

gww said:


> Russ
> Very nice.
> As far as the field behind my house, my wife would like that mowed also but I just don't till the frost astor have gone to seed and for sure after a freeze.
> I don't know if that is the right way to mow for the best but is what I do in hope.
> Cheers
> gww


My wife is currently after me to mow the back. It is knee-high lawn grass right now. My excuse is that I am letting the grass go to seed to help crowd out the weeds. Hey, it might work! Once the seeds are dry I'll mow. It a nice butterfly sanctuary. Full time job and college, so I got plenty of excuses.

Front lawn is closer to wifely expectations, mowed, fertilized and weeds killed. Meh. Not my style. But suits the surrounding suburbian ethos better I suppose. I'd kill for a nice rural place, like I grew up in. Current location is a compromise, wife wanted downtown city, I wanted country. So I live with a tiny backyard orchard, garden and bees. Nowhere near self-sufficient, but I got wood to burn all winter, some food and trade goods.


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## gww

AR1
My place is also a compromise. Before I got it, I was bidding on 200 acres with one room shack on them. I decided I could survive here for a while and now it has been more then 20 years and my ambition is gone. 
You sound like you have a nice place too. I hope your back yard orchard is better taken care of and more productive then mine. My wife does the garden and so it is productive.

I am currently melting wax and have got it too hot when I tried solar and then too hot cause I forgot it in my oven an extra 3 hours. It is brown and does not smell that good. I got a tiny bit of cappings in the oven right now for my third try at it in so many days. Wish me luck.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

gww said:


> AR1
> My place is also a compromise. Before I got it, I was bidding on 200 acres with one room shack on them. I decided I could survive here for a while and now it has been more then 20 years and my ambition is gone.
> You sound like you have a nice place too. I hope your back yard orchard is better taken care of and more productive then mine. My wife does the garden and so it is productive.
> 
> I am currently melting wax and have got it too hot when I tried solar and then too hot cause I forgot it in my oven an extra 3 hours. It is brown and does not smell that good. I got a tiny bit of cappings in the oven right now for my third try at it in so many days. Wish me luck.
> Cheers
> gww


Orchard is sad now. Apple tree was trimmed way back a few years ago (neighbor got a new toy chainsaw on a long pole and I let him go to town with it). New apple trees are all crabs and need some grafts. Peaches were wonderful, grown from store-bought pits I threw out on the garden. Recently not much production as they got some disease. I need to cut them out and start over in a few years. Raspberries however are wonderful this year, and grapes look excellent too. 

Garden is excellent, as usual. I have what I call a low-work garden style. Linking an article I wrote a few years ago:
https://hubpages.com/living/Grow-Tomatoes-Lettuce-Pumpkins-And-More-From-Saved-Seeds

People make gardening complicated and difficult and hard work. Mine is not.


----------



## GregB

AR1 said:


> Orchard is sad now. Apple tree was trimmed way back a few years ago (neighbor got a new toy chainsaw on a long pole and I let him go to town with it). New apple trees are all crabs and need some grafts. Peaches were wonderful, grown from store-bought pits I threw out on the garden. Recently not much production as they got some disease. I need to cut them out and start over in a few years. Raspberries however are wonderful this year, and grapes look excellent too.
> 
> Garden is excellent, as usual. I have what I call a low-work garden style. Linking an article I wrote a few years ago:
> https://hubpages.com/living/Grow-Tomatoes-Lettuce-Pumpkins-And-More-From-Saved-Seeds
> 
> People make gardening complicated and difficult and hard work. Mine is not.


Next time you call me to handle your apple trees.
I graft too.


Good read AR (your article)!


----------



## gww

Got in two hives that I had put drawn comb from a dead out on. I also looked in on the two small swarms that are in single medium boxes to check for space. I got in the one big swarm that was apparently caught last year and still has a deep for the bottom box.

I thought both of the two hives had a box with mostly empty undrawn frames. I was mistaken on this and only one of them had any empty frames in it. Both of these hives are 5 boxes high and seem to have plenty of bees in them. They seem to have fair coverage for at least four of the boxes. Any brood I seen was pretty spotty but I only pulled a few frame and mostly lifted by the box. I removed the empty frames and about four mostly drawn frames so I could consolidated down to four boxes on one and just left the five on the other one cause all the boxes were drawn out. These bees do not have very much stores in them for the amount of bees and also don't forage with the vigor of some of the other hives. Kinda interesting to compare stuff.

The two tiny swarms are drawn out to about 70 percent now with one of them seeming to have lots more bees in the hive compared to comb. Either way, they seem to have caught up with each other as for as drawn comb goes. I didn't add space yet and have a feeling that unless I give them drawn comb, I would just have to take the space off later cause comb drawing is surly getting harder this late in the year.

On the swarm with a deep, I can't remember when I put the box of empty frames on this hive but they have most of the two mediums on top of the deep drawn out and filled with capped honey. They were getting a little cross combed on the last of the frames they were drawing out. I see them do more of this when the flows are not super strong but coming in spurts. I took the four mostly drawn out frames from the dead out and put them in this hive after cutting and smashing the two or so cross frames kinda strait. I put these frame in around the cross framed ones so the bees won't really have a choice but to go strait. 

Since the hive is a deep and two mediums, I will probably extract the top medium. The bees seem to be using the deep for babies and the two mediums for storage. Quite a contrast in storage compared to the first two big hives I looked in that also have lots of bees. I guess I will also see if the comb makes this hive sick or not. It might make a difference in my mind on whether to freeze and use again the comb that is in my two problem hives. I cannot believe it but those problem hives still have bees coming and going in them. I will look again at them soon but cannot believe they are not completely dead yet. From foraging at the entrance, I don't think they have improved much or got worse.

The bees are hitting the sweet corn in the garden hard and so are about to raise some babies and eat some honey I would say. They seemed to be flying a little better today after some rain and I seen them on mountain mint and still some yard clover. The yard clover does not seem to be coming up as thick after mowing and even with rain as it was earlier and so might be on its way out though I will take it as long as it will bloom.


The bees were still nice to me and I got not stings and they did not try and mob any open hives and so there is still something out there. 

Cheers
gww


----------



## AR1

GregV said:


> Next time you call me to handle your apple trees.
> I graft too.
> 
> 
> Good read AR (your article)!


Sometimes my garden is too successful. This year I did my typical lettuce seeding, shaking last years seed heads over the soil. There is so much lettuce it is choking out everything else, even the weeds. I am using lettuce as a mulch around the other stuff. Yanked out maybe a hundred large lettuce plants today. Still thousands left to yank.


----------



## AR1

gww said:


> ...didn't add space yet and have a feeling that unless I give them drawn comb, I would just have to take the space off later cause comb drawing is surly getting harder this late in the year.
> 
> ...They were getting a little cross combed on the last of the frames they were drawing out. I see them do more of this when the flows are not super strong but coming in spurts. I took the four mostly drawn out frames from the dead out and put them in this hive after cutting and smashing the two or so cross frames kinda strait. I put these frame in around the cross framed ones so the bees won't really have a choice but to go strait.
> 
> ...I cannot believe it but those problem hives still have bees coming and going in them. I will look again at them soon but cannot believe they are not completely dead yet. From foraging at the entrance, I don't think they have improved much or got worse.
> 
> The bees are hitting the sweet corn in the garden hard and so are about to raise some babies and eat some honey I would say. They seemed to be flying a little better today after some rain and I seen them on mountain mint and still some yard clover. The yard clover does not seem to be coming up as thick after mowing and even with rain as it was earlier and so might be on its way out though I will take it as long as it will bloom.
> 
> 
> The bees were still nice to me and I got not stings and they did not try and mob any open hives and so there is still something out there.
> 
> Cheers
> gww


Agree, I have in the past added space too soon and I think it slows down the bees. Maybe too much space slows brooding? Temp or humidity? At any rate it doesn't seem to help.

This seems to be the year for cross comb. Most of my hives have some, and some have lots. I don't bother about it since I don't use an extractor. If I want some honey I just scrape it all off, comb and all and strain it. Cross comb doesn't matter much to me. I suspect young hives just starting building make more cross comb, but just a suspicion. 

Can't tell much what's going on inside a hive by activity outside. Very weak hives can appear healthy just looking at activity at the entrance. 

Never saw bees on sweet corn much. I'll have to keep an eye out this year, if I get any corn. Planted in mid-June during a dry spell, it's only a few inches high now.

Still lots of flowers here. Red clover is going strong, and white. Been a good year for rain so far.


----------



## GregB

AR1 said:


> ...... Still thousands left to yank.


LOL
Victim of your own success.
Be great to have the same with the bees.


----------



## AR1

GregV said:


> LOL
> Victim of your own success.
> Be great to have the same with the bees.


I have 50 years experience gardening, in 3 different countries with 3 different climates and soils. I know how to garden. Bees...still a newb.


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## gww

Nice new comb full of honey.








This is what is on top of my three big swarms. I am a wimp and can hardly move it to look at the box below. The shame is that I will probably leave it for the bees to eat. The bees in both hives started in mediums only have a little over three frame drawn in the second box. I doubt they get that third medium completely drawn out. The last comb they were starting on in both hives was going wonky due to the bees making small starts in several places. I had to cut and smash and stick those wonky frames in between the strait ones so they can not keep going bad. Since the box in the picture is drawn out strait, I figure the flow has slowed to just small spurts for the bees to be doing what they are doing. My other one big swarm, I may take the box cause it has a deep and two mediums on it and has more drawn in the second mediums and is only a few frames from finishing.

I looked in the two hives that I had extracted about 60 percent of the supers on them and one is making good progress on refilling but not so much with the other one. For reference, I got a little less then 2.5 gal about a week or two ago.

I would like to publicly thank AR1 for offering and sending me some tobacco seed.

Thanks
gww


----------



## gww

Bit of an experiment today. Both directions taken have their own risk at this time of year. On my two previous mentioned tiny swarms I took two routes to add space. Both swarms had the medium they were in drawn out to about 80 to 85 percent. 

One I put an empty box on bottom. It is july and probably hard for a small hive to get enough income to draw comb with with out feeding which I am not currently planning to do. 

The other one, I put a comb from one of the dead outs. This, of course, has the chance of disease if the hive was not killed by mites or even if it was.

It might be hard to carry this experiment out to the end due to the fact that I might add comb to the one that has empty space before oct. Any comb I add could have chance of disease if disease is what I am dealing with though I might have a more healthy super of comb from one of my more active hives rather then using comb from a dead out.

Time will tell.

I did look inside my problem hives and they are gone even though they both have a couple of hundred bees in them. Still some good honey in one that has not yet been robbed out. So far, just enough bee coverage that wax moth have not destroyed anything if it is even late enough for wax moth yet. I would be curious if wax moth is an all year thing or a just before winter type thing so I know when it is bees doing a good job and not just not time for them yet.

Either way, for now and counting the whole year from last summer at this time till now, I am at a 40 percent loss for the year. Of course I am one hive ahead of the start of that time due to the swarms I have caught though two could only be considered strong nucs at this time. Honey crop is down and it does look to be getting dry out with not much rain in the forecast. Some of my other hives could be stronger but I will know more around sept.

To all those who say that a person should cull rather then let things die natural, that is not what I am doing and we will see how it goes. I did not do much propping up but no culling or combining either. Should be kinda interesting in any case.

Any way, I may not forget where I am now that I have written it here.
Cheers
gww


----------



## GregB

gww said:


> * I did not do much propping up but no culling or combining either.* Should be kinda interesting in any case.
> 
> Any way, I may not forget where I am now that I have written it here.
> Cheers
> gww


If I recall from my KS/MO years - the winter is pretty forgiving, you may squeak by without combining, GWW.


----------



## gww

Greg
I have seen the winters go both ways, however, it has been many years since we seen stuff like in the 1970s. I had a single medium make it at least one time.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

I went through a couple of more hives today. I have two more that I think are dead. That would be a 60 percent loss from this time last year. One has lots of honey for a dead hive and one not so much. 

The bees picked yesterday to rob one of my first hives that died. I am super surprised it took that long but shows where the flow is. It had at least half of a medium worth of capped honey still in it across four boxes. Still no wax moth and needs to be put in the freezer as soon as the bees have it stripped.

Of the two more (one for sure) dead hives from today, one has a lot of honey in it (more then a super). It has very low bee coverage. They do still block the entrance at the bottom board but have barely been foraging as of late. Added too the problems I have been having, this hive could have had other things going on also. It had lots of queen cell starts built out in many places but dry and had a small amount of capped drone brood in worker cells including larva uncapped. The larva did not look melting or turned in the cells. I can't see eggs but would say this has been going on for some time and adds up to laying worker or bad queen which I did not look for. Since I did not look close when I took the big swarm out of the cedar tree by the hives, it is not impossible that it could have swarmed and not got a queen but I don't think so. I do not remember this hive looking strong enough to be the one to swarm.

The other new dead looking hive did have about two half frames of very spotty brood but saw no larva and didn't see back filling and so due to low stores and low brood and low bee coverage and not seeing a queen though, I did not look hard, I think it is a deader.

I have one other hive that has lots of bees in it that I have 5 mediums on (comb storage). There are bees in all the boxes but it is kinda funny. It is almost like it has two distinct crappy brood areas and honey stored kinda funny though it is not loaded on stores. The second to the top box has a little capped brood and then going down, the next box has some capped frame of honey and then below that and mixed with that is a few more partial frame of capped brood. This hive might make it though it does not look right and is not storing as well as bee coverage says it should. I did notice when I took the outer cover of that there were some stunted dead bees on the enter cover. Not a ton but more then should be there. 

Adding it all together, I am thinking probably mite build up in that apiary is probably my biggest problem. Now it took 5 summers for it to express itself and so that is good. I am really thinking that it is more mite then efb but still watching and trying to see. It would make sense for this to be cause I have not split much or had many swarms for the last three years. The other change, this last fall is the very first time I did not feed a couple of gal to each in early oct. My belief is, this has little bearing but is one thing I did different. If I can get by with it, I am still not going to feed this fall.

There are maybe a few pluses in this depending on what the future brings and how bad it gets. One plus is that I finely have enough drawn comb for supers if I get them in the freezer in time. It was my best swarm year and so I am still sitting on my ten hives that I had at this time last year. I know most would think me crazy for letting the dead outs get robbed out now but this is my view on the subject for now. Most of the bees and brood are already gone and the honey is probably pretty thick and if I let the bees reprocess it and some of it ends up in supers in early sept, it will probably be much nicer to extract and much easier to manage the stores for winter in the live hives. This is of of course depending on if I am spreading more disease to hives that are not affected. My view on this is that with the hives sitting next to each other and this late in the game, that ship has probably already sailed though it would be a risk with the added swarms.

Unless I change my mind, I am still going to ride out this year on the same path and re-assess come spring. This may be stupid bee keeping and I am really not a purest when it comes to having to keep bees in a certain way but also still am not feeling the pain in the big picture (not that that isn't coming). I end up with ten hives with out much work. Now I could have did better and lost fewer with a little more effort and may think of that depending on where I go from here but for now am no worse then where I started (unless it keeps getting worse or next year is like this year). 

Do I still think that letting things play out like I have is worth it? For now, the answer is yes cause I go by the philosophy that you don't know till you actually see. Have I actually learned anything by seeing. I am not sure yet. I may have to see a little more to know. I do not think it is learning if you repeat the same thing over and over unless it is good enough and does not get worse. I don't intend to buy bees ever and so I hope to learn enough as I go to keep that from happening and make whatever adjustment is needed as I go for that purpose.

So three great years and one bad year, what is next. 

Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

Put two of the dead hives out so they can be robbed easier so I might get them in a freezer and save the comb. 









Got one or two more hives to do this with but I only have a little box freezer for comb and so they will have to wait.

One was the one that I had seen uncapped larva and a queen all along. I did not see that queen the last two time I got in the hive. There are a very few small larva still in the cells and maybe a capped brood here or there that did not get cleaned out or hatch (not many though). I might have seen one or two of the small larva in the stomach ache position but saw no discolored larva or what seemed like melting larva. 

The other one was being worked on by robbers and had quite a bit of the honey gone but I noticed they work a little slower getting to the capped stuff. I scraped a little of the cappings to really get them going. I figured the honey would probably be crystallized but it sure looked pretty good when the caps were removed. The bottom boxes are old dark brood comb that was completely empty except maybe a touch of pollen here or there. I am not positive I am going to use this comb but I figure the honey combs after being cleaned are almost sure to be ok for supers.

I did have somebody offer me help with medicine if I decided to take some kind of action if I ever decide to find out for sure on the efb. I am going to see how the hives that are left do this winter. I had ten hives in case some decided to die on me thinking that might be a safe number for a couple to survive no matter what. This being my first experience and sorta what I was waiting for so I might see how it happens and it was pretty enlightening. It happens pretty hard when it happens. Might not be done either but I am watching and will see. 

I know it will be different when I let the bees rob the frames but when I get them in the house and bee-less, I might take a magnifying glass and see if I can find some kind of scale or mite poop in the cells.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

It looks like my oldest un-split hive has a capped superseder cell. It is summer number five for this hive. Not impossible that I might have missed an ealier superseder but don't think I have missed a swarm. I did not pull the frame with the cell that was right up against a full frame of honey. It looked pretty old color wise and nice sized. Seems like a bad time for a change. I have not seen pollen coming into the hives for some time. The bees were active yesterday, like they were on to something flow wise. It was a day after a small shower though and so maybe the plants gave a little extra.

The small swarms don't seem to be drawing too much wax. They have finished the one medium but have not started on the second empty one though the one I gave comb for the second box, may have added a little more nector then what was given them but has not laid in the new box.

The bigger swarms do seem to be drawing comb yet and have made a pretty good dent in drawing their third medium.

I seen one of the bigger swarms that had probably 8 or so bees cut in half on top of the inter cover. It was weird looking. Several bugs up there and I saw either a bee hanging on a bug or a bug hanging on a bee in the box. Plenty of hive beatles and other bugs corralled on some of the enter covers. 

The bees are still very nice and I have still not gotten stung this year except for when hiving the swarm out of the cedar tree.

Cheers
gww

Ps I did take a magnifying glass and look at some of the comb in the frames in the previous post but still did not really see much. I took a stick on a few of the still capped abandoned brood and stirred them around and there was no roping and they looked milky white when stirred up.


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## crofter

gww; I dont think you can read too much into the color of the larvae. The color and consistency of the larvae as it progresses from live to a scale can vary depending on which one or combination of secondary bacteria get going. This also varies the smell or lack of it, so that is not definitive of efb either.


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## gww

Frank
Thank your for the comment. I was thinking that color is mentioned on afb and so I was thinking that I might not eliminate efb but was getting closer to being pretty sure the real bad one was not my problem. I didn't think it was afb even in the beginning but figured while messing around, why not at least do the minimum to kinda be a little more sure. 

I have read quite a bit more and looked a quite a few more pictures besides yours and have not eliminated efb from the possibilities. I have not bought a test kit though yet and might or might not in the future.

I am thankful for your input.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I did have somebody offer me help with medicine if I decided to take some kind of action if I ever decide to find out for sure on the efb. I am going to see how the hives that are left do this winter. I had ten hives in case some decided to die on me thinking that might be a safe number for a couple to survive no matter what.


GWW:

I always enjoy reading your posts and as I have mentioned before I appreciate your willingness to experiment and observe to learn what happens and then use this information to make future decisions by. This I think is one of the freeing things about being a hobby beekeeper and amateur citizen scientist- one can afford to experiment and make mistakes and not have their livelihood impacted by it.

I'll keep following along to see what develops from the brood issues you've been observing this year.

I appreciate your posts-

Russ


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## gww

Russ
It is very freeing of not needing to do well enough so you can buy shoes for your kids with the profit you intend to make. I don't want to lose but do not mind much coming out even on something that keeps me interested.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

After several days of rain and it being cool out side, I decided to look at the swarms to see where they are on comb.

Of the two small swarms that on one I put comb and on the other I put an empty box, there is a big difference in where they are from them being about the same.

No new comb has been drawn on the one with the empty box but the one that got comb has the box about 60 percent full of stores. The one with out comb is light for being in what is probably a hard dirth unless there is stuff I don't see. All I see is a little partrich pear and my garden of which I don't see lots of bees in.

I am thinking I might have to add some of my diseased comb in sept if I want even a chance of not having to add feed.

Two of the bigger swarms have about 70 and 80 percent of their third medium drawn with the top being pure capped honey which I might take part of come sept. 

I looked at the super of one older hive to see if they had moved brood out of the super and filled with honey. The answer is no but the brood has hatched. I should have went down and seen if the hive had any brood cause it was a little jumpy and may have a problem but I got hot and decided enough for a day.

One of my dead hives had better traffic then normal (which is not saying much). It still had a pile of dead bees in front of the hive. It is one of the few I have with a board there so dead bees are easy to see. Again, should have looked but guess that will just be on my list. 

I will have to look harder later. I hope the bottom boxes are empty on the hives that don't end up filling supers. If not, It is going to be a gripe moving a bunch of frames around to get the brood box reduced to three boxes later.

Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Two of the bigger swarms have about 70 and 80 percent of their third medium drawn with the top being pure capped honey which I might take part of come sept.


Good update, GWW. Sounds like your swarms are doing better than my swarms- I took a peek over the weekend and the best colonies only have two boxes of comb drawn-out.

Keep plugging-away... have a good week.

Russ


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## gww

Ok, so my fifth hive of the year just got robbed out. I can not believe they lasted this long. So, time to break it down and freeze the comb since no bees will be guarding it any longer. That makes 50 percent loss year long but still puts me at the ten hives I started with. Got one more that was really bad but I have not been in it for a while. It wasn't bad enough to get robbed yet though.

Russ
I doubt my swarms are doing better than yours but two of them were the biggest I have seen and so started with more in the beginning. My other normal swarms are doing normal (for me).

I still read your thread but am trying to learn guitar and so am only looking on the site about one time a day.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I pulled the before mentioned robbed hive out so I can freeze it. I looked through a few of the comb. There were still a few interesting capped drone in worker comb (not many). They were hatching as I looked. The couple hundred bees that were still left in the hive were dead in front of it (taken out by robbers). There were honest queen start efforts in the hive at some time in the past.

I looked in the top two boxes of my last really questionable hive. It is also going to die I think. I saw my first pollen coming into the hives today for awhile of not seeing this before. This hive was carrying some also and it made me curious.

It has some bees in the top box mostly and some capped brood. However, I did not see the queen while going though the small space the bees are covering in the two boxes. She may have ran to the bottom two. So, the capped brood could be old that died and the bees did not get around to cleaning up. I did see where the bees had uncapped a few cells after they were capped. It was a fairly spotty pattern on a few frames. I thought about shaking a good frame of bees in but figured why waste the resource and also take a chance of shaking a good queen in.

Not a bunch of honey in the hive but enough to keep the bee density going till fall flow. It is a dead hive though. It is bringing in pollen though and so will be fun to watch a little longer. I could be crazy but think these bees look a little brighter yellow then most of my other bees. I really like seeing the bees where they gather water. I have noticed except for some size differences, most are pretty similar color at the bird bath and so I could just not see and process well.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> ... but am trying to learn guitar...


Well, now we will have two things in common. 

Next time you are East of the Mississippi and have a little time to spare, you should stop by and we can do some pickin' and talk bees.

Are you ready to venture a guess as to what might be the root cause(es) of the colony failures this year?


----------



## gww

Russ


> Are you ready to venture a guess as to what might be the root cause(es) of the colony failures this year?


Not really. Since I did neither mite counts or testing for efb so that I might know for sure, it could be either or both.

I have read of common failure from mite during spring build up and so they would over lap.

I have seen some weird looking bees as well as the weird brood and so the bees would lead to more mite. I did not see bunches of capped drone brood this year.

I have never tore open a more then one or two drone brood during an inspection and the few I did, I have never seen a mite on them with my eyes but I also can not see eggs and so no biggy. I don't doubt mite presence at all though. I look at the comb and see some bad looking cells but the scale does not sit on the bottom edge of the comb cell but more at the very bottom if you laid the comb flat on the table. Looks more like piled up pollen filling half of the cell on a few. Some of the oldest brood comb does look much smaller then newer comb (I assume cocoon build up. I still have not threw any comb away and am getting quite a stock pile finally though they may hurt me in the end. Something you could use right now though.

The last hive I looked in was the first that I noticed the bees uncapping capped cells and that is something newer for me to see though I might just not have caught it on others. 

The one I tore down was laying worker, I am pretty sure. 

Nope, I am still a dummy. I should have stolen a queen from one of the swarms and let them make a new one for the last hive that is still going but I got no guts and so let it ride knowing it is probably on its way out. I do wish I would have tore into some of the brood this last look to see if it had bees under it. But I didn't. 

I still have to do a little extracting and hive reduction. I dread that if a flow is not going but also can't put it off much longer if I want the bees to have a chance of putting whatever might come into their brood nest before frost.

Guitar? Only 15 days in, no picking yet. My two months on the ukulele has not made the guitar easier except for tough fingers. I thought it would be easier then it is but have lots of time to keep plucking away. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## AR1

Do you get a decent fall flow?


----------



## gww

ar1
I seemed to get a good fall flow last year. I extracted on sept 1st and bees got a medium after that. Not sure of every year but think it might depend on rain and we are good this year on that. I have my hopes.

I fed all years before last.
Cheers
gww

Ps I did receive the seed from you and so say thanks once again.


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> Guitar? Only 15 days in, no picking yet. My two months on the ukulele has not made the guitar easier except for tough fingers. I thought it would be easier then it is but have lots of time to keep plucking away.


Keep at it- I am almost 30 years in and I am still learning new things every time I play. Like beekeeping, it is gratifying when you do reach progressive milestones along the way that make it worth all the aggravation and slow pace of progress. Besides, once you learn about a half-dozen chords you'll be able to play 80% of the songs you want to- unless of course you are ultimately looking to go a more classical/jazz/flamenco route.

Good luck to you- maybe you can join in with Sam Comfort in a duet one of these days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2jcZr4HfTU


----------



## gww

Got in just a few hives today to just get a small feel of what is going on. One was an older hive and one was my problem hive. I would not be surprised if I don't still lose them both. They are both light on stores and the brood is just in small spots on several comb. I know the picture is not great but I was surprised it is as good as it is. The bees were shaking thier butts all over the place and I am assuming it is excitement over the flow though I did see one video once that it could indicate mites. These hive also have larger numbers of hive beetle and other bugs cornered on the enter cover then some of the better hives. They all jump and run when you take the lid off.









I looked in a big swarm that I had extracted the last box on it and put it back on at the end of last month. They are storing honey now but it is nowhere near full. They got another 15 to 30 days to Finnish. I did not look at the brood but they are out foraging in abundance looking at the traffic from the entrance. I thought they might have a little more by now but might be on track.

I looked at my smallest swarm that I also put an empty on. It was one medium with a completely empty medium on bottom that only had one comb in it. I am going to leave that empty till spring and see how that goes. They have stored more in the added empty box of comb then the bigger swarm has but still have not filled it. I was ask if my brood problems had moved to any of the swarms. I mentioned that i had seen some funny dead bees on the enter cover and this is sorta what I seen last time also.








This is the brood pattern in the smaller swarm.








Looks good to me and I did not count but looks like it has several frames like this.

I do not remember being stung during inspections all year. This little hive was a bit jumpy and lit me up two or three times. I don't really know how many times but took out at least two stingers and flicked one lose that had its stinger stuck in my shirt. They jumped all at once and I admit to small panic and walking away fast and that makes it hard to count stings and I don't always react to tell where I have been stung once I remove the stinger and so find it hard to count what really happened. It was a little my fault cause I smashed a few with the inter cover before I noticed I had forgot to put the top box on and had to take the cover back off to fix. They have a big hole in the side of one of the boxes on the side where I hang frames while inspecting and so I had been in their space for some time while I had the hive open. Dang, I guess I need to patch that hole some time in the future.

Over all, I got about 9 gal of honey and could have got more then my normal ten. I went into winter with 9 hives and am sitting on ten now though I am pretty sure that 8 might be a closer "real" count. So over all, I did not go forward or backward too bad. I am way ahead on drawn comb now though using it might kill some bees but my two small swarms might tell me this as they each have this comb on them now. Time will tell.
Cheers
gww
Ps Word to the wise, if you are lazy and, due to that, have to inspect you hives wearing shorts and crocks in the tall grass that rubs up high on you, it will make you paranoid that bees are crawling on you.


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> Over all, I got about 9 gal of honey and could have got more then my normal ten. I went into winter with 9 hives and am sitting on ten now though I am pretty sure that 8 might be a closer "real" count. So over all, I did not go forward or backward too bad. I am way ahead on drawn comb now though using it might kill some bees but my two small swarms might tell me this as they each have this comb on them now. Time will tell.


Good update, GWW. I apologize for the late reply.

Sounds like you are in a decent position all things considered. Are you having a strong Fall flow? Have you decided whether you will have to provide any supplemental feed to anyone?

For my part, I am thinking about going through the hives one last time mid-October if the forecast holds. I think I will have enough surplus honey available to prop-up those who need a little help as it has been a good nectar year here.


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## gww

Russ
The bees are working hard. I do not have much golden rod on my own land but what is there is fuller bloom then I remember ever seeing. Just today, I saw the bees on both the golden rod and the frost astors that are plentiful in my field. I am thinking things are going well. I am not sure the two hives I worry about have the field force to take good advantage but will probably not feed any hives unless I am really surprised when I look at a few top boxes in the beginning of oct.

The weather is cool and I don't know how early in the days the bees start foraging but do know they seem to like it and are working hard. I think the flow is probably going pretty good till frost which will be some where close to oct 15 give or take. Take it for what it is worth.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I think the flow is probably going pretty good till frost which will be some where close to oct 15 give or take. Take it for what it is worth.


Thank you for your reply, GWW. I apologize for my delay in responding.

Let's compare notes over the next few weeks. Our killing frost last year was on October 31st but they are predicting a colder and wetter October for us.

Good luck in getting everything buttoned-up. I hope your pickin' and grinnin' is going well.


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## gww

This may be my last look inside the hives this year. I only took the top off and lifted the top box on about 4 hives. I pulled no frames. 

It was a surprisingly disappointing look for excess stores for winter. Every thing I looked at was almost dry with no capped stores I could see from the top. 
Especially telling, was on one of my big swarms that I had put an extracted empty back on. It was a deep and two mediums when I pulled one medium for extraction. The medium below seemed to be pretty much capped honey also and it seemed most of the brood nest was in the deep. When I look down from the top now, it is not still full of capped honey. I didn't lift that box and assume it does have some weight cause the bees have stored some honey in the top box now. If I were to guess by weight, the top box might be a third full of uncapped honey.

The one that put the most in an empty medium was my single box medium swarm. It is now about half full.

One of my older hives is almost empty on top. My problem hive seems to have more bees now but is also super low on excess stores. 

I did not look at the two hives that I left the full mediums on back in sept. 

The bees have till the first frost to improve their position. At most that is 14 to 20 days, some of which might not have high enough temps for good foraging but for a few hours.

What to do with the info gained?

I am not going to do the prudent thing and drop 200 to 300 lbs of sugar on them. That would probably guarantee the minimum needed for pretty sure success. I doubt I even put sugar blocks on them. This is of course unless I change my mind. Now why have such a harsh view? Looking at my apiary as a whole, Most of these hives did not really produce this year and are not taking care of them selves (I do recognize that I did not help them with any type of treatment). Two of the 5 year old hives did pretty much take care of themselves and give excess honey in hard conditions. I did leave two 1st year swarms extremely fat at extraction time. So my belief is that I will not be with out bees come spring and if the others can not some how make it, their loss may not be catastrophic to my hobby operation. This means that everything that was profit will stay profit and no real loss will occur in the pocket book as long as you do not count potential profit that I could work for and pay for to get. Unless things go super bad (possible using this year as an example), I could do this forever. 

Plus, It could cycle back to my previous five years starting next spring if I get rid of a few laggards. Of course it could also make me rethink depending on next year.

The one thing I did do different in those first years is feed in early oct and that is a big change though last year they had plenty on their own. 

Regardless, the bees have still a little time to improve on their own and they are working really hard right now and it should be an interesting spring, one way or the other. 

This is where I am at this point and I still have a tiny bit of time to get scared and change my mind. I doubt I do but also know that I am like that when I am running things around in my mind and it makes me change my goals in some way. 
Man there are lots of frost asters (little white flowers) out there and you can see the bees working them like mad and hope is eternal.
Cheers
gww


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## DanielD

Glen, it sounds like you are still having fun with the bees. One of my thoughts is that, in the fall when they are bringing down the brood nest, they will fill the brood space with honey as they emerge. That may be why you don't see so much being stored up on top. There could be stores in the brood nest area. lift one side of the hive and see what it feels like. Another thing is that as the brood nest shrinks, there's more nectar left over to store up. You could get a good warm week coming up that gives them longer fly time where they can pack it in. I would make sure though that there's a good pile of honey in the top box since they could get stuck on top while there's honey below. 

I see a record amount of asters around up here too. All year has been the largest amount of bloom that I have seen with the sweet clover and goldenrod especially. It's been a perfect year for honey.


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## GregB

Asters are only good enough to stay afloat so that bees don't eat into the stores.
They are not strong enough producers to, somehow, give you any significant boost.

I'd dump dry sugar when proper times comes - easy enough to do.
The idea of "fending for themselves" does not always work (especially, when you don't do mite treatments - adding enough of a load).
Some of mine will have dry sugar for sure.


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## gww

Danial
I always figure if there is honey in the top, the bottom is like it should be. So I like seeing honey up top. Truth be known, I did not remove anything from the bottom three boxes when I pulled for extraction and so took it for granted the bottom three would be fine on the ones that produced excess. The only problem with this is that some did not produce above three boxes and there is always the chance that putting the boxes on as early as I did that the brood nest never moved down through the whole year. I am not that worried about possible losses of a few of the hives cause I did have some build up issues on some and so maybe good riddance.

I do think if the bees get stuck up top that unless a really extended cold spell, They can move stuff up during the few warmer days we get sometimes. 
Good to hear from you and hope you are well.

Greg


> The idea of "fending for themselves" does not always work (especially, when you don't do mite treatments - adding enough of a load).


This I do realize. I had big sugar blocks during my first years. I know mountain camp is easy to do also. Even so, weeding out weak stuff naturally when unwilling to treat has its draw also. I understand the view of re-queening the weak stuff and such and saving the bees as a resource can make much sense. But like I said in the earlier post, Playing the odds on an apiary wide basis has some draw to me and looking at the big picture with my goals in mind, I do not think I will be beeless next year. If I am, I will put my traps out and defiantly change how I keep bees even to include a treatment here or there. 

So, I don't believe that is the position that I will be in but will cross that bridge when I get there. Right now, I am ending up with 9 or 10 gal of honey every year doing things as I am and that is a big draw and the place I like being at for now. Don't really want to make less but am not sure I want the hassle that goes with more. Plus, I do really like sitting down by the hives and looking from the out side of them and trying to guess what is going on on the inside. 
Cheers
gww

Ps I the asters filled the hives last year fast or something did.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> This I do realize. I had big sugar blocks during my first years. I know mountain camp is easy to do also. Even so, weeding out weak stuff naturally when unwilling to treat has its draw also. I understand the view of re-queening the weak stuff and such and saving the bees as a resource can make much sense. But like I said in the earlier post, Playing the odds on an apiary wide basis has some draw to me and looking at the big picture with my goals in mind, I do not think I will be beeless next year. If I am, I will put my traps out and defiantly change how I keep bees even to include a treatment here or there.


GWW:

Good post. I've said it before, but I do appreciate the manner in which you stick to your proverbial guns for the purposes of identifying probable outcomes based on what you observe.

While I have no qualms about the decision to provide supplemental feed to colonies that need it, I also can appreciate the selective pressure exerted on colonies that are unable to adequately provide for themselves.

I know it goes without saying, but I personally think it is worth considering the impact that our management has upon a colony's ability to successfully prepare for Winter. Case-in-point, we have discussed previously the impact that upper entrances have on the relative location of the active broodnest (and thus on overhead stores at the end of the season). 

Here near the end of this season I have observed that approximately 25 of the 27 active colonies I currently have are rearing their last rounds of bees in the very top box- and based on the great feedback that DanielD provided concerning his experiences, I suspect this is due in no small measure to my use of upper entrances.

There is a lot to consider and assess in beekeeping, especially when attempting to provide the appropriate selection pressure.

I enjoy your updates- keep up the good work!

Russ


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## GregB

gww said:


> Greg
> This I do realize..


Whatever works, gww.
Clearly it is either you, or the bees, or together - you still manage to say afloat somehow.
This can not be said about me! 
---- even dry sugar did not do it in the season 2019 as you know; 
---- the season 2020 I am already out of sugar - everything has been fed


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## gww

Russ


> There is a lot to consider and assess in beekeeping, especially when attempting to provide the appropriate selection pressure


Add to this fact is the fact that most things you do are for way later cause it takes a year or two to notice any real changes. Bee keeping is a long game and not much on the instant gratification item. 

It is easier if you don't need a particular out come and are willing to take you lumps as they come. If I were commercial, I would follow a commercial cookie cutter plan that I already knew would work more times then not. 

So far what I do is fine and working for my needs but defiantly not best practices which I hope to be learning also from others while I do what I do. Some things perplex me along the way but big picture, I am enjoying myself and can eat peanut butter and honey if I want to though I usually go for grape jelly.

Do you notice any difference having more bees in one place than when you had fewer as far as honey gathering is concerned?
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Greg
Everything is probably not feed cause my bad hives went through a lot of honey with no improvement in hive size and livelihood. However, leaving out all other things, I think you are still correct in taking a lack of food out of the equation. I know I should also but am just not going to and may pay. That may even be stupid. You at least keep plugging away and "doing as opposed to just thinking", is the best chance for eventual success. Keep up the good work.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Some things perplex me along the way but big picture, I am enjoying myself and can eat peanut butter and honey if I want to though I usually go for grape jelly.


I chuckled at this, and I share your sentiments. As a hobby, I am glad we get to determine what success looks like in our individual apiaries. I expect in a commercial setting, success is largely defined by the market and thus I am reminded that what is sustainable in a hobby yard is much different than that in an enterprise. Regardless, I enjoy following your experiments and appreciate you outlining your thought process- gives me things to think about in my own situation.



gww said:


> Do you notice any difference having more bees in one place than when you had fewer as far as honey gathering is concerned?


While I will admit that this year has been unique in terms of timely rainfall throughout the summer, it seems to me that the colonies have largely been constrained by their available foraging force and the limited amount of drawn comb on-hand rather than by competition. It has also been interesting to me to see how individual colonies have responded differently to the various nectar and pollen sources throughout the season based on their need and the status of colony development. 

Case in point- the colonies that overwintered last year appear for the most part to be active with our fall flow but the new swarms are currently working at a frenetic pace- a reminder to me that each colony has an acute understanding of the amount and adequacy of their stores.


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## gww

Russ


> Case in point- the colonies that overwintered last year appear for the most part to be active with our fall flow but the new swarms are currently working at a frenetic pace- a reminder to me that each colony has an acute understanding of the amount and adequacy of their stores.


This is why I really like comparing the activity at all the hives entrances and then trying to guess what is going on inside the hives. It is amazing how many times I open hives and find out how wrong my thoughts were but I figure I will get better.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> It is amazing how many times I open hives and find out how wrong my thoughts were but I figure I will get better.


GWW:

This I understand- but it is amazing how much one can normally ascertain just by watching the activity at the entrance. I routinely refer to the 'At the Hive Entrance' book to get a sense of things.

I hope you enjoy this Fall weather that has suddenly swept through the Midwest.

Russ


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## gww

Russ
I have read it a few times but am not sure I understand when I am at the hives. It is all good. Thanks for the encouragement you give in all things including your post to me on your thread about music.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Well, I got two surprises today. One is that my oldest hive and the one that I got the most honey off of the last two years is dead. So it made it unsplit for five years. About six months ago, I saw what looked like a supeceedure cell in it and quit digging. With me, there is always the chance I took a queen with my honey harvest or it could have been something else. 

I also think one of my gangbuster swarms might have died. It is at the end of the row of hives and was one of my leave alot of food hedge hives that I thought would do well. I left two with lots of food cause the rest seemed light and I did not want to feed. 

Another surprise is that the two hives I was dead sure were not going to make it still have some buzz in them. Go figure. Doesn't mean they will live but I sure would have thought they would have died before the other two.

We have our first real cold spell heading our way in the next week. If the bees live through it and can make it to our next warm spell, they will have those dead hives to rob and stock up on stores cause they should have honey and the ones left could be really light. Hope more don't die before they find out how good robbing can be.

So 8 still alive and one for sure dead and one I am mostly sure is dead by tapping with my ear to the box. Hated to lose the old hive cause I was proud of it. 
Cheers
gww
Time will tell.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Time will tell.


GWW:

I am sincerely sorry to read about your dead-outs, particularly the 5 year colony. Hopefully your other 8 colonies will pull through. While I know it may change, the long-range forecast shows moderating temperatures once we get through this cold snap.

I don't know about you but I'm always on pins-and-needles until the pollen starts in earnest.

At least the cold weather gives you time to practice guitar...

Have a great evening. 

Russ


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## gww

Russ
Working on the into to sweet home alabama, my first intro. My pull offs and hammer on sound nothing like the video.

I worry till pollen and then worry about starvation but can't wait to see anyway.
Keep up your good work.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> My pull offs and hammer on sound nothing like the video.


I wouldn't worry too much about that- Keith Richards doesn't sound much like anyone else and he's gotten along o.k. 

The trick is to sound like the best-sounding you- and keep having fun... sounds like you're making good progress- congratulations.


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## Cloverdale

gww said:


> Russ
> Working on the into to sweet home alabama, my first intro. My pull offs and hammer on sound nothing like the video.
> 
> I worry till pollen and then worry about starvation but can't wait to see anyway.
> Keep up your good work.
> Cheers
> gww





gww said:


> Well, I got two surprises today. One is that my oldest hive and the one that I got the most honey off of the last two years is dead. So it made it unsplit for five years. About six months ago, I saw what looked like a supeceedure cell in it and quit digging. With me, there is always the chance I took a queen with my honey harvest or it could have been something else.
> 
> I also think one of my gangbuster swarms might have died. It is at the end of the row of hives and was one of my leave alot of food hedge hives that I thought would do well. I left two with lots of food cause the rest seemed light and I did not want to feed.
> 
> Another surprise is that the two hives I was dead sure were not going to make it still have some buzz in them. Go figure. Doesn't mean they will live but I sure would have thought they would have died before the other two.
> 
> We have our first real cold spell heading our way in the next week. If the bees live through it and can make it to our next warm spell, they will have those dead hives to rob and stock up on stores cause they should have honey and the ones left could be really light. Hope more don't die before they find out how good robbing can be.
> 
> So 8 still alive and one for sure dead and one I am mostly sure is dead by tapping with my ear to the box. Hated to lose the old hive cause I was proud of it.
> Cheers
> gww
> Time will tell.


Hey gww, I enjoy your posts, a true beekeeper doing experiments; maybe your supersedure queen didn’t work out, I have had that happen; queen failure for whatever reason. I’m sure the cold will be fine for your bees. Keep posting. I’ve seen you on another forum but I haven’t pursued reading or posting on it. Have fun with your bees and guitar. Deb


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## gww

Deb
That cell was noticed on july 17th which seems like pretty much into our summer derth and so not a good time in my mind. They were probably in trouble already to make the cell.

I do like that on this site, the bee part is separated from the political part.
Thank you for your comments.
This year will be interesting. 
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ok 52 degrees, the last of the snow is melting and I still have bees and still have not weed eaten.








The yard maples seem to be on schedule and the blooms have purple color though not popped I am sure. It is 52 degrees and supposed to be 60 degrees tomorrow and then back down in the 40s.

I think another hive is dead making three out of ten and might still have more I don't know for sure about.

I popped the top of the 5 year one that is dead and the top box is capped honey and I did not look lower. I was going to scratch the cappings so the hives around it could find it but then thought I might ask my wife if we were greedy first. We decided we were not greedy and to give it to the bees. I did not go back down and scratch them though. I thought about just moving frames to other hives or put it under a hive but will probably take the easy way and just scratch and get a robbing spree going. I am sure once started, it will put pressure on any other weak hive in the apiary. I am guessing there is probably honey in the other dead hives too but I am a fair weather bee keeper and it is muddy as heck out there.

My early plans when it is seventy degrees out is to take my one hive that has a deep trap with medium frames in it as a bottom box is to cut the comb out and get all mediums on that hive.

It is also time to drop a lemon grass q-tip into all my traps for the first time of the year.

Mom and dad have water pipe that froze and broke that I might get to tomorrow and I have about 6 traps in that direction if I don't wake up in a new world and forget to take the bait.

Nothing out there for bees right this second cause they are flying and checking out every thing. I better go check the chicken house feed cause it is inside due to the weather and the bees could be crowding the chickens hard but only now thought to look.
Good luck all
Cheers
gww

Ps I did see some bees doing clean up and carrying out dead. I consider these as live hives cause why clean out what you are robbing.


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## gww

Here is my five year hive cluster. I scraped the capps on the honey and left the hive open and the bees are already noticing it and so they have 3 or 4 gals coming their way if they fight for it.








Cheers
gww


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## Gypsi

Texas got cold, I have at least one that looks like your pic gww. It got really really cold. I have one solid survivor, one dead and one maybe.


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## gww

Gypsi
Yea, you guys are not used to that kind of cold. Good luck with what is left.
Cheers
gww


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## Gypsi

Had this huge swarm come in, in 2018, deep 5 frame nuc and it was overflowing when I went to add a feed jar to my swarm trap so I added another box of frames instead. Pretty decent bees, given I was working near dark to add that box. And it has pulled thru, the nuc I lost was due to robbing from this wild hive, and my beeweaver hive may not make it, partly due to robbing, but I think I may just have to "if you can't beat them, join them". add a box of frames and use her for splits... Looks like they threw out maybe 2 cups of bees, probably just one, dead, when they did housekeeping this morning. They're a little hot but not too bad. And they appear to be hardy


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## gww

I have had a few get hot every once in a while with it being most time food or queen making being the difference. Most time mine are really nice to me though. If you decide to take a few pics while splitting, put them here or somewhere and I will enjoy them. If you don't feel like that hassle, that is also something I can relate to.
Cheers
gww


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## Gypsi

Well the good news is the beeweaver 2 box (1 deep 1 medium) is alive. and probably has plenty of bees. I put a 10 frames of empty medium comb on top of the wild hive for them to fill up, and spread out all the goodies from the 4 nuc box stack that died off. there were probably a good 6 frames of capped honey on there, they were just short on bees from being robbed. Split will wait til things calm down, Texas is going straight from winter to 70 degree weather, so the more populous hive will need that box to fill, while the beeweaver did need fed I think, since they were emptying the honeycomb I fed on top of the inner cover a month ago. Gave them a jar of syrup but no extra frames to patrol. I'm tired. If I manage a split with pics, I'll post them. Be a little while before I'll feel comfortable going thru that hive. Got 3 grandchildren here today


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## gww

Gypsi
Have fun with the grandkids. Can't wait till mine come around again. Been a couple of weeks. Mine usually stay a few days and then I am tired too.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I consider these as live hives cause why clean out what you are robbing.


GWW:

I always enjoy reading your posts, and I am glad that you've got live bees to work with. While I note that your dead-out percentage is higher than usual, I imagine your 5 year average is well below 15%?

To be honest, I have never considered seeing dead bees hauled out as a test of colony life- but your rationale makes sense to me...

Best of success to you in this coming year- hopefully the maples will come on strong for us in the next couple of weeks.

Russ


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## gww

This is a first for me but me being me, I baited it as it sits.








Stupid squirrel. 😊 
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Dead out 2 and 3 of ten. Might have more but might have robbing going on and not be able to tell with lids on.








Starve out. Hive with nothing, nadda, zip. Small cluster and so even with food, who knows.










This also was starve out but in a different way. This I do consider and actual loss as there was four good solid frames of bees and maybe more.
I say in advance that member danial d warned me of this but I decided not to listen. This hive does have some honey in the lower box. The bottom of the cluster should have been barely in contact with it. The top box was dry as a bone. Even if they were alive, the honey in the bottom boxes probably would not have got them though brood build up. So I left this hive open to let the others rob also.

I had tapped on the end of the row hive earlier and thought it was dead also but is has activity right now. Robbing? Probably but time will tell.

I guess you guys will be able to recognize me by my thumb that I seem to be able to get into every picture.

I did not take a smoker and so did not even try to mess with any hive that had any kind of bee traffic. So that will have to wait. Still have not weed eaten.

Russ
You mention my five year rate of loss. I do not see this extra loss as totally unexpected (as well as a little self imposed by refusing to feed this fall). If you look at what happened in my apiary and compare it to squarepeg's, he like me did not really lose anything the first two years, Then he lost like 15 percent and then 30 percent and than got the bad year. The one difference for sure is that he made a ton more honey than me. Side note, my neighbor who had four hives that dies several years ago stopped by and bought two quarts of honey from me. He has four empty hives and I told him to day I would give him a split to fill one of the boxes but he did not take me up on it. Lives 4 to 6 miles from me on the same road.

Back to bees. So I had expected some trouble just based on history of several people doing what I am doing.

Does that mean it does not work? That remains to be seen but right now for my needs, I am still staying afloat with out have to by bees and getting something from them with out putting any thing in them. That makes adjustment to better pretty hard even though the change might be easy. It would be easy enough but would not satisfy my curiosity nearly as well. What I am doing may be a bit cruel in some peoples eyes but from a selfish stand point is just so easy and fun and I hope I am learning to see bees though I have my doubts. I keep thinking if I ever did (which I won't) decide to become ambitious and treat or something, it would be good experience to have seen this first.
Cheers
gww


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## Cloverdale

gww said:


> This is a first for me but me being me, I baited it as it sits.
> View attachment 62227
> 
> Stupid squirrel. 😊
> Cheers
> gww


----------



## Gypsi

I use old hives for bait hives sometimes. I wasn't sure that my beeweaver hive was alive - as that wild bunch has so many bees, could have been robbers at the top, but I checked yesterday after granddaughter had gone home, and they are there. I didn't dig in and look for brood. I did feed less last year, I also took less honey, letting them feed themselves. I did treat for mites. All in all, I like a year when I only go thru 50 pounds of sugar between me and the bees. I saw a swarm leave and let them go, I know I should have caught them, but my area really only supports 3 hives. And now that I've lost one I can do a split or catch my own swarm and be within what the area will support foragewise. I'm good with that


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## gww

gypsi
Good on your hive being alive.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> So I had expected some trouble just based on history of several people doing what I am doing.


GWW:

Thank you for your reply- and I do appreciate what you are saying.

I have read the anecdotes and know more than a few beekeepers who have initially met with success in a TF context only to have significant failures after a few years.

It thus begs the questions (at least in my mind):

1. What are we doing (or not doing) initially that allows the colonies to survive?

2. What are we doing (or not doing) in subsequent years that ultimately leads to failure?

I think there is a lot that could be said concerning both questions- and likely all of us attempting TF should go into each year eyes wide-open with these questions in view.

Best of success to you this season- the maples and elms just started blooming today around here- I imagine yours won't be far behind.

Russ


----------



## gww

russ
One thing I think is that a congregation of bees lets stuff build up. It takes a bit and might work itself out again but just makes sense in my mind. Even though the bees may come from a similar environment and there are always bees with in flying distance, I think it is sorta natural for virgin earth (no bees directly on it) and new wooden wear to just gather stuff slowly but faster than the bees adjust. No science, just thinking. I might get by with leaving the chicken door open till something finds it once. Chickens may not have a congregation of worms till they have pooped on the ground many times kind of thing. To me, it doesn't mean the bees can't live through it but more that it might get harder.

But what do I know. Only that I am not surprised. I still remember reading about a long term bee keeper and treater that lost 70 percent one year. The good thing is he did not do that every year. Time will tell.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> One thing I think is that a congregation of bees lets stuff build up.


GWW:

You might very well be right. Our State Apiarist recently posted the following:

_'An article in which the health data from the USDA Honey Bee Health Survey has been published. Kentucky results from 2015-2017 were included (I started doing samples for USDA in 2015). The journal requires a subscription, although you can see the abstract: at Pesticides in Honey Bee Colonies: establishing a baseline for real world exposure over seven years in the USA 

Good news, more than 18% of all apiaries sampled between 2011 and 2017 (and we sampled 1,055 apiaries) were completely pesticide free. 
Bad news, we found that colonies with high levels of fungicides also tended to have more nosema and queen events. The main drivers of pesticide risk were, unsurprisingly, insecticides. 

And regarding neonics, we didn't find very many. Out of the almost 3,000 pesticide detections, only 60 were neonics. So we don't see them often. But when we found them, they were often at high levels.'_

So maybe at least part of the build-up you suggest may not entirely be the bees' fault. Does your hypothesis lead you to consider a strategy to conduct systematic comb renewal?


----------



## msl

Litsinger said:


> So maybe at least part of the build-up you suggest may not entirely be the bees' fault.





Litsinger said:


> I have read the anecdotes and know more than a few beekeepers who have initially met with success in a TF context only to have significant failures after a few years.


I saw the same I had 2 good years... and those good years made it hard to change my ways even in the face of 3 years of 100% loses

you see the same pattern in a lot of organic AG programs ..specifically common in aquaponics (fish waste hydroponics) systems, you set up with no dirt no weeds and no bugs and it takes a few years for the pests to drift in and reproduce at a scale that's a problem.. and much like 2 and 3 year beekeepers they think they have to problems licked... till they don't

I remember a "great idea" locally, a large active thermal battery earth mass greenhouse .. run fans to suck in hot air in to the ground during the day and cool it and put it back into the greenhouse, at night warm air from the mass heats the green house... seamed great till they caught a powdery mildew infection and there was no way to sterilize the mass.. took a bit to get the reason figured out . even years later if they tried to turn on the fans there was an outbreak.. end result fans off, great idea dead


I am going to pull a GWW here... "some were that I can't recall at the moment " there is a Skep keeping reference that one sould not by a stock that was XC old (I want to say 4 years) as it won't do well do the old combs ...


----------



## gww

Russ


> So maybe at least part of the build-up you suggest may not entirely be the bees' fault. Does your hypothesis lead you to consider a strategy to conduct systematic comb renewal?


No, not yet anyway.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

It looks like I am going to start with about 5 hives from ten coming out of winter. I am not sure of this yet cause I have not opened one of them to be sure yet. The hive I did open today was a bit of a surprise to me. I got a couple gal off of it last fall and thought it was active earlier. It had a very big cluster that was dead in a ball in the top box. The top box was empty of stores. So I assume starvation. The medium and deep under the top box had plenty of honey.








This was the deep I mentioned cutting the comb down to fit a medium. It is full of honey and there is honey in the medium above it though maybe not full cause I did not pull frames to see. I left the hive sitting just as it is so the other bees can rob it. So 5 hives are getting to split about 8 gal from dead outs and they are working the maples now and so they should make some baby bees.

I think I may have been my laziness that caused some of this. I had extracted in Sept. expecting them to stock up during Sept. to first frost and I had known that they had not completely filled the upper boxes but also felt they were smart and had enough honey in the hive (which you see they did) and would move it if needed as we usually have warm spells mixed in with out cold.

At least I did finally weed eat.

I have no ideal of what shape the other hives are in right now. It seems it has taken them longer than I though to rob out the other open hives but some of the honey in them seemed to be crystalized and probably hard to get. This honey was so pretty and white capped I thought about keeping it but broke one on the grass and when I was trying to pick it up it seemed kind of wet. It is capped but may have drawn in some water from sitting unguarded and freezing and moisture in the air from rain a day ago. Either way, it is a lot of honey and the live bees have quite a bit of comb on them and so hopefully they put it to good use or I will regret not trying to salvage it as it is about half of what I get in a year.

That is two or three hives that gave surplus honey last year dead now. At least I get my trap back (which is the bottom deep on this hive).
Cheers
gww
ps
Lots of comb under the mediums in that deep that have honey in them but built cross wise to the frames.

ps ps It also looks like one hive that I was sure was dead earlier by putting my ear against it may still be alive. Just goes to show that I will not really know till I pop some tops on what is really what.


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> ... but also felt they were smart and had enough honey in the hive (which you see they did) and would move it if needed as we usually have warm spells mixed in with out cold.


Thank you for the post, GWW. While I am sorry to hear about your troubles it is interesting to read that the colony did not move around stores as you anticipated. I think those of us in milder climates take it for a given that the colonies will go and rearrange stores when the weather is suitable but this would suggest that this may not always be the case.

Reminds me of a good talk that Roger Patterson recently gave entitled, '_Challenge What You Are Told_'... or at least learn from situations which turn out different than anticipated.

In your mind, what (if anything) are you planning to do differently this year based on your overwintering challenges this year?


----------



## gww

Russ
Sad to say but the only change till I change my mind might be to make a couple splits like I did the first two years. I am going to ride it out as I have been just a bit more cause I still have not been bit hard enough to change yet. Of course the bees, if like some last year, may may not build strong enough to be split. So some stuff still remains to be seen. 

My problem is that I have low expectations and ambition and even with the losses, have bees to work with and am not that far off from where I started with ten if I only catch a swarm or two. Since I am not a sales man that can get rid of too much extra, I have this feeling I am going to end up close to where I have been. 

The first year, I was afraid I was not going to be able to keep the numbers down. That is less a worry now but I of course don't want to go too far down where I am bee less or get nothing either. I do not believe as of now that I am at that point and so no real adjustment yet. 

I will know more later. I still wait for randy oliver to get his shop towel approved as if I ever do decide to get more ambitious, that would be my first effort. Even that I am resistant against if I can stay static and get my ten gal a year of honey with out it and have a hobby that is repeatable and cheaper then chickens and my dog. I know it is terrible but also interesting seeing which hive died compare to my preconceived notions of which were good and which were bad. I figure that I am still learning and that is a bonus. I have been reading some of the problems in the forum of others who keep bees in a different way than I am on this forum and it is showing a bit that some is mechanics and some is art. Some bee keepers consistently do well and some that emulate them do not.

Were I unhappy,(Prior to treating) My first effort would go more towards making splits in mite free ways like I did the first years and having one portion starting with no drawn comb so that I would have young hives going into winter with the old hives. See how that goes and then adjust. Since I am not unhappy, I will probably make splits toward getting back up to 8 or ten hives as a winter number that I feel safe gives some kind of bees come spring to play with. But will not be making it part of a mite program which I think might work with out killing you on honey making. 

So though not sure, I will probably just be robbing brood from several hives to make a small increase but leave the hives good and full of mites and still laying. I am thinking maybe end of march depending on weather of counting brood frames, seeing what is average. Cutting them back to some number I pick and taking the excess above that number. Shake the bees off and them pick my strongest hive and put the brood over it above a queen excluder and see it they start queen cells and if the do, set it off on its own stand as a hive. Might be able to do this a couple of times and still be done a couple of weeks before mid may. If I have a real bad hive, might be able break it apart and start a few real small nucs with extra queen cells if any. If the bees don't make the cells, I can just split like I have in the past. These are just thoughts and not actions yet and may have no impact on apiary issues and like I said, if the hives do not build up enough to donate brood, I might have to rethink. If they do build up proper, I might have just had a fluke few years that will rotate back and give a few good. Reading, even the treaters have those. 

As always, I don't have the answer yet but time will tell something.
Cheers
gww
Ps it was one hive that died of pure starvation, nothing in hive and three that died with honey in the lower boxes but not where they were clustered. Only one of the clusters was really pretty impressive that died. One was small and one was fair.


----------



## gww

Thanks gypsi. Hope things are working out for you.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

I couldn't stands it no more. I got into two hives that I thought might have been dead. One I was already sure was alive but had thought dead in the cold weather when I tapped on it.
The other I had opened the top and seen about 30 bees poking their head out of the inter cover hole. This hive did only have about 50 bees in it. There was no dead cluster. They were covering a super tiny bit of brood. I did not see a queen anywhere or where new laying was uncapped and so finaly got greedy and took the honey.








Since I was too lazy to get the extractor out, I am doing a sorta scrape and let drain and then feed the rest back to the bees. I told the wife she could crush them but she is trying to save something. Doing it this way might end me up with a couple of gal.

The other hive was raising brood but not loaded with bees. It was in the second box down though with the top box being capped honey and this was part of my taking the honey rather then to keep feeding it all back. It is always a bit of a hard decision when the greed is fighting against the laziness.

So I had fifty percent loss over winter with most dead outs having honey. I could have already got my ten gal for the year but gave most of it to the bees and they will probably swarm on me because of it (though the one I looked at has some ways to go for that).

Pollen coming in and flying weather for at least one more day if the weather man is correct. Then rain every day and early snow one day per forecast.

I know. my picture sucked and I could have took some of bees instead. Oh well.
Cheers
gww
ps you can see part of my bee brush sitting in front of the super.

Ps ps The bees were super calm considering I had open dead out two feet away being robbed and hundreds of greedy bees in the air.


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## Gypsi

I haven't done a full inspection. Got a little head-butting from my swarm hive when I took them a fresh jar of syrup today, put one on the beeweaver hive too. Both seem to be doing well, it's pond season and I'm gone to work a lot. Considering using OAV and considering waiting til I have time. I had no mite drop the last time I treated, and were it not for the extreme cold I think my nuc would have been fine. I fed honey back to mine this winter too, have some fondant in the fridge, but they never ran out of honey. I don't have time to do a lot of honey selling so not having it sitting around crystalizing is kind of a plus. I keep bees for the garden and my enjoyment of learning about them. I'm happy they are alive


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## gww

Gypsi


> I'm happy they are alive


Hope they stay that way for you. My wife has already spent several days in our garden and I am not good at selling honey either. I do put the crystalized honey in my oven with the light on for a couple of days cause it only gets to about 110 degrees. It takes a while but does clean it up for a while. I will turn the jars over and over to keep it mixed a few time during this. Just thought I would throw the ideal out there.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I don't have the answer yet but time will tell something.


GWW:

I do apologize for my delay in reply as I have been away from the computer, busy at my day job and using what little free time is left in the garage getting things ready for the season.

I do appreciate your detailed and helpful reply- I wasn't asking to grill you but to learn and get a sense of how you are interpreting what you are seeing in your yard.

Hopefully your newly-baited swarm traps will come through in spades for you and it won't be any trouble for you to get back to parity.

Best of success to you this season.

Russ


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## gww

Russ


> Best of success to you this season.


Back at you.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Looked in the hives today. Not impressed yet. Believe one thing though, I won't have to worry about a april 15 swarm from my hives.
Obseravtions:
1 The smallest hives with the fewest bees seem to have the most honey on them.
2. The only hive I looked at last time that had nice little patches of brood did not have any real brood today.
3, The hives have few enough bees but yet I could only find one queen in a hive with no real brood in it at all and with the most over all bees in the hive.
4.There was two hives with few bees but solid brood patterns. Three with no real brood in the hives.
5. No capped drone brood or drones in the hive.
6. All hives bringing in pollen.
7. All hives would drip if holding a frame sideways and so some new nectar coming in.
8. The hives were a little jumpy but one little hive actually may be kinda hot. Some times I notice times of year making the bees funny but they are small and busy and when big can be very nice and so I think coolness could be a little involved. Did get stung twice though and don't most times.
9. I still do not know what I am looking at or seeing but at least have a starting point to watch from. I have seen hives just packed by now in the past.
10 Had two hives that had a ton of bugs (beatles roaches bla bla bla) cornered on top of the inter cover with bees keeping the inter cover hole guarded but did not see stuff in the hives itself. I dumped them on the ground near the hives so they can breed better.
11. Had a little cross comb in the boxes that were loaded with honey (Don't know how I missed this last year) that I took the putty knife to seperate and then smashed strait and any chunks that broke off I just let fall to the next box and then smashed the frames down into it to make them fit. It was easy enough but makes me want to have water at the hives to wash with. luckily there was mud puddles half way back to my house and so it was not quite as far to clean up a couple of times while working the bees. Honey is so messy.

I tried to take a picture of the one queen I saw but my hands were dirty and I accidently snapped the picture while switching hands and after trying three times said heck with it.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> I won't have to worry about a april 15 swarm from my hives.


Good update, GWW. Many of your observations mirror mine in that things appear to be off to a slower start this year. I am also seeing a lot of nectar just now coming in and being stored around the nest.

Another thing that has been interesting to me has been watching the hive weight of #2011 (the so-called reference colony) relative to brood rearing and available forage.

More specifically, if you look at the attached weight graph of the last 90 days and exclude the data point from February 19th (snow) and the data point from March 23rd (evaluation), the weight from before the New Year until now has not changed by much more than 7 pounds.

I understand that colonies tend to utilize very little stores when not rearing brood, but this small data set also makes me wonder if some colonies will mind their brood rearing to reflect incoming nectar and/or pollen.

Thus I wonder if what you might be seeing is possibly a reflection of the later start to forage availability?


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## gww

Russ
Could be. I know one had one small round of brood rearing earlier and I saw what I thought was a small orientation flight but was surprised to not see more brood but see pollen coming in and dripping frames. Doolittle used to say that with lots of honey they make lots of babies but you may be correct and they may still need the push of new nectar to kick start them.

I try and watch but am a slow learner. Still, I now have a base to watch what happens further. I am too cheep and lazy to find a way to track hive weight but just love the ideal and thing over a few years it would speed up the learning process of an areas flows like crazy and make more sure of what you see in bees related to real facts.
Good luck
gww
Ps, I was surprised that the 8/9 gal from dead out honey was not more evenly though the live hives and did not kick of a decent brood rearing round.


----------



## AR1

Litsinger said:


> Good update, GWW. Many of your observations mirror mine in that things appear to be off to a slower start this year. I am also seeing a lot of nectar just now coming in and being stored around the nest.


According to flower blooming, we are one week early this year compared to the last 2 years. I wonder if that late cold spell affected you southern folks more than it did us? It got cold here too, but the bees (and everything else) were still huddled up and probably didn't even notice it, whereas for you it wasn't just a late frost, but an unusually hard one that set things back.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I was surprised that the 8/9 gal from dead out honey was not more evenly though the live hives and did not kick of a decent brood rearing round.


GWW:

While I am only speculating, it makes me wonder if some of what we are seeing is at least partly predicated upon the genetic makeup of the colonies themselves insofar that it represents the genetic predisposition of certain subspecies who wait to commence broodrearing in earnest until nectar and/or pollen are incoming.


----------



## Litsinger

AR1 said:


> ... whereas for you it wasn't just a late frost, but an unusually hard one that set things back.


You might be right, AR1. With most all stone fruit trees now in full bloom and the potential for a hard-freeze again mid-week, we might be in for another set-back.


----------



## gww

Russ
My plumbs and peaches are in bloom now and I do see a few dandelions. We are scheduled for 28 degree night time low wensd. 

I think is is a good thing if my bees bloom a little late no matter the reason. I am a fair weather bee keeper and keeping the bees in the box past the first few 70 degree days is good regardless of the reason. I still remember one cold april when this was not the case. I keep thinking it might be some lingering problem from last year though. I have time to watch though. 

The fear of swarming early was one reason for sending bees though winter with out making them as heavy as I could so they would live more hand to mouth and not get so far ahead of me. I have no doubt also that my bees would do a bit better if I would restrict their space in the early warm days like feb or early march and then add it back not. The bottom box is almost always empty then. It might make not difference since it is on bottom but that is what the only guy with bees I have ever seen does.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

GWW:

I assume you saw this Bob Binnie link on Bee-L, but I wanted to make sure:





__





Why Comb Rotation is Important | Bee Culture







www.beeculture.com





Not saying you should do this, just recalling a conversation we've had here off-and-on regarding the subject. The take-away (i.e. Bob's opinion):

_All beekeepers should rotate out old comb as a part of their overall management strategy and this includes nontreatment and organic treatment beekeepers alike. Any beekeepers who think they are immune to the problems associated with old comb are kidding themselves. We can’t tell the bees where to go or what to bring home, and organic compounds can easily have nasty interactions, too. Even in what seems to be a non-exposure situation, combs will eventually become contaminated and overloaded with undesirable substances, and will need to be replaced._


----------



## gww

Russ
I did not see that but do believe I heard him mentioning the benefit of making lots of nucs helps him refresh comb continually.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

russ


https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.2021.1899657?journalCode=tjar20


Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00218839.2021.1899657?journalCode=tjar20


GWW:

Thank you for the article link- I have been searching for a copy of the full research to no avail.

In looking for it, I came across the following research from Piccirillo and De Jong from their work with Africanized bees. It is old (2003) but I had never heard this concept put forth- namely:

_'Within the range where there was an overlap in the width of brood cells between old and new combs, which was from 4.5 to 4.9 mm, the old comb cells were over four times more frequently infested with mites than were the new comb cells. Some factor other than cell size makes old brood comb cells much more attractive to V. destructor than newly constructed brood comb.'_


----------



## gww

Update
It looks like i only had one hive that is building up correctly. Today, I did my best to screw that up some. 

I took one box away of the three and set it about ten feet away. I am not sure if this box has the queen in it but thought I saw her come on top of a frame for a few and unless I mistakenly took a drone for her, I should be good. I did not shake any extra nurse bees in cause I am not 100 percent sure which hive has the queen. 

The top box was heavy and was honey and some brood. I took about three frames from it, honey and one with some brood also and put it on a box on top of the moved box. 

The left boxes has a higher buzz to it making me think I got the queen in the other one but it was also the forager hive and so it might just be that more active.

Bees are bringing in pollen in all hives. Of the other four hives, one is dead soon for sure and I believe over all by the brood in them that all four are dead. Super spotty to almost no brood. Bad larva and many many perforated and uncapped brood. 

One had a pretty big mix of capped worker sized drone brood along with some normal. Can't see that hive being heathy enough to want drone and so the queen might be effected by mites of some other thing.

I did see drones in the healthy hive and some dry queen cups. So if the split can make a good enough queen with the resources in the split, it should get bred ok.

I am still moving all my old comb around from the dead outs on the guess that what is killing the hives is mites and not efb.

Not a good report for sure but onward I go for now.

Russ, if you read this, I am almost sure that I read one study that said the mite reproduction rate was reduced a bit in the old comb but I am not sure enough for you to rely on this but more to watch for it as you go though all the stuff you read. With your study, even if true, it might be a loss over all.

Tiss all for now.
Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

(PDF) Old honey bee brood combs are more infested by the mite Varroa destructor than are new brood combs


PDF | Varroa destructor preferentially invades larger honey bee brood cells. Consequently, it was expected that brood in old combs with reduced-size... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate




www.researchgate.net


----------



## gww

Msl
Yes I see lower preproduction of mite here too but think one study gave percentages like 1.7/1.9 compared to 1.3 rate in old comb or something like that. I am just about hitting your one hundred percent losses lately. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## msl

uggg
sorry to hear that


----------



## AR1

msl said:


> (PDF) Old honey bee brood combs are more infested by the mite Varroa destructor than are new brood combs
> 
> 
> PDF | Varroa destructor preferentially invades larger honey bee brood cells. Consequently, it was expected that brood in old combs with reduced-size... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.researchgate.net


Good info, and yet another reason to get rid of that old comb. This year I plan to trash any comb that isn't a nice clean yellow.

Best of luck GWW! Hoping things start looking up.


----------



## gww

Ar1
Thank you and back at you.
Cheers
gww


----------



## GregB

gww said:


> Msl
> Yes I see lower preproduction of mite here too but think one study gave percentages like 1.7/1.9 compared to 1.3 rate in old comb or something like that. I am just about hitting your one hundred percent losses lately.
> Cheers
> gww


From the same PDF by MSL:


> However, Erickson et al.
> (1998) found higher infestation rates with
> A. woodi (Rennie) in colonies with new combs
> than in those with old combs (5.2% vs. 1.2%
> respectively). Recently, Hassan (2000) reported
> that female V. destructor reproduced more in
> new than in old brood combs.


So then which is it?


----------



## GregB

gww said:


> I am just about hitting your one hundred percent losses lately.


That's too bad.
Because I was using you as one of my examples where the completely hands-off TF was actually working reasonably well.

However, it maybe all that was needed - some minimal bio-technical control.
I understand you have not done any.
Maybe that's all the help that was needed, periodically.


----------



## gww

Greg


> However, it maybe all that was needed - some minimal bio-technical control.
> I understand you have not done any.
> Maybe that's all the help that was needed, periodically.


Could be.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> Russ, if you read this, I am almost sure that I read one study that said the mite reproduction rate was reduced a bit in the old comb but I am not sure enough for you to rely on this but more to watch for it as you go though all the stuff you read. With your study, even if true, it might be a loss over all.


GWW:

My apologies for the delay in reply, and I am truly sorry to hear about your troubles. Are things looking up in the swarm catching department?

As we have batted-around from time-to-time, I have always been troubled by the anecdotes of serious TF beekeepers who meet with success initially (even several years in a row) to only then experience an epic collapse that leads them to abandon TF altogether. While I respect everyone's decision to manage bees the way they judge to work best in their particular situation, I have always wondered what (if anything) we can take away from these initial successes followed by heavy losses.

While I am convinced that comb renewal in-and-of-itself is not the answer, I do wonder if the age and condition of the comb has at least some impact on colony viability in a TF setting?

I don't want to go too far out on a limb here, but I just can't shake the idea that new swarm starts (at least here) generally represent the high point of colony health.

Most of the guys I know personally who either previously have or who are currently having a little success with TF have all started with swarms, and the ones who have ultimately had the most trouble have been those who:

1. Have not done any comb renewal and;

2. Have engaged in heavy selection efforts that have sought to lead most of the colonies from a few queen lines.

So while this all may be a classic case of correlation not equating to causation, it has led me to be proactive about looking for means to continually cycle comb and circumspect about making big moves to narrow the gene pool- at least here at the outset until I can know more about the genetics in my neighborhood.

I do hope that you are able to rebuild your apiary and that you don't have an EFB outbreak in your yard. I have been corresponding with a fellow located between you and me who had a heavy EFB setback last year and is still dealing with the effects this year, even after treatment, sanitizing or burning equipment and executing shook swarms.


----------



## gww

Russ
No swarms yet. My inclination on the rest leans against new queens but not against some splitting of a big portion of stock. I don't do the splitting due to laziness but did a little in the beginning due to being forced by the bees and for knowledge. When I did. I did concentrate on how it would work best for one side of the split mite wise. Things like splitting by age and making a portion start with no brood or comb thinking this would help in some way with mites. I did not even split based on which hives were doing good except in the forced splits to stop swarming impulse.

My problem is I still want to watch more then work. I think I have the knowledge to take a different route with out even doing that much more work but can't seem to want to give up riding out what is going on and just observing it as it happens to see where it goes and whether I come up with work arounds that I like better.

I do not think that the four bad hives will be turned around regardless if it is mite and if efb, I could get some antibiotics but will probably just take the loss rather then try.

It was a bad two years and may stay bad if I keep repeating but still....

None of this means I will never add things to make things better. I may be given no choice but for now am still concentrating more on learning guitar then bees except to make sure I look and see as things happen to put in my brain for later thought. 

What I should try with one of the bad hives is shaking them into an empty box and making them start with nothing but doubt I even do that but it is a thought that might hone out your comb thoughts.
Good luck this year.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

Well, today is another reason to remember why I am a bee haver and not a bee keeper. I was going to get in the hive I split cause I figured 4 days would show queen starts in the queenless side. However, I got in the new position hive which should be young nice bees and where I thought the queen was (or at least hoped where she was.). I looked though most of the frames and there is still quite a bit of capped brood that has not hatched but I could not find the queen and even worse, no real larva that I could see or new laying. I saw no queen starts and the bees seemed to be running around on the comb a bit more then I am used to. Lastly the bees were not very nice in relative fashion to normal and were tracking me and not backing off when I stepped back.

So I went to the original hive and it is loaded with bees and was jumping at me hard enough that I said heck with it I don't need to know. I would have looked for some young larva to move to the other one but said I don't need this. I only got stung once and it will probably not even swell up but heck with it. It was really pretty out and so the bees are just wound up from four days ago or have bigger problems that I am going to wait to solve if I solve it.

Not really proud of myself but it is what it is.
I had my camera out for when I found the queen or cells but as you see, no pictures.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> None of this means I will never add things to make things better. I may be given no choice but for now am still concentrating more on learning guitar then bees except to make sure I look and see as things happen to put in my brain for later thought.


GWW:

I am sorry to read about your continued bee woes- I am with you that beekeeping is such a dynamic craft, and it is hard for me to both keep up with what the bees are doing, spend enough time in the hives and properly interpret what I see when I do look under the hood. I do respect your right to keep your bees the way you want to, but I wonder if it might be worthwhile to at least test a few for EFB? If nothing else, it would give you the opportunity to either pinpoint the problem or eliminate a possibility.

That said, I won't hold it against you if you don't. FWIW, I find guitar playing equally perplexing and humbling to beekeeping- and I've been playing guitar a lot longer than I've been keeping bees.

Here's hoping you are able to turn the corner in your bee yard real soon.

Russ


----------



## gww

Russ
I could get a test and find out but even if it was efb, which I sorta doubt but as you say is not ruled out, the question becomes what to do about it. Now that there are vet mandates, I would not act that way and I do have a Mo internet friend that offered me some antibiotics but I will probably pass on his offer even though I know he meant it. You are correct that it might sway some on how I use old comb though.

I could also go a different route and treat though I am sure it is too late except for one hive that is already going gangbusters.

Mostly though, I am too lazy at this point to do the right thing and also just a bit curious of what effect the bad will have one the one good one this year. I did not think I was a "purest" on the treatment free thing but it turns out that I am for now. 5 years is a pretty good run and though I do believe bad things can build up and that there are flukes in life, after the die off. I might be close to a clean point and just sorta want to see. Now I might extend the bad a little bit if efb is the issue by using comb though I should have some two year not in use comb by next year. So if efb might die off in comb in 18 months I would not have to start over. I do have 8 or nine empty hives built that have only ever had wasp in them and so if I decided to really start over with any swarm I caught I would be ready for that too.

I would not say I am out of bees but am not concentrating on them as I should be to be successful. So I am on a bit of a break of sorts but that will probably change for the better but might take a year or two.

I know many things I could try for improvement and may in the future. Even on the split I made, I did nothing but separate a hive in to two places and did not really check for more then capped brood (which looked good) and making sure both had honey. Took a lot for granted rather then being sure. Truthfully, except for flow it should have been a decent gamble and might be in the end but is not the right way to really try and guarantee success. Being this sloppy might mean just taking a bit of a break until my ambition kicks back in.

I will think about the test kit though. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> I will think about the test kit though.


GWW:

I respect your decision to do whatever you think best- I can appreciate the fact that once you had a diagnosis, it might not change your approach.

For my part, I do like to try to understand what is going on so I might do the test if the tables were turned strictly to satisfy my curiosity.

I'll look forward to reading how your season unfolds- again I am sorry for your troubles.

Russ


----------



## gww

Russ
Personally, I feel lucky. The last two year were the ones I was expecting every single year Including the very first year.. Now I have not decided direction and am not confident I can do a repeat of the beginning but don't feel I have much to whine about either. 
Still, thanks for your thoughts and good luck to you also.

I do have the hive I split pretty angry right now. I was down by it close enough to try and see if they were bringing any pollen coming in and one flew out and stung me in the neck. Dirty dogs.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> Dirty dogs.


Sounds like you had it coming .


----------



## AR1

gww said:


> Russ
> Personally, I feel lucky. The last two year were the ones I was expecting every single year Including the very first year.. Now I have not decided direction and am not confident I can do a repeat of the beginning but don't feel I have much to whine about either.
> Cheers
> gww


It's all been fun so far (except the stings). Maybe our mistake is trying to keep all of our bees in a yard together, where they can share diseases. Maybe we should try putting tiny masks on each bee...?

It might be worth letting caught swarms pretty much stay where they originally chose. A bother for management, so except for adding a box on top for volume, it wouldn't be hard to let them build up and steal a split off them now and then to bolster the home bees.


----------



## gww

Ar1
I think your ideal might have merit but I have found that I keep bees for my selfish reasons. I have wanted to put bees at my dads 12 miles away for years but just keep thinking how much I enjoy not driving and being able to walk out my back door with any stolen minute to piddle with them.

His place is quite a bit different than mine which is probably 70 percent woods. Then I think of how easy it is not to mess with it and just play here.
Perhaps not best or right compared to the opportunity but fits my ambition level.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

AR1 said:


> Maybe we should try putting tiny masks on each bee...?


Funny- might be required if they can't practice social distancing...


----------



## gww

I got in both side of the split I made 11 days ago again. This time the bee were at least a bit nicer to me though I did smash one on the palm of my hand and get a sting. I don't know why I am so scared of bees as the stings don't seem to cause too much trouble to me but I am still a chicken.

I figured most of the capped brood would have been gone by now but both had quite a bit yet. On the moved side I still could not find the queen and mostly went through the twenty frames that have bees on them. I seen some older larva and they did not try and make new queens which I would think they usually try if they have anything at all to work with.

The original did try and it has all the foragers and probably half of the nurse bees in it. I did not go though all frames on this and tore two frame completely up due to cross comb that I some how missed when they were building up. It had one of the best looking queen cells though I have never in my life seen such sad attempts at queen cells in my life. It surprised me cause it looks like the bees took the scatter gun approach and built a bunch rather then concentrate on three or four good ones. Either way, their effort gives me more confidence that the moved hive does have the queen.

Should have fed them a day or two before the split to have the nurses ready to make royal jelly and might have had too much confidence on what was out there for the foragers to bring back. My thought were that this was somewhere close to swarm season and so there should be plenty. If they find some way to get a laying queen out of those dinky cells I will be surprised and pretty sure they will want to superceed this year cause no joke, the cells do not look viable. I did not go though about six of the frames just incase they had something better, I did not want to smash or tear it up. 

It is probably 30 days before I have a clue. The hive is super busy at the entrance but they are not putting weight on the hive which is a little surprising since they have no way to raise new brood for now..

There are a lot of bees and lots of young and some not hatched yet and so in thirty days I should still have a chance at giving them a frame of open brood to try again if the other side really does have a queen. 

I did not look at the other 4 possibly live hives but have little hope they will help much. Three of them are still working fairly hard coming and going and probably will till the end.
Cheers
gww

Ps I took the tore up frames that were cross combed and laid the comb on the top bars and then smashed the second box down on top of it. It should give them a clean up job with the honey that was in them. I write this just to show what a slob I am.


----------



## gww

First let me say I could take more pictures but by the time I get the phone out and finally get it off screen lock and on camera, I lose my incentive cause it has to be done for every single picture.









Any how, this was below a full medium of honey and it is packed with bees. It has a ton of dry queen cups and still spotty brood but seems to be doing better then I thought and so I put a medium from one of the dead outs between the honey and this box. The honey could be mostly left from last year cause I had left this one packed and it did not start spring with a ton of bees.

The old side of the split made 37 days ago. I saw larva but nothing capped today. If it is a queen and not workers laying, I am amazed because the cells I saw before quitting to look last time were barely bigger then capped drone cells. If the larva get capped as worker drone later, I will of course be disappointed. It has only been a couple of weeks since any cell should have been capped and so the timing is good for it to be queen and I did not look for her after seeing the larva and so taking it on faith that I am reading it right.

The other side of this split is foraging well and does have some new capped brood and though the pattern may not be great, it is gaining in resources and I think doing fine.

I did not look at the one I am sure is dead and its foraging still tells the same story.

One other that could have more activity at the entrance is only one medium of the three full of bees with few resources and so way behind but not as dead as the other one is.

So my pre-assessment for the year for now is that out of six hives there is real hope for four with at least one making real excess honey and with drawn comb, it is not too late for the splits to contribute something.

Most of the brood is still spotty though one is kinda tight.
No swarms yet from me or too me.
Cheers
gww


----------



## AR1

A little surprised you don't have swarms yet. Is it a late year? 

We seem to be right on track for a normal year here, according to the blooming dates, but it has been cool up until the last few days. It hit 80s yesterday. How nice, no wool socks, no long underwear.


----------



## gww

My particular bees seem to be slow starting and I guess I blame a bit on the weather. I sometimes wonder if even with blooms maybe plants put out more based on temp. I am not religious on checking my traps but have not seen a bee look at them yet this year. Early years past was april 13th from one of my hives for me but I say more mid may to early june in my traps most years.

I have 16 traps out and get normally 1 to 3 swarms yearly not counting what happens with my personal hives but do see action at traps that don't catch and have seen nothing yet this year.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> So my pre-assessment for the year for now is that out of six hives there is real hope for four with at least one making real excess honey and with drawn comb, it is not too late for the splits to contribute something.


GWW:

Thank you for the update- it sounds like your observations were better than you anticipated?

Did your current inspections yield any more clues as to why the spotty brood? 

Could your observations be something akin to Roger Patterson's observations in the video below starting at about the 33 minute point to about the 39 minute mark?


----------



## gww

Russ
I have seen a bit of all that roger points out and have moved comb around though the years to open the brood nest. However, I would still not guess cause I am not good at transferring pictures to I what see in real life. Can't do it very often for mushroom or plant identification either though I have tried many times. I am going to have to find time to watch that whole video sometime cause it seems like a very interesting presentation.

You are correct on a couple of the hives seeming to do better for now then I thought they would when looking earlier. Not sure if they are doing so much better that they actually make honey but still lots of bees for the brood patterns I was seeing and comparing to what happened last year.
Course it aint over till it's over.

I did add two supers with one actually being ready for the super and the other one full of bees but the moved box not full of capped or almost capped honey. The bees seem to be working white yard clover now and so it should be the start of a fair flow.

Hope things keep going well for you and that you keep posting and I keep reading about it.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> Course it aint over till it's over.


Bees are full of surprises... how's your guitar playing going?

A little musical inspiration:


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## gww

Russ
Currently trying to memorize the caged chord positions down the neck for all the major chords. 

Takes me two weeks per song and only doing one song during that time to learn finger patterns good enough to practice the song with the computer off. Not play it but know it with fits and starts so I can keep going over it till I get smoother. 

I have 41 songs in memory but still get lost playing them during the songs, even the simple ones. The ones I am best on I forget to concentrate and forget where I am in the song somewhere along the line. In the end, I am better then I was 8 months ago.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

Ar1
I figure you make it around to here once in a while and have some what similar interest as me.
I Keep the bees and my wife keeps the garden. This is to show she is not near the slob that I am.









This was my bee garden but seems to slowly being taken over from just being flowers. It is also where I threw some tobacco seed.








Cheers
gww
Ps strawberry and fruit trees seemed to survive our very late freeze this year.


----------



## AR1

gww said:


> Ar1
> I figure you make it around to here once in a while and have some what similar interest as me.
> I Keep the bees and my wife keeps the garden. This is to show she is not near the slob that I am.
> View attachment 63642
> 
> 
> This was my bee garden but seems to slowly being taken over from just being flowers. It is also where I threw some tobacco seed.
> View attachment 63643
> 
> Cheers
> gww
> Ps strawberry and fruit trees seemed to survive our very late freeze this year.


Your wife would hate how I garden. Much of it I just throw seeds out on the surface and whatever grows, grows, wherever it ends up. For several years I didn't even till it, and that worked great too. Surprisingly this works out very well, but I end up weeding out lots of veggies that are too close together. The corn and such does go into rows. All my early veggies were from seeds thrown out on the dirt last fall. lettuce and greens are easy this way.


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## gww

That's why my wife does it and not me except for the tilling. When I do it, you can not walk though the garden due to height of the weeds at harvest time. I always liked seeing things come up more then taking care of it after up or all the work in harvesting.  I don't really spray or take care of my fruit trees or grapes either. I take what ever is given and all years are not the same with more bad then good.
Cheers
gww


----------



## AR1

gww said:


> That's why my wife does it and not me except for the tilling. When I do it, you can not walk though the garden due to height of the weeds at harvest time. I always liked seeing things come up more then taking care of it after up or all the work in harvesting.  I don't really spray or take care of my fruit trees or grapes either. I take what ever is given and all years are not the same with more bad then good.
> Cheers
> gww


I do keep the weeds down, but that's easier with broadcast planting too. When the veggies are covering the ground they act like weeds and smother out the other stuff. So most of the weeding is in the very early weeks before the veggies are thick.


----------



## gww

Got in the hives today just to sorta look at space and for general knowledge. The split I made that the old bee side needed to make a queen has nice capped brood now. It seemed to be contained in the lowest box of three mediums with the top mostly honey and lots capped. The second box was not heavy but seemed to be being stored with honey. The few frames of brood were only about 70 percent full of brood but it was solid as I have ever seen. I find it unbelievable based on the few cells I had seen them making but they must have did one ok enough.

I put a box of drawn brood frames on top of the bottom box for the brood to extend into if the bees feel like it.

The side with the old queen still has yucky brood but quite a few bees.

The two hives that 10 days ago I added boxes too under their top box still looked the same on those top boxes. One heavy and one at maybe half weight. The bees had made gain on the new boxes I had put under the top. They were not full by any means but except the outside four frames had honey in all the rest of the cells. I figure based on my worst year that the bees have at least two more weeks of gaining flow. Can they fill a box and a half to two in that time? I doubt it but I probably will not have to worry more about space and will get what I get with out having to mess with them again.

I figure at this time I really have four hives. The other two? One is so bad that I made no effort to even open. The other one has quite a few bees but crappy brood and is not really getting ahead on any stores. I figure both as dead though one did seem to expand a bit on bee populace. Thought about doing some kind of experimental split with it but would have to steal resources from other hives and decided I was too lazy to mess with it.

No sign of swarms or activity in any of my swarm traps yet this year.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> One is so bad that I made no effort to even open. The other one has quite a few bees but crappy brood and is not really getting ahead on any stores. I figure both as dead though one did seem to expand a bit on bee populace.


Good post, GWW. I suppose you are judging colony strength by foraging to decide they are not worth opening up?

It is interesting and curious to me that the colonies continue to gain in strength in the face of bad brood patterns. It would be interesting to see if you marked an area of the comb and checked it at regular intervals to ascertain if what you are seeing is simply a reflection of staggered ages of the cell contents.

If you have any more empty drawn brood comb, maybe you could stick one in the spotty brood hive to see if it gets laid-up solid?

Surprised you haven't had any swarm signs yet- anyone in the neighborhood reporting swarms?


----------



## gww

Russ
I had opened the real bad one up earlier and written it off and you are correct, the foraging is the sign now.

Even better on the bad brood would be to crowd the bees and put an empty frame for them to draw to lay in. They always lay those well though last year after hatch on one hive, they did not keep it up.

Mostly. I don't want to know bad enough to do anything about the bad brood patterns. 

Swarms?
I don't really communicate with any bee keepers around here and have not been to a bee meeting in over a year and never went often. I did rely on the mo thread on this site and nobody (myself included) has posted there this year yet.
Cheers
gww


----------



## RayMarler

Hey there Glenn, 
Have you noticed that the hives with the worst brood patterns are the ones with older queens? 

Now I don't claim to know much, and I mess up as much as I do well, but that being said, if it was me, I'd go into the bad brood pattern hives and pinch the queens while you still are in the last of a nectar flow. As they make new queens, the brood will reduce and they'll have more nectar stored as the new queen emerges and starts to lay. And I think there'd be a good chance you'd end up with better queens with nicer brood patterns. And hey, shouldn't be too hard to find the queens since they are lower in bee population eh? or at least 1 or 2 of them are.

Always fun to read your stories, it seems like you are going to end up with a few good hives after all eh? Glad to hear of your progress.


----------



## RayMarler

Oh, and yes, that's what I've read is that plants put out nectar more or less depending on temperature. Just because you see flowers does not mean they are putting out much nectar. And different flowers like different temps too.


----------



## gww

Ray
I have only had what I thought was one glancing sight of what I thought was a queen this year. I have actually looked a few times in the hives when they were not very bee full.. Yes, I would say it is the older queens on all the bad ones. The one hive did not seem to be making gain in stores even with the flow which leads me to believe they are losing and making enough brood to use up stores. Your suggestion would also give a brood break that might help what is probably mite pressure which is probably what is causing the problem to begin with. 

I may try this and may not get around to it either but like all your suggestions, think it is a very good ideal.

Thanks for taking the time to help. Even if I don't get around to doing it, I would not have even thought of it with out your input. I really do like the ideal.

I am still very low ambition this year. 
Cheers
gww
Ps It was around 85 today and my bees were working the heck out of yard clover.


----------



## RayMarler

Yes Glenn, 
I've the same or similar problems here, lack of motivation and failing eyesight. I just can't seem to see eggs and can't find the queens anymore. So like you, I seldom get into them other than check the top super. But it's still good therapy for me to have a few hives so I keep them going.


----------



## gww

Russ
My bearding does not match yours yet but I do have slatted racks which I believe helps some. Lots of extra empty space with the supers I just added also.








and








As you can see, I treat my wife much better then I treat my bees. I had a yard full of clover that the bees were working and I chopped it down so that our house could look as good as the joneses. I have a big yard and it was hard to do but I manned up. As you can see, my bee yard is not so big but it still has weeds.
Cheers
gww
Ps As always my pictures are bad and I don't really show they pretty nice balls of bees hanging under the landing board. I pretty much never do a very good job showing what I am trying to take a picture of.


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> I do have slatted racks which I believe helps some.


GWW:

Good update, and how I identify with the struggle to keep the yard presentable when there is clover in bloom.

I also run slatted racks on my 8-frame Langs and I am always impressed by how many bees will hang-out in the vestibule below the rack and the entrance. While anecdotal, I think there is something to them.

Still no swarms in your neighborhood?


----------



## gww

Russ
I have seen no sigh of swarming or even interest in my traps that might fool me.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

I guess I got jealous of ar1 and so pulled a frame of honey like he just did. I was too lazy to get into more hives but was curious of the surplus that the hives might have. I of course just looked at one and am guessing more on the rest. I have not extracted yet.

The other motivating factor to pull the honey was the person who bought my brother in laws house in indiana, when we moved back to Mo at retirement, now come out a couple of times a year and his wife kept saying how she liked comb honey. He is also a guitar player and maybe why it was on my mind when in pandemic mode.

Needless to say, the comb I pulled was not good new comb but just old capped honey comb, maybe even from last year. However, it did not look too dirty and I am hoping it still taste fine. I don't think it has ever had brood raised in it. 

The other interesting thing was that both supers above the brood nest were full and heavy and the second one down was being capped and the honey did not seem runny. I almost took an outside frame cause it was a little cleaner looking but since not but about 30 percent capped, decided on the older frame from the top box. I guess the whole point that makes it interesting is that maybe I did not put enough drawn comb on it. I don't know how to read this as the second is not completely capped but both weigh as much as they can. I still have clover in my yard and it is a little cooler and it just rained and the bees might make more or might hit the derth that eventually comes just right. I will probably not do anything but am interested in thoughts on whether that might be right or wrong.

Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> I will probably not do anything but am interested in thoughts on whether that might be right or wrong.


As Walt Wright would say, "super optimistically". That said, with the arrival of SHB one has to be mindful of adding too much room.

Good report- I hope the gift of comb honey will bring back good memories for your friend.


----------



## gww

Russ


> Good report- I hope the gift of comb honey will bring back good memories for your friend.


She said it did while invoking her father numerous times. 😊 
You gave a nice report on your thread also. 
Thanks
gww


----------



## gww

Pulled four supers but one had five frames of mostly brood. I can't remember for sure which hive it came from but believe it was from the split that made the queen. It has a surprisingly good looking brood pattern.

One of the hives still had crappy brood but an amazing amount of bees but no excess stores. So at this time of year and the fact it is still the three box brood set up with no supers, I should have listened to ray. Too lazy though.

My set up for extracting.








Still getting amazing use out of my home made extractor which amazes me.








I do realize that my pictures still are bad.

If I did not take the queen with the brood, I have five hives. I got about 7+ gal and got around two from dead outs in spring and so made about the same as last year even with fewer bees and no swarms and so will have to see in spring where I set. The 10 gal I have been getting is close to holding even in bad cases and I will put the supers and box of brood back on the hives very soon. The brood was not covered well with bees but is in my green house type building and may survive the hiatus from the mother hive cause I was to busy/lazy to put them back immediately. 

Got my extracting stuff out under roof of my pole barn due to a sprinkle of rain and it may have the bees at each others throat's when I put the stuff back on the hives. Guess I will light my smoker and keep my fingers crossed.

The bees are hitting my peaches pretty hard.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> Still getting amazing use out of my home made extractor...


Nice report, GWW. Your extractor looks like a good piece of workmanship. When you have time, I'd be interested to see what the inside of the set-up looks like.

Have a great day-

Russ


----------



## gww

Russ
A stand to keep the shaft centered and above the honey.








And believe it or not, an old back massager that I am sure I salvaged for the pullies but then removed most of the wood dowels and squared a few of them and cut up for this.









Set it all in the can and can do 4 medium frames at a time. Sewing machine motor goes as fast or slow as I want. I did not blow out one frame of foundationless comb. I did use some rubber bands. The comb is pretty tough as it ages.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

Quite ingenious, GWW. I'm sensing between this and your previous sawmill posts that you've got some real skills at figuring out how to make do with what you have.

Thank you for the reply, and have a great weekend.

Russ


----------



## gww

Russ
I am pretty sure the back massager was gathered for the sawmill project but it came in handy later. Kind of a little stroke of luck there. You know the old saying, I would rather be lucky then good.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gww

A swarm in july ain't worth a fly and so we will see how august does.
Looks like they have moved in to me.








They look to be guarding the entrance and I did see a couple carrying pollen. It was an empty medium that has drawn comb in it though it might have one or two empty frames cause I had robbed the top boxes to use for supers. Probably moved in over the last few days cause I thought it was funny that the bees had decided to rob the 5 or so empty hives I had still setting there. The were looking through all of them a few days ago but not my traps. I was thinking dirth when I seen the action at the empties.

I have not decided if I will try and help them or just see what happens.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Gypsi

well bright blessings on your new arrivals. We don't know when winter will come, hopefully they know


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> I have not decided if I will try and help them or just see what happens.


Nice, GWW. You must be livin' right.

As Jeff Horchoff points out, "if you've got a soft heart and a hard head" you might do what you can to help them along.


----------



## gww

My august swarm.








I gave them a little more then a half gal of sugar water before I took it off today. This seems to be what they did with it.









I made the picture bigger and can see larva surrounding the capped but did not look good enough to really see what was possibly there. I also did not look for the queen. I did look at stores and they have very little. However, we did get rain and I am probably going to let them hang unless I change my mind. I may try and put together a box of partially filled frames of honey to put on top of them when I extract early sept. Then they might not swarm right off in spring due to lack of space if they make it that far.

I took one other hive apart cause it was setting wonky on the bottom board. It was five boxes high. It had bees in all five boxes though the bottom two really seem to be mostly empty frames though I did not pull any to look for brood. The top has a couple of capped frames and I did not pull frames to look for runny honey. It was not so heavy I really struggled though. The second down seems to be capped and full and heavy. I did not pull it to see if any of the frames had brood but will pull it to extract. The medium good news is that he third box that will be part of the brood nest for winter is heavy and though it might be where the brood is also, it is a good start for winter stores with honey in the right place.

And so, even though I did not check, this gives me small confidence that the other supers on the other hives might have had some refilling also and may have something worth extracting in about a half of a month. Of course they may still eat it and I am wrong very often on what I think I am going to find before I look and find the truth.

The bees are not coming and going like crazy from the hives and it is cooler (though not cool) and none of the bees are hanging outside in a beard. I would say even with the rain, foraging is hard and mostly for water. I did see a bee butt shaking a couple of times and so maybe they are finding something but not a race of coming and going.
Cheers
gww

Ps Taking five boxes apart with a couple that non- manly I could hardly lift that high had me breathing hard and happy to quit looking at more.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I would say even with the rain, foraging is hard and mostly for water.


Same here, GWW. They were working Devil's walking stick hard for a few days while it was in bloom but now nothing appreciable that I observe. The Eupatoriums are all moving toward bloom however and most of the early Goldenrods are blooming here now, so hopefully we'll see a bit of a fall flow in the next month.

Best of luck to you with that late swarm- sounds like they are making good progress!


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## Gypsi

They look pretty good. My biggest hive came in as a swarm, probably a May one, back in 2017 or 2018. (I really ought to keep better records)....


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## gww

Most likely messed with my bees for the last time till spring except to eventually to weed eat or mow. I took the supers all off and took all the hives down to three mediums. Most were empty with small areas of uncapped and I assume new honey. Another observation is that some of the wet was where brood had been previously when I extracted and so the bees have moved down and were gathering a little bit. However they did chase the boxes I put out to be robbed like crazy.

I got three gal of honey and so for the year not counting the two gal I got from dead outs in spring, I did exactly reach my 10 gal for the year. I might have got a little more then normal for the same amount of frames cause I crushed and strained 20 or so frame and not all of them full. I had like six supers but only two had any capped stuff to speak of.

I took a bunch of the best uncapped frames and combined them all in one box and put on top of my aug. swarm. So they have about 70 percent full super to go into winter with. I put the rest out side tipped on their sides for the bees to rob back into their hives.

I tried to take a few pictures to show the bees either missing their space or on a robbing spree on the out side of a few of the reduced hives but had a brand new phone and got a bunch of selfies trying to figure out how to use it for the first time. I am a little later getting the supers pulled then I wanted by about a week but seeing the weather going to 94 tomorrow got me off my buns.

I am not confident on how much is left in the hives but did notice the last few days that there was more traffic at the entrances and so figure the bees are on a little more then just water as it has been about ten degrees cooler then what it will be like again tomorrow. They are still at the water hole hard though and using about a gal a day of just one place and I know they go to several.

I think crush and strain may be harder then spinning. None of it is easy.
Don't really know how to put the year into perspective. We had good rain here this year but I did let the bees rob about eight gal from dead out early on and so they did not really go gang busters but I did end up with normal honey but have fewer bees going into winter then past years.

The crushed comb was not much of a loss as I am finally fat in that regard.
Good luck to all over winter.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> ... so the bees have moved down and were gathering a little bit.


 Good update, GWW. I was just wondering today how you were getting along.

Do you expect much of a fall flow at your place?


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## gww

Russ
We did not have any real drought this year and so I would think about as good of a flow as is possible here but last year was not dry either and I don't think they killed it but the ones that died did have honey. So last fall some honey but not enough coming in that they filled the top boxes which is where a few clusters died. I should have that part a little better as I did not really touch the bottom three boxes this year except on the one hive I split and so what honey they do have and still gather should be in the right spot.

Looking down and not pulling frame or lifting, I did see a couple of the top boxes with capped honey on most frames but it could just be honey bands. Either way, if the food is there, there are plenty of bees to get it.

I have lots of woods around me and so hardly ever see any golden rod in my immediate area but did see the frost astors with little flower bulbs that should be flowers very soon.

Some day I will try dads, who's place is much different then mine but then again, have not done so yet.
What does your scaled hive tell you?
Cheers
gww

Ps I have never seen the bees work the lespadeza that has the big blooms in my field but I do see my lawn that I cut is loaded with it also and the cut stuff makes little bitty blooms that I do see the bees work pretty hard. I do not know if they make any gain with it but do know they work it.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> What does your scaled hive tell you?


I've attached the last 30 days- a high of 105 and a low of 98. We're in the midst of a dearth around here but the late goldenrod appears to be on the way.

I have made it a personal mission to eradicate Sericea lespedeza at my place. I've found that the only effective method is to mow or pull it up right as it is coming into bloom, so I've been busy cutting it out of late.

That said, I know the bees will work it hard- hopefully it puts some nectar in your colonies.

Have a great week.

Russ


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## gww

Around noon. They are on the chicken food but not as hard as they probably will be later in the day.








Bad picture cause when I took it there seemed to be quite a few more bees on the entrance but had to try a couple of time cause I was trying to zoom and kept ending up on video.








Either way, all six hives had some kind of bee action at them and my empties that are still set up in the yard didn't. Doesn't mean it could not be robbing but looks good to me. I am not bee less yet.

One of the more active ones was my august swarm. Not all had the same amount of traffic in and out. some were just a few bees hanging out. Believe it or not, the one I tried to take a picture of was active I just suck at pictures. I did see one that every bee that landed all the bees on the landing board would run over and check them out and so they probably checking each other out for robbing or I have a paranoid hive.

I guess I still don't know much but am happy right now.
Cheers
gww

PS Next cold day I need to break out the weed eater just a bit.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Either way, all six hives had some kind of bee action at them and my empties that are still set up in the yard didn't.


Nice update, my friend. Glad to see that you are still in the bee business. Any inbound pollen?


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## RayMarler

Been thinking of you lately, glad to see you're still in business there Glenn!

I still have my 3 hives, they been flying lately with the better weather. I hope you have good looking survivors this year yourself!


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## gww

Ray
Very glad to hear from you and so glad you are still around. I may still have questions or need calmed down like only you can do. Good to hear about your bees, how about goats? Hope you got enough rain to make it another year and that someday rice is good enough to produce some honey for you. Sorry I have been such a slacker and not made chat but as a consolation, it is not you, I am slacking on everything. Pure introvert.

Russ nothing too close yet on pollen, not even the hen bit or ground ivy or whatever is in my garden and usually first with the trees.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Russ nothing too close yet on pollen, not even the hen bit or ground ivy or whatever is in my garden and usually first with the trees.


I only asked because even though I don't see anything blooming the girls have been bringing in some dirty yellow pollen. Looks like the maples are close around here.


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## RayMarler

_GWW says "...I am slacking on everything. Pure introvert."_

LOL, that's me as well my friend, me as well. I've gotten rid of the goats, chickens too, but then a wild hen flew in so I do give her some rice and hen scratch now and then. Poor girl, no other hens and no rooster around.

I've not checked inside the hives yet, but have decent orientation flights on them all so far. Mid afternoon I'm usually napping, but I did get out the other day and saw the flights, so am pretty sure there's bees in them all. Maybe I'll peek inside them sometime next month, just to make sure they are all queen right and see how they are looking.

So tell me true, are you becoming the new upcoming rock star on that guitar yet? I hope you are still playing and having a good time with it.


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## gww

Ray
No rock star here. I have progressed but no where near as far as I should have since it is the only thing I do but watch tv and I do it a pretty big part of the day and every single day. My body and mind trains slower then most I think and is not getting better with age. 

I bet after a few hands full of rice, your one bird is going to become quite a pet. Her greed will feel like love. I really like watching chickens.

I kinda wish you would pop in here and tell me how your look goes on your bees and if you have any hidden ambitions for them this year. You have made a pretty good go with the weak hives you got. How many years is this now? Three?

Is chris still ok?

Russ
Yours may be bringing in some of my chicken feed.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Glenn,
Your bees are in the chicken feed because they are brooding up well before natural pollen flows are starting, so they use the chicken feed as a pollen substitute. So that's a good sign for the viability of your hives at this time.

[email protected] hidden ambitions for my bees. For the last couple years I just keep the 3 hives, just keeping them alive is good enough for me. I seldom check them, I bet you checked yours more than I checked mine last year, although I do treat twice a year with Apivar. I could have pulled some honey last year, but then I'd have had to feed for winter stores, and wasn't into that. I just keep the last 3 hives around so as to have them here, my last bit of agriculture. I've turned more into a bee-haver than a bee-keeper now. It just seems like I've lost all ambitions for much of anything anymore. It's just not worth the energy to get excited over much of anything.


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## AR1

RayMarler said:


> Glenn,
> It's just not worth the energy to get excited over much of anything.


I hear ya. I used to be really interested in archery, bought a lot of books, spent many hours making bows and arrows from wood I harvested myself, even wrote a magazine article on archery. Then one day, half way into a nice bow, I stopped. And have not restarted. The bow sits half-finished in my basement. Some switch got turned off in my mind. I hope that doesn't happen with the bees, but who knows.


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## gww

AR1
My saw mill was a bit like that. I do find that I can not make myself give it to someone who might use it though but I sorta think I should cause I am pretty sure I am done. Did do some projects though.
I grew mushrooms one winter and was into it but have no desire now. Out of it all the bees have been best to me though my pole barn and brothers club house ain't bad.

Ray
I might get in more but see less. I am greedy and so look down in the top box sometimes to see if I can add one but that is about it.
Cheers
gww

Ps Ray, you look more like a country or rock star.


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Yours may be bringing in some of my chicken feed.


You might be right- I figure you've been too busy with your Branson gig playing in Mickey Gilley's band to spend too much time with your bees lately.


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## RayMarler

AR1 and GWW
I think I've reached a slow-down time in my life. I've had my fun, my day in the sun with many hobbies and a couple different careers. I've had my fun with chickens and goats, was raised on a small family farm with a few cows and lots of gardening. I've always had my hands in the dirt. And I've played with bees for over 30 years now, practiced all aspects of it, including being a mentor to many. Now so much seems like work, that I leave those adventures to others of younger age and ambitions. The bees seem to have just finally lost that awe and excitement for me, but I still have 3 hives and plan on seeing how many more years I can keep the three going. If some year they all die for whatever reason, then I'll be done with it and sell off all the equipment I've gathered over the years. But I'll never grow tired of helping those who desire my assistance in bee keeping, or even if they don't desire it perhaps??? LOL


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## AR1

RayMarler said:


> AR1 and GWW
> I think I've reached a slow-down time in my life. I've had my fun, my day in the sun with many hobbies and a couple different careers.


I frequently tell my patients, none of us got that 20-year-old body anymore. Brain and spirit, neither. Don't think I'd go back though. Some things are better, and I was so dumb back then...


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## Gypsi

Well I fit right in, but I did put out pollen sub for my 2 hives. I did pull a full box of spring honey and half a box of fall in November. But I could have taken a lot more. Offered the girls a jar of syrup about a week ago on a warm couple of days, the 3 box hive drank a little, the 2 box didn't touch it. Pulled it before it got cold and covered my jar opening and topped with styrofoam, Texas has its next phase of winter going on right now. I won't break propolis seal until we are done with freezes, I might have to split the big hive but it can wait until I'm sure the weather is warm enough for them to survive. 

Glad you all are still here. I have chickens 9 years old, 8 years old, 7 years old and bunch of 4 year olds, but I don't know if I will get more. My grandkids got old and quit wanting to gather the eggs. I'm not getting rid of these though Spring blessings!


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## RayMarler

Yea, I've not cracked the lids on my 3 hives either yet, even though we've had some few days that made it to 70+ recently. They flying, shouldn't be needing anything. They had stores last fall as winter started, if they ate through it all too soon then shame on them. I'm not feeding bees anymore. I'll peek in on them sometime next month.


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## gww

First pollen. Time to bait the swarm traps.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Glenn, I hope your beekeeping experience this year over-fills your hopes and dreams for them.  
I still have not lifted a lid yet, maybe in a couple weeks. Supposed to get cooler here again by the weekend and for a few days afterwards, but I'm seeing good flight with pollen coming in, so they are brooding up. Seems with the weather changes coming, I'm going to have to move another wheel barrow load of firewood up to my garage... maybe tomorrow...


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## gww

Ray
Cold in California, just don't seem right to me. 
I have no hopes and dreams for my bees, only surprise and awe that they are still there for now. I haven't baited any traps yet even the ones right by my yard, Hmm, how to say this, maybe tomorrow.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Walked out to see the bees flight and it smelled strongly of honey near the hives. I think they are doing fine. 2 are flying more than the other one. I'll pop the lids in a couple weeks and see what I see.
Well, I did say cooler, not cold. Going to be 35 over night. Last week it was 25 over night. The last few days have been mid-40s over night. Spring is in the air.


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## RayMarler

Well, I just now moved up a barrow load of firewood, so was not "maybe tomorrow" but was 3 days later. And, got a finger pinched, so torn blister on my left hand face of my ring finger, bleeding like a stuck pig. Got it all bandaged up now, water proof so I can take my showers, but bandage so large around the tip of finger I'm typing one handed plus a finger! LOL what a klutz.


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## RayMarler

And I did walk out to watch the bees for a bit of time. They all look healthy, no crawlers and wings all look good and healthy. Pretty good flight as it was only around 55F but they are getting the sun on the hives so that makes them warm up some beyond what temps outside are. Nice sunny calm day here at the moment.


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## AR1

RayMarler said:


> And I did walk out to watch the bees for a bit of time. They all look healthy, no crawlers and wings all look good and healthy. Pretty good flight as it was only around 55F but they are getting the sun on the hives so that makes them warm up some beyond what temps outside are. Nice sunny calm day here at the moment.


Hopefully that will be me, tomorrow. Supposed to hit 60.


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## gww

Ray


> but bandage so large around the tip of finger I'm typing one handed plus a finger!


So finely I have a prayer of keeping up with your speed typing. Naw, I doubt it, even with one finger you.....
Thanks for the update. My wife has started preparing the garden and I am scared to even go out to get the mail cause she might see me and want something. gardening is very hard work.
Cheers
gww


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## Gypsi

I started seeds in my greenhouse yesterday. Usually just cheat and buy plants in 4 inch pots, but spring is late this year, another freeze on friday, might as well use the seeds up. I didn't get syrup back off the bees when the last freeze rolled in. Hope they propolized the jar lids. Elm came in bloom and handled the pollen situation


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## gww

Plum bloom is gone. Peach in bloom, apple looks like no bloom coming again this year and pear and asian pear not yet. Dandilions over the last few days has popped hard. Bees are working everything though they have not had that many good flying days. 

I added supers to five and put the third medium on to finish out the brood nest on one. Do not think the bees are really ready yet and though I pulled no frames or lifted any boxes to check wieght, I think the hives really have no resources in them to speak of. Add that a couple of the boxes set with big gaps due to having come out of square I assume. It is going to get down to 31 degrees friday and so like last year, I am probably pushing them and slowing them down if they even live through it. It was drawn comb though.

Time will tell
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

GWW:

Glad to see your post- I sincerely hope all is well with you and your family.

Looks like we might be in similar shape to you all with the Apple- we do have a few Asian Pear blooms at present however and the European Plums just started.

How's your guitar playing coming along? Best of success to you in the upcoming bee year.

Russ


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## gww

Trying to learn the triads on the fret board and how to make them come natural. I have sorta got the arpeggios and minor scale where if I think about it I can match scale to arpeggio but not so I can use them in any fashion. Got such a long way to go. Nothing is coming natural, my timing is off and I can still not really get through the tons of songs I have memorized with out mistakes or make them sound professional or anything you might want to hear. Doesn't matter how may time I play the same thing over and over and over. I am better but no where near right which amazes me as I am going on two years end of july.
Hope you are well and that it stays that way.
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> I am better but no where near right which amazes me as I am going on two years end of july.


Except for the few truly God-gifted souls I've met in my life who seem to be able to master any instrument they pick-up almost immediately, most of us mere mortals just have to keep plugging-away at it, making slow and intermittent improvements that never seem to come as quickly or to the level we'd like them to. I'd say you're on the right track.

Besides, as long as you are having fun with it that's the most important thing in my book.

We are all well by God's grace, and I do appreciate you asking. I'm starting to see scattered reports of swarms here across the Commonwealth so it won't be long now...


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## gww

Russ
My traps are baited.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Glenn, I've not heard from you so was checking in on you. How are you doing? and How are your hives doing?

I went out and did a little bit of hive work today, they all looking very good so far this year. I've sold 1 split and have kept 1 split, so my hive count is up to 4 right now. One has a new laying queen that I marked today, and another one should have a new queen but I'm waiting a week to check in on them for to be sure. The one I marked today has such a good brood pattern, I could not ask for anything better. That's what happens when I have 3 hives with four frames of drone combs in each! I spread some honey frames around so that I don't have to extract yet. I want to make one more split from my best queen that is 3 years old, but if I do, it won't be for a week or 2. I'm not sure I'll do it, because I don't want to spread the honey frames around to thinly and have to have them all draw too much comb. I'll check them in a week or 2 and see what it looks like.

Anyway, working my hives made me think of you and I hope you are well and hope you post an update soon.


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## gww

Ray
I tried to till my garden a little to try and get it to dry a bit faster and threw my back out and so have been walking like a duck for the last few days. Good to hear about your bees and from you. 

I could not really tell you about my bees. I did make a mistake and my apple trees *did* bloom hard for the first time and redbuds are in bloom and I have more dandelions then ever and the bees are working them hard. I did mow today though under pressure and did go by the hives and the bees left me alone. 

I have caught some orientation flights. Since I added space, my august swarm had the least activity and it will be interesting when I do open them to see what I find. So I think all are alive, I don't really know queen status. I am still at six. 

I should be mushroom hunting but can't walk far before getting tire back muscles. This is probably a benefit obtained from all my lazyboy use over the last year. I am pretty sure I am near the end of the healing process and close to good again. To be honest, Everything is great and seems to be going well. Not sure if I will try a split or just wait and see if I get a swarm. Time will tell.

Our weather is going to be in the 60s for the next three days and maybe more rain tonight. 
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

I'm sorry to hear you've been walking like a duck, my sympathy goes out to you. But, so long as you don't quack like a duck, you still have hope.  Glad to hear you are on the mend and hope your garden gives great produce this year! As far as the bees... they can take care of themselves until you feel like peeking in on them... no problem. Don't let them become work for you, keep it fun.


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## gww

Ray
I hope you keep checking in. I really enjoy thinking about you and hearing from you. May your rain gods take mercy on you this year.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

This is not robbing but just poor carpenter skills. 








Had what I think is about six tobacco plants come up. Should get me new seeds and I will still throw the rest of the seeds I still have on some bare ground and see what goes.

Have not opened the bees yet. Every thing seem good enough though.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

gww said:


> This is not robbing but just poor carpenter skills.
> View attachment 68953
> 
> Had what I think is about six tobacco plants come up. Should get me new seeds and I will still throw the rest of the seeds I still have on some bare ground and see what goes.
> 
> Have not opened the bees yet. Every thing seem good enough though.
> Cheers
> gww


I might just have a few boxes like that myself!
Put some tobacco seeds in flower pots outside a week ago. Expecting sprouts in another week or two, if it warms up.


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## RayMarler

LOL, yes, I also have more than 1 hive with bees using the seams as entrances or ventilation. In fact, your pic Glenn looks very similar to some of mine here. Who needs paint right? If a box rots through I've got others to replace it with since I've greatly reduced my hive numbers over the recent few years.

In a previous life, I always painted the boxes and lids and bottom boards 2 coats of good paint. those boxes are still around and don't really need repainting still. I do believe it's better, but I've just gotten lazy, slowly through time, and many of my boxes now have never been painted even once. So I have a large variety of box conditions in the yard. Longevity is good for me, but I don't think the bees care much if any.

So am I rambling yet? LOL.
I need to get out and play beekeeper again soon, I smell honey and wax drawing around the hives this evening near sunset. I'm having trouble keeping up with their growth this year.


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## gww

Ray
Since I cut my own boards, I found paint to be pretty expensive in comparison.
Cheers
gww


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## Gypsi

It is good that everyone is doing ok. My bees seem to be. I was going thru the hives today and got distracted by the lawn mower and the flower beds. Hopefully tomorrow. Got my rib back in socket so my back doesn't hurt anymorre


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## gww

I opened three hives today. I believe the august swarm is going to be a dead hive. It really only has about a softball size cluster worth of bees and I did not really see a spot with some capped brood. It had maybe a few capped drone and a few larva but I did not see a queen. Almost no stores.

None of the hives I opened had anything going on in the added super. I took two frames with bees of mostly capped brood from the hive beside the bad one and put it in. I did not really find a frame of open brood to use while going through two boxes. The hive is loaded with bees and had a few queen cups that I think are dry even though they were more then just cups length wise. I figured if they were not dry it might give the dyeing hive a chance.

I am not feeding to help the hive build a queen cell and so no pollen though earlier in the year they did bring some in. The big hive had half a box of capped honey and lot of pollen which I could have moved but did not. So, maybe I have 5 hives doing well instead of 6. I put three empties where I removed the honey and brood which shows I was lying last year when I said I was not going to move stuff around in brood boxes any more. Either way, it should slow down the one hive that was just busting with brood and bees and may, if a miracle happens, help the dead hive,
Cheers
gww

Ps Got stung in the arm while in 20 feet in front of the hives before I decided I was going to look and got half stung (no stinger) in the hand by a bee while looking. They ended up being much nice while I was inside then I was thinking before I looked after getting stung. I do always wonder at this time of year if one of the hives wants to swarm if they are in a stinging mood but if so was probably not the ones I opened. From the entrance, I think they all have lots of bees like the one I really dug into.


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## Litsinger

GWW:

Glad to see your post and read that you are still finding a little time with the bees. I do hope all is well with you and your family and I am always happy to see your posts.

Best of success to you as the season really ramps up- I don't know about you, but the tulip poplar flow is about to get real around here...


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## gww

Russ 
What I see most of right now is bush honey suckle which the bees to work. 94 degrees tomorrow seems a bit out of character for this time of year.
Stay well.
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Stay well.


By God's grace I hope to- we've got some honeysuckle going too.

Take care of yourself!

Russ


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## RayMarler

Glenn, I hope you fare very well with your beekeeping this year. Glad to hear your report. 
I myself have increased to 4 hives from 3. I just today verified a mated queen in my last split done on April 1st. I need to get one more box of foundation cleaned and waxed, but no hurry for it at the moment so it'll wait for a better day. I'm still equalizing everyone as far as honey and undrawn frames so I have time.


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## gww

Ray
I am kinda curious whether adding frames of capped brood and corresponding bees to a small hive with no real stores to speak of, will this make them starve even more or be a help to a hive with much too much space to guard compared to bee density. Its not that I care that much one way or the other since I am still not going to feed due to being lazy but am curious of what you think.
Good to hear from you.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Glenn,
If you don't have a flow going on, then they'd starve even more. You don't need to feed if you'd just move in a comb or two of honey from one of your other stronger hives. Does this weak hive have a queen? If not, then give them a frame with eggs from another hive.


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## gww

Ray
I am done for now but was just curious. I could have moved a comb of honey at the time but just didn't. I am not sure on the queen but I did not find her. I looked for a frame of open brood but did not see one but I have never been able to see eggs or small larva. The frames were mostly capped though I seen a few larva that were big enough for me to see and took a chance on the rest. They do not have the resources to built a good queen anyway but just did what I did as sorta a half a--ed hail marry and figured it would not really hurt much even if it did not help much. It was an august swarm and it amazes me they made it this far for coming so late last year. I was just curious for next time and whether my brain was working at all or not. Thanks for taking the time to give me your thoughts.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

1st swarm in a trap tonight and scouts at another. Don't know what I have yet. I posted it in the Missouri thread but guess I will put a picture of the set up here also.








Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Very nice Glenn, hope you get a few or more larger swarms this year, not from you own hives tho eh?


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## gww

I realize my pictures are always bad but it was a nice swarm and had a couple frames already drawn. Lucky for me they had not drawn on the bottom of the frame yet.








This one is a bit better as you can clearly see the mouse nest.









I got behind on keeping my drawn comb smoked with sulfer and so the wax moth webbed about ten boxes of drawn frames. I will probably still put them on as honey supers and let the bees clean it up and still hope it is more of a gain then just letting them draw new. I do hate to put them on swarms cause I am scared it will make them leave but I did put a few of the best in with this swarm as they had comb and hope fully a few eggs to cover already and maybe that will hold them.

It looks like I really only have four boomer hives and two that are alive but very little traffic out of my original six. I will know more if I ever look but priority is getting the trap back out and hoping for after swarms. I do not take it too serious as you can tell by the baiting with just lemon grass and leaving out forever even with mice or wasp. Can't wait to check the one with scouts but also hard to get moving and it is very close to raining right now.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

GWW:

Just checking-in. How's everything coming along in your yard?


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## Gypsi

Due to harvest honey tomorrow I think. At least see how much is capped, I think my mesquite flow is over, it's dried up a lot around here


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## gww

I think it is ok. I have not walked out to the hives in a week. I should see if there is any honey in them. I wrote one post in between this one but must have forgotten to hit post cause I don't see it and can not even remember what I posted. Seen some of your post on Bee L but admit I did not read the studies. I may give the bees a chance to eat all the honey during the dirth and just collect in sept but don't know for sure. I am curious cause I put too many supers on them just to see what they might do and I doubt it is much. It has just been so hot lately. How many hives above 6 are you this year.
I only got one swarm this year myself. The bees were bearding pretty good even with 5 mediums here and so at least four hives are about as big as I have ever seen. I will probably walk down and look at the entrances since you have put it on my mind. Hope you are well.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

Good to hear from you, GWW. We are all well by God's grace. It's been a pretty eventful year in the bee yard around here.

How's your guitar picking coming along?

I imagine you are in John Williams territory by now:


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## gww

Russ


> I imagine you are in John Williams territory by now


Nope, but to abuse another 70's term, I just keep trucking.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

gww said:


> I just keep trucking.
> gww


I think I see what's holding you back. Try strumming and picking, rather than trucking.


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## gww

Ar1
I suck at the tobacco thing. The seeds were good but my thumb is not so green. I planted in the house really early and transplanted at about two inches tall but in the wrong place and it rained and covered them with mud. Then I just put some seed out which came up well but must not have been watered enough cause it died out. I just replanted some more at about the same two inch and the same rain happened but it is in a raised bed and so some is still alive but still about two inch and it is late in the year. I suck but am not going to say keep trucking cause I don't need more problems.  
You sent lots of seed and there is always next year.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

gww said:


> Ar1
> I suck at the tobacco thing. The seeds were good but my thumb is not so green. I planted in the house really early and transplanted at about two inches tall but in the wrong place and it rained and covered them with mud. Then I just put some seed out which came up well but must not have been watered enough cause it died out. I just replanted some more at about the same two inch and the same rain happened but it is in a raised bed and so some is still alive but still about two inch and it is late in the year. I suck but am not going to say keep trucking cause I don't need more problems.
> You sent lots of seed and there is always next year.
> Cheers
> gww


Very slow early growth, but once they start they get big fast.


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## gww

Tobacco
Yes, most of mine were dyeing before getting bigger but I do have some alive just young with one or two really taking off right now.

As a side note. I looked in a few hives and was not super impressed as the one swarm had tore out the wax moth comb I had given them and only had about three frames built filled and capped of the second box and it was a pretty big swarm. One of my bigger hives had only one super filled all but one comb. I am guessing on the four hives that I have lots of empty supers and maybe about eight gal of honey if I took it now. To me this means the flow was not super strong but also, I am not sad as it could be nothing. These are guesses off of a tiny look at one hive of four.

I still may wait till sept 1st and they might eat it all cause I did not pull it. They are drinking two gal of water a day and I am sure my back yard is not the only place they getting water from.

My aug. swarm from last year that I gave two frames of brood and bees are still not filling the third brood box either.

Lots of evening bearding and so I know I have lots of bees.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Ar1
This is all the tobacco that is left and from a couple of days ago. It is bigger now in that short of time. At this point hoping for enough time to get a few seeds. At least you know it was not a complete waste sending me the seeds as now I will get some small thing anyway and so thanks again.









The bee blooms in the field behind my house was a bit off this year compare to past years. Not near as many dead nettle, brown eyed susan or mountain mint this year. I sure hope the frost astors show up as it looks like sept for honey removal (been so hot here) and more fun to take it when the bees have something to work.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

gww said:


> Ar1
> This is all the tobacco that is left and from a couple of days ago. It is bigger now in that short of time. At this point hoping for enough time to get a few seeds. At least you know it was not a complete waste sending me the seeds as now I will get some small thing anyway and so thanks again.
> 
> View attachment 70522
> 
> The bee blooms in the field behind my house was a bit off this year compare to past years. Not near as many dead nettle, brown eyed susan or mountain mint this year. I sure hope the frost astors show up as it looks like sept for honey removal (been so hot here) and more fun to take it when the bees have something to work.
> Cheers
> gww


Once they hit the stage of that larger one, they really take off fast. They are very tough too. You can usually just pull them out of the ground and replant them without taking any special precautions and they will grow. Each plant will eventually need about 3 feet of space all around. Leave them alone and they will each produce more seeds than you can use in a lifetime.


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## gww

My wife did not like my extract in sept plan after I told her they may eat the honey raising brood. Needless to say, I am not the boss and so I got the home made beast out and we pulled honey.








I got about 8.5 gal which is not very impressive but ten is about what I go for.
Such hard messy work and the wife is the boss cause she does 3 to 1 of what I do while doing it.

One super had drone brood hatching while we were working it and it also had a super dinky capped queen cell in it. I kinda figured something as it was the only hive that jumped out and stung me somewhere on the hand that I can't right this second remember where.

I see no bee forage right now and the bees were working the equipment in the dark and so who knows what I have did to them. I am so out of shape that all I did was remove down to three mediums with out really looking at anything. I put the wet supers back on at dark though my inclination was to just set them out to be robbed. Now I have to pull them in sept and I doubt anything gets added. I did notice one other thing missing compared to normal in my field. I normally have tons of lespedeza that I thought would be about blooming now. Nothing.

Squirrels got all my apples and they are not even that close yet and it was my first year of getting more then 5 on the tree.
Life is good though.
Cheers
gww


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> Life is good though.


Indeed it is, my friend. Good post. I hope all is well with you and your family.

Russ


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## RayMarler

I like the looks of your extractor Glenn, good job!


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## gww

Ray
Thank you. I can not believe it is still going now on 6 or so years. I am a slob but kinda lucky that most of the crap I make sorta works. Really good to hear from you. I notice on chat that sometimes you guys conversation is still there and so I get a small chance to check in at leisure once in a while.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Hi Glenn,
I've seen you have visited my chat room a couple times, sorry I was not there. I just made a post in Today in the Apiary and I think I'm starting to sound more and more like you every day!  I hope you and yours are doing well, and hope your hives have surpassed your expectations so far this year.









Today in the Apiary


And I forgot to mention, I only went into broodnest of 2 hives, Hive #4 has very good pattern, and the other was Hive #3 which is queenless. Hives 1 and 2 are so populous that I'm not worried. Since their queens got mated they've greatly increased in population strength, and I'll be putting...




www.beesource.com


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## NE Georgia Beek

gww said:


> Vance
> I wanted to do a teronov but was afraid that all that shaking would destroy all the queen cells. My friend was going to come over monday and help me move stuff around but yesterday we thought it was only extended uncapped cells and that my hive had not swarmed yet. So I looked up bee math and got scared that the hive would swarm before monday and I did not want that. However, yesterday we were hard up time wise and so only tipped boxes and looked from the bottom. Today on finding the capped swarm cells, and not seeing any larva which is about the best my eyes can do right now, I figure we got it wrong and the swarm did come from this hive.
> 
> I thought about taking every frame that had queen cells and dividing up the resources as even as I could to match the cells but don't really want to mess with to weak of hives untill I learn more plus, it might be a pipe dream, but I am kinda hoping I might still get a little honey off of the young brood hive due to all the comb starting out full right now. I should have put some empties in the brood nest earlier but it was only in the sixties and I was afraid it was still too cold. I thought I was good till the 15th of april no matter what cause I caught my first swarm in early may last year. My big mistake.
> 
> This bee keeping stuff is pretty hard when you are new.
> 
> I spent most of the night last night and this morning reading up on queen cells. Since these look like new wax and some are still not capped. I was thinking that monday they might be 4 or 5 days from when they were capped. So I was hoping monday when I got a little help might be soon enough to start destroying cells and hoping that the splitting the age groups would stop after swarms if I was wrong.
> 
> I am almost sure the swarm came from this hive but just don't see how that many bees could have fit in the hive.
> 
> I guess I have done what I have done.
> 
> I am not trying to over load anyone with my issues but have a couple of things going forward that I would like to maby get a little advice on.
> 
> On the hive with the old bees and partial frame of brood. If it takes eight days or a little less for the cell to hatch and two weeks for breeding, Then should I leave the hive alone for 20/24 days? I don't know how fast it will take for the bees to draw the medium out with comb but at that 24 day mark, will I have to extract to give the new queen a place to lay? Have I got all of this wrong?
> 
> Also on the old bees, will I sometime in this process need to ad another frame of brood?
> 
> I figure on the young bees that they have three mediums full now and since there is no foragers for a week or so that they will eat some room into the comb that is already there. Is this right or wrong thinking?
> 
> I thank you for your comments above, believe it or not, they made me not "feel" quite as dumb as I really am.
> Thanks
> gww


Leave them all alone for 2 weeks. Go back and look for eggs. If no eggs, leave alone for another week. Check for eggs again. When one of the hives has eggs, check the others for a hatched queen cell. Wait 2 weeks after hatched queen cell to check for eggs. Once they have fresh eggs, treat hives with OAV to make sure no mites on hive and let them do what they do for at least 2 weeks.


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## gww

Hey ray. 
All is good here. I spent the last three days trying to start moms backhoe and it turned out a wire was broke going to the fuel solenoid and I could have simply been done three days ago. 

It looks like I was not the only one who liked your today in the apiary post. You really are getting more like me. Doubt that is a good thing but I have found life goes on either way. Been eating out with your buddies? I hope you are well and your hand is working now.
Cheers
gww


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## gww

Probably got one down as the red wasp are in a war with what is probably robbers. I raise red wasp in all my empty boxes and traps. 








I have two that do not have bees covering the entrance and hanging out on the landing board and three that are. The red wasp keep up pressure all year but usually just one or two grabbing at bees at the entrance, I have not seen this before and so figure the hive is gone with out looking. Sure do need to weed eat huh.
Cheers
gww


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## AR1

Don't have red wasps here, that I know of. Looked on line for pics and never saw anything like that. Plenty of other wasps though. Yellow jacket traps still catching lots, and see a few harassing the beehive now. Killed a big black and white paper wasp today too, at the entrance.


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## RayMarler

gww said:


> I raise red wasp in all my empty boxes and traps.


LOL, very good, I'm not the only one! But, mine are yellow jackets, not red wasps. One year, I went and moved all the unused bee boxes in the bee yard to the barn for storage. Every one of them has paper wasp nests in them. I scraped out the nests and moved boxes to the barn, all except one. TeeHehe, you see what's coming next right? When the boxes were all moved but one, I tipped it's lid and it was very full of all the wasps that couldn't find their particular home box. I grabbed my propane torch and without lighting it, filled the box with gas. It put them all to sleep, so then I struck a match. I swear it blew the lid up off the box a little bit and all the wasps died of concussion. 



gww said:


> Sure do need to weed eat huh.


LOL yes me and you both Glenn. 

OH and BTW I have a hive being robbed out. That's great, the 3 remaining will get more packed with stores that way, And I only wanted 3 hives anyway!

Cheers to you and yours and please do have a great weekend!


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## Litsinger

gww said:


> have not seen this before and so figure the hive is gone with out looking.


Glenn:

Sorry to hear of the trouble- this weekend is going to be nice- still time to dig around and see what's going on...

How's the guitar picking going?


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## gww

Ray
I have a map torch, they say that burns hotter, yeaha.
Hope you have a great weekend also. 

Ar1 think I saw one yellow jacket enter a hive un-harrassed but stood and watched and did not see him come out or more go in.

Russ
Been putting on slow backing tracks and trying to find the 1-3-5 of each cord along the fretboard. No guitar hero here. Better then looking in the hives though. Have a good one.
Cheers
gww


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## RayMarler

Yes Glenn, map gas will give more bang, or in this case boom for the buck. WhooHoo!


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