# Sticky  Today in the Apiary



## JRG13

I made a split for my Harbo breeder, opted to do in a push in cage, should've just stuck with a standard introduction... going to be a nervous wreck this week!


----------



## Hogback Honey

Okay, Today I put slatted racks on my hives, and put MAQS in all three hives. What a PAIN!
Honey supers were on, had to take them all off, 2 each on 2 hives and 1 on the third. Gave myself a fat lip while adding a third super to one hive. Grabbed super, turned and moved to put it on, ran into the hive with the empty super at lip level, guess the hive was taller than I thought. Only got stung once, when a bee got under my thumb.
Really not looking forward to next Friday, when I have to take everything apart again.
Well, next year I'll know to treat before I put supers on, I'll oxyvap next year, since MAQS has to be consistently above a certain temp.


----------



## Shasta Bees

My split hive swarmed. Day of infamy for me.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Had a virgin queen fly out of my hands. Oops.


----------



## lemmje

Went into my two recently installed packages with the intent of manipulating frames to get more drawn comb. Found a couple queen cups in the hive that had the most capped brood. 

With these two colonies I intend to experiment and understand a few things i have been reading about, hoping to split both into nucs mid-summer with an ordered VSH queen and to catch a swarm or two and to go into the winter with 4-6 colonies for a growth next spring.


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Checked on eight new hives and filled feeders. Did an inspection on one where the queen was questionable, never did see her, but plenty of new eggs. Love these new bees, very mild mannered. No smoke, no veil, and not even a head-butt from them.


----------



## Tenbears

Today Is a very special in my Apiary, My out yards and my life! 50 years ago today I received my first nuc from my scout master, Mr. George Ackinclouse (A great Man, Beekeeper and leader) To earn my Bee keeping Merit badge. As I worked toward the requirement for Eagle Scout. I became so enthralled with them, I have had them ever since. Sometimes few sometimes many. Always a journey!


----------



## David LaFerney

Encountered my hottest hive ever - a mating nuc no less, 6 medium frames of bees. More than 20 stings through my jeans and under my jacket before I retreated - dozens of stingers caught in my clothes. A week ago it was queenright and calm - glad it happened before I caged the queen and handed her to someone else. Full suit time.


----------



## WWW

Within this past week I decided on a change in my hive management technique, after a two year test on the three deep brood nest concept and it's inability to provide me with satisfactory results I have developed a form of "2 deep/3 deep combination hive", this new technique is tailored for capitalizing on the expected nectar level during my flow times and the minimization of swarming at the location in which I live.

The last two years of experimenting with 3 deep hives was not a waste of time because the knowledge and insight I have gained during the last two years was vital to the development of the new hive management technique. I will need at least another year to prove out this new concept but I have the gut feeling that it will work wonders and my hopes are high. :thumbsup:


----------



## squarepeg

today is grafting day here, all set up and ready to go, just waiting for the foragers to start flying, the larvae i want are at the bottom of a six hive body stack.


----------



## Charlestonbee

One hive that didn't buildup well is queenless. Going to combine w other hive.


----------



## Westhill

Business is booming at my one and only hive. We are finishing up a huge flow of black locust and the bees drew out comb for, and filled, an entire medium box in a week, and are now working on another box.

(this is in Nassau County NY, not Vermont--I beed to change my location.)


----------



## irishmick

Was going to check hives but didn't due to rain... lol this is going to be a very interesting or boring thread. Heh


----------



## Terry C

Today on a whim I decided to check my #1 hive , which has had problems with re-queening since it was split from my original on 4/8 . On Monday I gave them some brood and eggs , since they were very defensive and I saw no sign of a queen . Today there were fresh eggs on a frame that's been in the hive for quite some time . This gives me 4 hives with mated and laying queens now , all descendents of the original dark Russian I got last year in mid-June - this queen would be her granddaughter , she came from an egg laid by a daughter of the original . Today was a very good day in The 12 Acre Wood Apiary .


----------



## Barry Digman

I walked by a box of 100 frames that need to be assembled.


----------



## Riverderwent

Did a cutout from a soffit. Got two swarm calls: caught and hived one; lost the other one. Got a new swarm trap location. Did a couple of newspaper combines. Inspected some hives. Checked and moved some swarm traps. Caught a swarm in one trap and moved it to the nursery/nuc yard after dark. Long day.

Update -- this morning I got a call back on the swarm I lost yesterday. Today, it was a classic cluster on a limb, bees in a bucket. Hived it, and put it in the nursery. Then, the bottom fell out, a thunderstorm, again. Glad for the noahic covenant.


----------



## biggraham610

Barry Digman said:


> I walked by a box of 100 frames that need to be assembled.


:lpf: Ive been doing it for 2 weeks. Finally got 20 done the other night, then tore up a tendon in my wrist today at work........ not laughing anymore..inch:..... glad i introduced my nephew to the bees last week, hes gonna learn alot more this weekend looks like............... G


----------



## MariahK

I really am not proud of this but as your the only people who will hopefully laugh with me here it goes... I was out by the hives in the evening watering my plants, my dog was wondering around A
and somehow tripped me causing me to bang into a hive hard, of coarse it had to be the the pissy hive. **** things shot out like angry rockets which caused me to run for cover. I could feel a sting on my arm during my retreat. And hear them on the back of my shirt, which half way across the back yard I ditched, and ran into the house topless much to my daughters enjoyment, they watched the whole scene, and were on the floor laughing. I only got one sting and so did the dog, on his nose. But after I suited up to make sure I didn't topple anything and retrieve my shirt. I found the hive was ok, my shirt had at least 6 angry bees in it. I don't think a single member of my family will let me live it down and my husband just laughed and said "you wanted bees"


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Barry Digman said:


> I walked by a box of 100 frames that need to be assembled.


Uggg... yeah, just finishing up 160 of them. Loads of fun!!! inch:


----------



## Hogback Honey

Today, ordered foundation for my medium frames, I've yet to assemble. Checked on the bees, 2 hives have a lot of bees on their porches, and one hive hardly any. Everything looks normal, bees zooming in and out. Checked slide out trays for mites, hive #1 had a ton of mites on their board 40+, Hive #2 had about a dozen to 15, and Hive #3 had 8-10. MAQS are doing the job.


----------



## Faith Apiaries

I'm glad I found this thread. I installed seven packages the week of May 12 to 15. One absconded so there are now six hives. I gave them only foundationless frames...I felt that was a bold move but they seem to be drawing nice comb regardless. 

Today I pulled some frames from one hive for the first time. I'm new so I'm not sure what I'm looking at but I'm not sure I saw much brood. I saw what looked like a lot of nectar. I didn't get pictures of the capped cells, working alone and not wanting to have the hive open long.


----------



## Colobee

Barry Digman said:


> I walked by a box of 100 frames that need to be assembled.


I walked by several boxes of PF-120's, and smiled... 
Those 50 supers, that's another story, but it can wait...


----------



## squarepeg

i went out just after sunrise today to pull the cloake board out of my starter/finisher in which grafts were placed yesterday. what was interesting is that while the other 9 colonies in the yard weren't even flying yet there was bee after bee bringing pollen in to the cell builder. seeing that makes me hopeful that at least some of the grafts were accepted. i may take a peek in there later to see how many cells were started.


----------



## WWW

Inspected one of my nucs today which has been queenless and I had given it a frame of brood, I seen a few larvae where a new queen is just coming into lay, it is a good day. :thumbsup:


----------



## enjambres

On Memorial day I did my first-ever Snelgrove board division, and today was day 5 so I swapped the entrance positions around. So far (from the outside) things looks good.

I went through all my hives this week to check for swarm signs (none seen) and added some frames on the sides of the brood nest in a couple plus a super for my over-achiever.


My beloved old Queen Buttercup seems to be getting superceded. After thinking about it, I have decided to transfer her to an observation hive to live out her life. I was hemming and hawing over this move for a few days, but got lucky and found her easily and transferred her to a nuc for the moment (on top of Snelgrove board above her former hive). One of the queen cells had been opened and the bees were fussing at the other. Not sure if I have a virgin queen afoot, or whether they had just changed their minds (they have done that before.) We'll see in a bit.

Today I went through my friend's somewhat neglected hive; opened the brood nest (which was in all four boxes) and gave them a super. Finally, I have got it arranged with deeps on the bottom, mediums above. I expect to move it here next week when it's cool and after it's settled down again, divide it with a Snelgrove board. I wanted the rumpus of the full-hive overhaul to happen elsewhere. My girls are opportunistic honey-felons.

We're finally getting some light rain with two days of steadier stuff expected, which we sorely need. It will probably foreshorten the black locust flow somewhat, but we need it badly for the other later nectar plants like goldenrod. And the Basswood should be open by week's end. Wanted to have my girls checked for swarminess before they get closed in for a few days. All's well. I'm beat!

Enj.


----------



## Barry Digman

Knocked these out today while listening to classic southern rock. (That genre just seems the most appropriate for putting bee gear together.)


----------



## camero7

Split 15 hives this afternoon in the brutal [for us] humidity. Glad it's done


----------



## The Honey Householder

Just finished up my last 100 pack of queens. Spliting season is now DONE. Bees really look good this year.:thumbsup:


----------



## Hogback Honey

I think I know why my Italians are lagging behind in honey production. When checking on mite drop today, I stood there and watched the comings and goings on all three hives. I noticed some bees going into the Italian hive, that did not look very Italian:scratch: No robbing going on, nor fighting of any kind, I think my Italians may have swarmed awhile ago, and I never noticed The Italian Queen was not marked, but I may be able to tell if it's the same one. Some of the bees I saw today looked kind of like some of the feral bees I've seen at my water trough, and, at the pollen feeding station I had out in Feb/March. Looks like if they did swarm the little suckers ignored all my swarm traps I had out. Oh well....
So far everything else is okay, Hive #1 is still dropping a lot of mites over 100, at least, the other two maybe 20 - 40 on the entire sliding board.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Checked a round of grafts then grafted another later. Put a mated queen in a 5 frame split with a additional 2 frames of bees shook in. Melted and Filtered 4-5 lbs of culled comb wax. Snapped in 250 acorn foundation and coated them. Fun.


----------



## MajorJC

Picked up 3 Queens from Tubbs Apiaries in Mize, MS today. When I was out I bought some oxalic acid at Ace hardware and a deep cycle battery at Walmart. When I got back home I treated two of my hives with my new OAV vaporizer and then went into a strong hive to make splits. I found the queen pretty quickly and caged her. I then began pulling frames and putting them in 5 frame nuc boxes. I got two of them done with new queens when it started to rain. So I put this hive back together and released the queen back into the hive. During the rain storm I caught up on last weeks episode of Game of Thrones, it was a great episode. When it ended the rain had passed, so back to the bees I went. Went into a different hive to make my last nuc. Found this queen in the third medium box. Since her brood nest is in medium frames I put this nuc in an 8 frame medium box. Went into two problem hives that I split 7 weeks ago and found both queens, marked Russians that I thought went awol. I was glad to see these two queens but kind of disappointed with their laying pattern. I thought about going into my TBH and my 3 recent package installs but decided that would have to wait till another day. Only got one sting today through my nitrile groves.


----------



## Faith Apiaries

I checked all my hives today, lifted every frame for a look-see. I couldn't identify even one queen, I still need to learn that skill. The comb is still fragile so no flipping frames around. I saw what I think is capped brood but I'd like some advice on that, can you please tell me if that's what this is?


----------



## Barry Digman

In your first photo you can see the difference between the capped honey at the top and the capped brood at the bottom. The honey is lighter and flatter than the brood, which, in these photos, is yellower and domed.


----------



## biggraham610

Congrats on finishing the frames Barry. Im going to do it tonight. Added boxes to my 2 production hives, they are still filling fast, filled 3 supers so far each, it will slow down soon. Checked and saw a virgin has been mated in one of my splits,she is laying a great pattern. added a box to another split, Moved 3 nucs with ripe QC's to mating yard. Hive that was drawing foundationless up, has straightened it out after 2 interventions, looks great now. Good day, mighty hot. G


----------



## Faith Apiaries

Barry Digman said:


> In your first photo you can see the difference between the capped honey at the top and the capped brood at the bottom. The honey is lighter and flatter than the brood, which, in these photos, is yellower and domed.


Thanks Barry!


----------



## Harley Craig

60 deg and drizzly decided it would be a good day to mow in front of the hives without much disturbance


----------



## DanielD

Today I decided to put some feed on a second split made from the same hive in case they weren't taking enough in. The first split taken produced enough viable queen cells to utilize some in a second one. Hate to waste a good queen cell or two. I plan to split it some more later in the year. Slow day with the bees.


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Finished my frames for deeps today. Now just have 80 medium frames to go...:waiting:


----------



## jay.landry

Did my inspection yesterday on my 1st hive. Had added a second deep the weekend before. They had built out comb on 6 of the 10 frames and had capped brood on 4 of the 6 frames already in upper box. Completly removed the entrance reducer. Hive is doing really well. Also saw the queen in the lower box.


----------



## Chris Muncy

Added a deep brood box to each of my 2 hive yesterday evening. With all of the rain we've had in teh past month, I haven't been paying them much attention other than feeding them. I started these 2 hives as nucs on 4/25 and when I added the new brood boxes, all of the frames were drawn out and even the outside of the outer frames were filled with nextar but not yet capped. I bet they love their new room.


----------



## Northwest PA Beekeeper

Didn't happen today - but several weeks ago our bee club was offering Carnolian queen cells - several people were placing an order for queen cells so wanted to include everyone if they wanted any.

I didn't call anyone back, but the day before they were to arrive I got a call saying they had extra queen cells - was I interested? I said "Sure, I'll take 2." and was given instructions to make a split that evening so the bees were queenless before putting in the queen cell.

I got into the one hive after work - which ended up taking up the rest of the daylight hours. They weren't a happy bunch and at first I was trying to find the queen so I could put her and some brood in a hive themselves - and put the queen cell in the now queenhouse hive. Couldn't find th queen, so took some capped brood and bees and put in a hive. I didn't get to the other hive to make the split.

Got the queen cells and put the one in the now queenless hive with capped brood. I took one frame of the capped brood, put on top of another hive with a double screen board and hoped for the best. This was done on May 22nd and I'm not supposed to get into the hives for at least 3 weeks.

I don't know how things are going, but the "instant split" hive ended up being that the whole hive was using the top entrance. Once the double screen board was put on, all returning bees ended up in the top hive with the queen cell. I had to put another hive on top because they were so crowded. I'm anxious to get into that hive to see if they left the queen cell hatch.

I've never gotten new queens or queen cells before - so I'm anxious to see how things go.


----------



## Dave A.

Today - I saw washboarding for the first time

https://youtu.be/FhF_rF-UX94


----------



## sqkcrk

Today I loaded 20 nucs on my truck and drove around to yards that had dud hives in them and restocked them with good colonies.


----------



## Faith Apiaries

Dave A. said:


> Today - I saw washboarding for the first time
> 
> https://youtu.be/FhF_rF-UX94


Very cool!


----------



## Tim KS

Today I added a second deep brood box to half a dozen hives & robbed a frame with young larva & eggs to add to a hive that's been queenless since my last check a week ago. The queenless hive had built a queen cell but had nothing to put into it......I tore it down and added the pilfered frame. :applause:


----------



## JasonA

I came home and saw lots of bees buzzing around in front of one of my hives. After some research it turned out to be orientation flights. I watched one be hover in front of the hive and then fly up in circles and come back to the hive. Pretty neat in the end but I thought it was going to swarm. In about 15 minutes it was all over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4xa5bDI3CU


----------



## Ian G

Saw my 5th swarm today  but on the plus side caught my 3rd swarm this year! Worked on ant control for my 5 new nucs at my 2nd bee yard.


----------



## julieandwadeshelton

Dave A. said:


> Today - I saw washboarding for the first time
> 
> https://youtu.be/FhF_rF-UX94


THAT is so stinkin cool!

Yesterday I put all boxes aside and started in the bottom box, third frame in I saw my new queen for the first time since this hive swarmed 5 weeks ago. She was all by herself in the middle and stood out.. A surprise to find her without even looking. Didn't get a pic, but she was just so pretty.

I love this new hobby of mine


----------



## Faith Apiaries

Installed my six packages on foundationless frames almost three weeks ago. Measured some newly drawn comb yesterday, 5.4mm.


----------



## hisnibs

Newbie yakking here: After days of rain and cool weather I went to check on bees. I saw one of two hives with a lot of activity. Bees flying, gathering at entrance and climbing on hive. I also saw on this same hive about 25 flies crawling on the top of the cover. The second hive appeared normal. The flies bugged me.

I went ahead and removed the feeders after 5 weeks of feeding in Central Virginia area. I opened the hive for inspection. I saw a lot of burr comb being built up on top frame bars and found what I thought "might be" one or two swarm cells. They were buried in bees so could not see that well. Found the queen, found tons of capped brood. Did not see eggs and larvae or missed it. The other odd thing was that the bees seem to be avoiding building out the right hand side frames, while the left side is crammed with activity. Found the same pattern in the hive next door. Both are drawing comb in the box above added last week.

Anyway, as I started the day panicking, I ended the day thinking I caught the bees on practice flights, thus the activity. I am going back in tomorrow to look again at the "might be" Swarm cells. Since I saw the queen, I am thinking these cells are actually filled with honey. 
I installed SHB traps last week and caught a total of 3 beetles between 2 hives. I did not see any beetles on foundation. 

I learned: I tend to panic when frames are loaded with bees to the point where I have trouble identifying activities occurring on the frames. I used new frame holders today and spent more time observing verses crushing bees with my hands.

Plenty of excitement for me today.


----------



## enjambres

Deleted; double post. See below.

No one should have to slog through my post _twice!_
Enj.


----------



## enjambres

Today I did my third, and final, Snelgrove Board split on my own bees. It takes me a hours to do one because my colonies are so huge. (The one today involved three deeps and three mediums!) Found Queen Iris and got her safely stowed away into a nuc box early on so I could be sure of where she was in the ensuing rumpus. Not sure I got the assortment of deep brood frames exactly right, but when you're dealing with nearly 20 of them in three deeps plus some more in a medium, it gets complicated. I'm sure I got at least three frames with usable eggs, or very young larvae, in the queenless box, so it should work out OK, I expect. Gave the QR part a lot of room below the board. One of the flipper openings on the Snelgrove board- the one I wanted to use, of course - wouldn't work, so note to myself next time: move them all before you've got it in place under a deep and a medium!

Gave a frame of capped brood from Iris to my beloved old Queen Buttercup who is living in a nuc while waiting for her new Senior Apartment to get organized. Saw her, but she doesn't have a lot of bees these days. Her supercedure (taking place below the Snelgrove) seems, from the outside at least, to be humming along but it's too early to disturb it to check for brood. 

Two days ago I went into Queen Fern's upper box (above the Snelgrove) and harvested two frames with cells that went into the queen castle, so I've got two more splits under way, beyond the one over the Snelgrove board. No signs of swarming in the QR part of Fern, so that's good.

Tomorrow, I need to check my fourth colony and probably add a deep to grow out her brood nest some more. That colony has been getting augmented by lost and confused bees begging thier way in during the extended Snelgrove processes. So it's a good idea to work from largest to smaller when planning sequential manipulations.

And tomorrow night my friend's hive, which I am babysitting over the summer before it moves down to FL in the late Fall, will arrive. I got it moved up on to the trailer two days ago, but the nights have been so warm that the silly bees aren't all going in at night. Saturday night temps will be in the low 40s so that should settle the matter and I can bring them here with little loss of bees. Plan to divide that one later next week so I have a QR colony to receive (or donate) any bees that won't fit in the smaller-sized colony that's going to FL. That's all the Snelgrove boards I own, so I hope that's _it _for the season! It should be an easier process since last weekend I went through and did an intial arrangement with the upcoming split in mind.

Bees seem to be doing fine but the season and flow are weird, and blooming somewhat out of order. Haven't seen any signs of swarming in my colonies; using both Matt Davey's technique of opening the sides of the brood nest AND Walt Wright's of checkboarding overhead with alternating full and empty (but all drawn) frames. This season is so out of sync, however, I'm not sure what I see will apply in normal years. 

Staggeringly tired, and resolved to figure out how to avoid having colonies that are so tall in the future. It takes enormous, and unnecessary, effort to move 10-frame equipment in such giant piles. Can't wait until I can pull the top sections off, and have normal-sized stacks, again!

Enj.


----------



## Matt903

Today in the apairy, my 15 year old son told me he absolutely hates working bees, but he does enjoy assembling frames, assembling boxes, painting boxes, bottom boards, and tops. So, I guess I'll take what I can get.


----------



## Hogback Honey

Checked slide out trays again for mite drop while using MASQ. Hive #1 still dropping a huge amount, while hives #2 and #3 only dropping 20 - 30 each. Those nasty little mites are quick when they want to be. 
Looks like business as usual in all three hives, plenty of coming and going. 

Oh, I ordered the wrong size of foundation :-(, so had to re-order the correct size. I went ahead and ordered some unassembled boxes and frames to fit the "wrong" foundation, so I will have 3 "Western" supers, one for each hive, to go along with my Illinois supers, oh well, they'll work.


----------



## NCbeek

Decided to do the first extraction of the year. This year has been a great year for honey. Normally I have one and a half supers to extract by now. This year has provided me with three to four supers per hive. One of which is a deep and two mediums. Anyway, I usually shake and brush the bees then transfer comb from one box to an empty box on the wagon, take the empty off and fill it in the wagon from the next box and so on. Well, with a stack that tall, by the time I get to the lower super, which happens to be the deep, these bees have been shaken and brushed twice already. They are also being condensed from six boxes into two. To top it off, I thought getting an early start was a good thing. Well that's not the case either. More bees at home... Multiple stings and hundreds of angry bees attacking anything that moved, I was not able to finish pulling frames from the lower deep super. They were just too hot. almost couldn't get the top back on for the fray of the attack mode. Waited an hour and went back in with better luck this time. So, I guess what I've learned from this is I've got to find a better way to get these supers off, whether it be fume boards, escapes or something else. Living and learning...


----------



## biggraham610

Matt903 said:


> Today in the apairy, my 15 year old son told me he absolutely hates working bees, but he does enjoy assembling frames, assembling boxes, painting boxes, bottom boards, and tops. So, I guess I'll take what I can get.


Funny, hes the exact opposite of me. I'm like you take what you can get! G


----------



## JasonA

Today I did my first ever inspection bare handed with NO stings. Was nervous until i realized slow and steady was the way. I got one bee under my finger and felt the "buzz" and moved my finger. She happily went one her way. I made my first split into a 5 frame nuc today too. Time will tell how it does.


----------



## Barry

Added a hive from a cutout to the apiary today. Had to access through the living room ceiling.


----------



## Brad Bee

Today in the bee yard, I put the first queens I've ever grafted into mating nucs! I was excited. After doing that and working other hives, I was ready to go swimming in ice water after having my bee jacket on for 4 hours in these temperatures. My ventilated jacket is half as hot to wear as the cotton jacket I started with but it's still hotter than no jacket.


----------



## sqkcrk

Today in the bee yard I sent ten nucs down the road with a friend of mine. Sold them to him.


----------



## lemmje

Barry said:


> Added a hive from a cutout to the apiary today. Had to access through the living room ceiling.


Wow, better than my cutout today. It was in a large, dead tree. The family noticed bees climbing in and out of the tree two weeks ago and when i got there we cut down the tree, split it open, and found one small piece of comb, maybe two inches long by an inch deep. Put as many bees in my box as i could, added a frame of drawn comb, never saw the queen, hoping i got her.

Tomorrow when i bring them home i will add a frame of eggs and brood from one of my other hives so they can start building up, even making a queen if they need.

The family told me that they saw "a lot of bees flying around the tree and go inside last night."

My guess? They have been seeing scout bees and the swarm went in last night.


----------



## Honey-4-All

sqkcrk said:


> Today in the bee yard I sent ten nucs down the road with a friend of mine. Sold them to him.


Anyone willing to cough up information of the price range of nucs in the NE this time of year? 



Received an email from Weavers letting me know we are able to preorder nucs for 2016 right now.

Before you click on the link and read the pricing have yourself a stiff drink or three. 

Best thing I noted on their website is that they will not be shipping any packages this coming year. http://www.beeweaver.com/buy_beeweaver/nucs_italian_queen

*Guess that means my day in the apiary was doing a jig or two knowing another package shipping competitor has called it quits.

Time to start setting goals for next year*.


----------



## Michael Palmer

First cells of the year were ready today. Set up 138 mating nucs yesterday and moved them into the mating apiary. Group 1 done, three more groups to go.


----------



## gnor

Good evening folks –
June 6, 1944, a band of brothers from many countries stormed ashore in Normandy and began the re-conquest of Europe. Let's not ever forget what their sacrifice bought us.
Everything is ready for my first nucs arriving next week. Fired up the new smoker yesterday and walked around the yard puffing smoke at everything. I've been trying without success to source Oxalic Acid in Canada, only to find out today my local drugstore can order it in and at a reasonable price, too. :doh:
HAGO


----------



## Faith Apiaries

gnor said:


> Good evening folks –
> June 6, 1944, a band of brothers from many countries stormed ashore in Normandy and began the re-conquest of Europe. Let's not ever forget what their sacrifice bought us.
> Everything is ready for my first nucs arriving next week. Fired up the new smoker yesterday and walked around the yard puffing smoke at everything. I've been trying without success to source Oxalic Acid in Canada, only to find out today my local drugstore can order it in and at a reasonable price, too. :doh:
> HAGO


http://www.amazon.ca/Savogran-10501-Wood-Bleach/dp/B002NZWY4A


----------



## DPBsbees

Honey-4-All said:


> Anyone willing to cough up information of the price range of nucs in the NE this time of year?
> Before you click on the link and read the pricing have yourself a stiff drink or three.
> Time to start setting goals for next year[/B].


What is it that P.T. Barnum said? I sell my nucs for about half that amount.


----------



## e-spice

Honey-4-All said:


> Anyone willing to cough up information of the price range of nucs in the NE this time of year?
> 
> 
> 
> Received an email from Weavers letting me know we are able to preorder nucs for 2016 right now.
> 
> Before you click on the link and read the pricing have yourself a stiff drink or three.
> 
> Best thing I noted on their website is that they will not be shipping any packages this coming year. http://www.beeweaver.com/buy_beeweaver/nucs_italian_queen


Wow you were joking about the need to have a drink before reading those prices.


----------



## Harley Craig

today I said goodbye to my production colony. I never open my entrance all the way, keep them choked down to where it's packed but they aren't backing up when I was in the yard today and everyone was working hard I noticed there was still plenty of traffic but the entrance wasn't packed so I dug through all 8 boxes and immediatly notices fewer bees and though oh crap and sure enough found 3 frames with swarm cells on them. So I left one frame in the original hive, pulled 2 boxes off and split off the other 2 frames. My flow will be over by the time she mates. I should still get 3 supers worth though so all is not lost. The good out of the deal is even if they choke it full, I will be extracting and putting empties back about the time she's ready to lay so they will have room to move nectar up out of the broodnest for her.


----------



## sqkcrk

e-spice said:


> Wow you were joking about the need to have a drink before reading those prices.


They really sell nucs with drone brood that looks like that? And a feeder too? When I think of a five frame nuc, I think 5 frames, not 4 and a feeder.


----------



## popeye

Maybe getting ready for the flow hive people?


----------



## Barry

Went in today to inspect the cutout hive and see what we ended up with. Jackpot! Nice fat queen with an egg halfway out of her and a nice blue dot on her! Thank you local beekeeper! :banana:


----------



## Harley Craig

absconded package?


----------



## Melpy

Watched my bees while sipping coffee this morning. My newest hive is very active and busy, they've started using their upper entrance some as well as the tiny rear entrance.
My older, smaller hive is getting bigger and more active. They prefer their upper hive entrance but are now keeping a couple guards posted at the bottom. This morning saw lots of bees tumbling from the upper entrance and dropping down to the bottom or ground. I think they were baby bees exploring flying for the first time.


----------



## Barry

Harley Craig said:


> absconded package?


Who knows, only the queen was marked.


----------



## Harley Craig

Barry said:


> Who knows, only the queen was marked.


My guess is she wasn't a 5 yr old queen with all that new white comb, and it's a little early for a package to swarm up there isn't it?


----------



## Barry

No need to guess. A blue dot indicates a 2015 queen. Whether she came with a few pounds of bees in a package or she came alone to requeen a hive, she's a new young queen and I got half of the beekeeper's bees along with her! Someone wasn't minding the store. The homeowner said they knew of a beekeeper with a couple of hives just a few blocks away.


----------



## gnor

Woke up this morning to an email that my nucs wouldn't be ready this week. Spoke to my supplier and he's way behind due to the long Winter. Told me he's usually through his first batch of queens by now, but he doesn't think he'll have any until the middle of July now. Didn't hit 50 degrees until the middle of April. I'm usually in tee-shirt and shorts by then.


----------



## Honey-4-All

I had one that I'm sure no one else had.

Was cleaning up mating nucs and heard a rustle above in the trees. Just a bird...... Not an unusual occurrence except that it was a big green parrot. One of those big beautiful 500 dollar ones ( if not more) had decided to pay us a visit. 

Hollered to my son who ran and got a fish net. 

New member of the family is happily eating apples and other assorted treats in its new home. Its in the house in a big old parrot cage that was at the place when we bought it 20 years ago. Good I don't toss anything contrary to what the wife tries to encourage. 

Since we don't know whether its male or female the consensus in the family was to name it "Jenner" until we can decide what it is? :s

Cant find any lost ones at this point on craigslist so its ours "for the meanwhile.":applause:


----------



## mountainmanbob

Would like to join in here. The wife and I took a look into our 2 box hive. The second box is a newly added box with frames that are not drawn out. Looks like the bees are inspecting and cleaning these undrawn frames. Located our queen and she looked to be doing her job. 

Going to a local bee supply store this morning so as to buy a feeder. Thinking that with some feed the bees will build the comb out much faster.

This (at this time) is a very gentle hive. I can take peeks inside with not much response from the bees.

Mountainmanbob


----------



## Michael Palmer

Made up group 2 mating nucs (138) in the pouring rain. Fun, fun, fun.


----------



## Amasa

At twilight the bees were busily trying to cool everything off two days ago and, yesterday at dawn they were still at it. We had record breaking temps so decided to pull the inspection board in the evening to see if that would help get a better breeze flowing through the hive and, it did. Tonight I had my face inches away from the entrance trying to peer in (I like watching them) when I felt a brief warm sweet breeze from a lone bee giving it her all trying to cool the hive.


----------



## Colobee

The grass is 12" tall, again. It's been too wet to mow. They are forecasting rain through the weekend. 

One very strong hive was bearding recently, no doubt because they had plugged off the upper entrance, and most of the lower - with propolis. I slid the super back 3/4", and goo-ed an entrance reducer (large opening) across the gap with the new golf ball of propolis. They settled right back in within an hour.


----------



## zhiv9

Had a friend visit me in the beeyard. A large dragonfly holding a honeybee it had just caught landed on her arm. The honey proceeded to sting her before the dragonfly flew off with its meal.


----------



## gnor

I had bought a couple of camp chairs for the bee yard, and yesterday, I wandered up there and just sat, doing nothing. It was hot, windy, overcast, with a touch of rain in the air. The tall trees were whipping around like crazy, but there was only a nice breeze on the ground. Nice for bees, if they ever get here. I'd been sitting there for a while, contemplating my empty hives, when I looked around in time to see a big old **** crossing the yard, not too far away. "Hello," I said. I surprised the daylights out of him, because he sat up on his hind legs, had a quick look, said "OMG!!" and double timed off into the bush.
I had just cleared the undergrowth out last fall, leaving Pine and Birch to grow, and it looks as if the whole area will be covered with Goldenrod come August. It's a foot high, now, and growing well. I thought about how stuff like Goldenrod and dandelions were considered weeds before beekeeping, and are now thought of as forage. If I'm not careful, these little critters will change the way I think about everything.


----------



## squarepeg

i'm seeing bearding at the entrance on one of my stronger hives today for the first time this season indicating that our spring flow is winding down and we are about to enter into our summer dearth.


----------



## michkel

Tenbears said:


> Today Is a very special in my Apiary, My out yards and my life! 50 years ago today I received my first nuc from my scout master, Mr. George Ackinclouse (A great Man, Beekeeper and leader) To earn my Bee keeping Merit badge. As I worked toward the requirement for Eagle Scout. I became so enthralled with them, I have had them ever since. Sometimes few sometimes many. Always a journey!


This is awesome. I was sad last year when they removed the beekeeping merit badge. 

My oldest son is a life scout, getting ready to work on his eagle project.


----------



## Colobee

The two nucs I made up from the remnants of a failed package (and some Buckfast donor eggs) are in full bloom - 2-3 mediums full of brood & beautiful evenly capped (worker) brood in each. I didn't look too hard for the queens (saw neither), their handiwork was obvious. 

Our main flow is coming on strong. If they'd just stop mowing down all the yellow clover :no: and the sun would come back out!!! 

Edit: The birds or the bees have managed to encourage a nice alfalfa plot off the end of the drive. The sun came out briefly and I found the patch popping. Then it clouded up and poured buckets. We're likely to get a banner flow once the rain lets up.


----------



## michkel

Planned on checking my hive today, but woke up to rain instead.


----------



## Tavery

Last night at sunset, Wife and I were standing in front of five hives commenting on how strong the 'sweet smell' was coming from them, looked up as we were preparing to go home and there was a swarm 50' feet away in an oak tree. Hived the 5 lb. swarm this morning.  Not sure they are even my bees. I am wondering if an apiary attracts wondering swarms:scratch: This is the second like it this year. The flow is on and everything is getting full fast now that the rain has stopped and the heat is on in Missouri. It seems we are entering a second swarm season. First one came early, then it rained, and rained, and rained....now we're good for a while.


----------



## snl

Did some "drive by" beekeeping. Hives all looked good at the entrances.


----------



## Terry C

Today I just sat out in my folding camp chair that is near my first hive location and watched the bees . This is so freakin' cool , the air is full of bees , all 4 hives are foraging well now . I've gotta get off my duff and get that hive weighing tool built , it's a much easier way to see if they're gaining or losing stores . I was surprised at the small percentage of bees bringing in pollen , about 1 in 15 or 20 . But when I saw just how many bees are out there foraging I realized it's actually quite a lot . 
Did a quicky inspection on Sunday , all queens are laying up a storm and all seem to have a good pattern . Time to kick back and let them do their bee thing .


----------



## gnor

Terry C said:


> Today I just sat out in my folding camp chair that is near my first hive location and watched the bees . This is so freakin' cool , the air is full of bees , all 4 hives are foraging well now . I've gotta get off my duff and get that hive weighing tool built , it's a much easier way to see if they're gaining or losing stores . I was surprised at the small percentage of bees bringing in pollen , about 1 in 15 or 20 . But when I saw just how many bees are out there foraging I realized it's actually quite a lot .
> Did a quicky inspection on Sunday , all queens are laying up a storm and all seem to have a good pattern . Time to kick back and let them do their bee thing .


Hi Terry
Just watched a vid of Michael Palmer weighing hives. He puts a bathroom scale on a piece of plywood, then when everything is still stuck together, he tips the whole thing up on a corner and slides the scale under the other side. He then tips it up onto the scale and balances it on the corner. Reads the weight, puts it back, done.


----------



## Terry C

Hi gnor ! I'm afraid that won't work with my set up , my stands are all open under the hive . What I have is a dial type spring scale with a 110 lb capacity . My plan is to have an upright with a lever hinged on top , the scale hangs from it . There will be a chain attached to the bottom of the scale with a hook that will catch under the handle to lift . This way I can lift the front then back and add the two for a total weight . That will work up to a total hive weight of around 200+ pounds , when they get heavier than that I have a lever arrangement designed to double (or triple) the capacity . I need to stop by the steel supply tomorrow while I'm in town running errands , I have stock on hand but it's not really well suited to this task . Owning a machine shop makes many things a lot easier ...


----------



## MariahK

Inspected my hives today, the one that was queenless and then requeened has brood again, I was super happy to see. My brother in law came out to see my inspecting. He was amazed how calm the bee's were.. I'm just glad I was working the nice hive. I tasted my bee's honey for the first time it was very good, gave my brother in law a taste too.. Feeling more confident every day, although not always with the pissy hive, but that may have been the queen issues so I may give them a pass for there bad behavior. But I don't trust them. The nice hive I am very at ease with and could work with out protection I have no plans of doing that but I really think I could they are just super calm and very busy!


----------



## mike martel

I had a pleasant day. Clean up supers and set out two swarm traps. My koi fish came out after spending three days
hidden under the stone ledges. The bees come to the sandy beach i made for them. A few weeks back I made two
nucs. I gave one to a neighbor beek down the road, as he lost his hives last winter, this evening. His wife was so pleased 
to have bees again. Aint life grand ! But oh boy i hope they don't come robbing .


----------



## Colobee

Got a slight break of sun. Refilling feeder jars. Got into one of the strong hives. The bees were drawing sunflower yellow wax as opposed to the more usual cream/light yellow. I've seen it before, but not that often - kind of cool 

Rain, rain & more rain. I _finally_ heard a forecaster mention "Monsoon".


----------



## mountainmanbob

My son showed up so as to do some early morning weed wacking for me.
We sneaked a little peek into the top #2 box.
No comb drawing yet but, bees seem to be inspecting and cleaning? 
MB


----------



## biggraham610

Went into 4 nucs the calendar was telling me should be close or laying. 4-4 made it home safely from mating flights and are laying solid patterns of eggs from what I could see at dusk last night. Good Day. G


----------



## Thershey

Our flow is quickly drying up with no rain in sight. Today I'll be adding reducers and robber screens. May also add some frame feeders to the young colony's that need to draw another box to get through winter.


----------



## JellyBee

Making Sugar syrup to feed my bees, after my new "young" Amish Mentor does an inspection this afternoon. Both my packages killed their marked Queens, and both had 2 virgins in the boxes. We are eagerly looking for eggs. I called the gentleman that I picked up the packages from and he said that he has had numerous calls about them killing the Queens in this shipment only. What do the bees know that we don't?


----------



## Pete O

June 5- Performed a last chance inspection for brood in H2- none. It’s a very nasty hostile hive. Have placed a queen order through the Fat Bee Man.
June 10- Installed new queen in lower deep of H2.


----------



## bdouglas

Learned bees can't swim today. I left a Mann Lake top feeder uncovered while inspecting and about a dozen girls tried to take swimming lessons before I noticed.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Made up group 3 mating nucs. Another 138 with one more group to go. First queens on the 21st. A week late this year.


----------



## squarepeg

michael, do you arrange your mating nucs any certain way to help so many queens find their way back to the right one?


----------



## sqkcrk

bdouglas said:


> Learned bees can't swim today. I left a Mann Lake top feeder uncovered while inspecting and about a dozen girls tried to take swimming lessons before I noticed.


Was with a friend when he dumped two or three pallets of hives into a canal in an orange grove. We jumped in and started pulling out equipment as fast as we could before things sank. Picked up a cover with a bunch of bees on it and there was a queen. Jokingly said we should raise queens from this one because she knows how to swim.


----------



## biggraham610

Just a drive-by at the farm yard on the tractor today. Bees bringing in tons of pale yellow pollen, covered from top to bottom. Staghorn Sumacs are now covered in bees as are our White Clover fields and Chestnut groves.


----------



## skosma

I checked on 3 splits made with swarm cells. While I was in the parent colony I found 4 more swarm cells that I missed a few weeks ago. I had the opportunity to watch them emerge from theirbm cells. It was cool watching them, and putting them in their new homes.


----------



## David LaFerney

Yesterday actually. I've been hosting weekly apiary sessions every Saturday morning since early April - open to anyone who is interested.

7-8 Participants this week (I think) We inspected 2 colonies with honey supers above excluders. Inspected for general health and queen status as indicated by brood - not every frame by frame and not searching for queens. Upgraded 2 mating nucs to larger setups. Marked some drones - once using a marking tube, and once with just fingers, just to show how marking works. For once I did it pretty well during a demo - usually I fumble. Lucky this time I guess.


----------



## Beekeeper23

Trying to add more photos






L






.








The first pic is while working, second is about 5 hours later, lastly the hive.

While at the hives last week, 3 frames were taken from my center hive. Not sure if someone is really upset with me or just a prank/dare on someone else's part. The inner cover was pretty heavy when I realized what was going on I just closed it up and waited on my shipment of another outer cover. With plenty of frames/drawn comb and frames with starter strip I felt pretty confident I could handle this on my own.

Once opened, I rested the inner cover onto the feeder box, replaced the missing frames and added another box with carrying drawn comb and frames with starter strip. Gave the hive sugar water w/HBO to jump start more wax production and I am slightly worried how many bees (nurse) may have perished. I lifted the inner cover and tried to upright it (the goal was to lift and have the length work with me heading up vertically and not horizontally, needless to say this was a very windy day too. I could feel it leaning right and the first comb to the right broke off, with the others leaning to I turned the direction of the lean hence the way it sits now. I really did not want. To band all of this comb into empty frames as populated as it was knowing nurse bees are pretty insistent to stay with their purpose of duty. 

Right now I do worry about the attraction this maybe to wax moths, mice, etc., that I may have doomed my hive anyway. The most positive is the hive and both others are full of bees. Added another box to the other two. 

I was pretty nervous yet not one head butt today or sting. All in all three hives are thriving.


----------



## biggraham610

That's terrible. Sounds like someone wanted a nuc and didn't want to pay for it. You did all you could do, I wouldn't worry too much, It looked like those combs were enough to fill the frames. The bees will fix it. G


----------



## MariahK

Looked at top entrance instructions went to Home Depot to pick up some wood tomorrow I plan to build them and install later this week when I do inspections.


----------



## DanielD

Checked a split today that made it's own queen and found very young brood. So rewarding to see that. The queen was hatched about 18 days ago. The second split off the same hive doesn't look like the queen made it. No sign of it and no eggs. The cells came from extras in the first split. I will combine in a week if there's still no sign of a queen and try again later. I started with one strong and growing hive and plan to split as much as i can and winter them in an old house.


----------



## michkel

Went up at dusk to check on the bee entrances. (I love to watch them come in at night) For the first time ever, I saw my bees washboarding. So neat.


----------



## VickyLynn

Checked all four of my hives yesterday. Added a deep to one that had filled out its first deep. Rearranged a few frames in a honey super so they'd not neglect the empty frames. Some drone comb on the bottom of one of the super frames. One super was full of new white comb full of uncapped honey - so beautiful. Very nice bees, gently humming (one can really appreciate pleasant bees after having an aggressive, inhospitable one like one of last years hives).


----------



## Chris Muncy

Loaded up my 2 hives with 1 1/2 gallons of syrup to last them through the tropical depression coming through. For thanks, one of them stung me in my eye brow. So you might say I'm no longer a virgin. First sting of being a beek.


----------



## Michael Palmer

squarepeg said:


> michael, do you arrange your mating nucs any certain way to help so many queens find their way back to the right one?


I have 4 groups, widely separated. Each group has 4 circles of 8-4way, for 32 mating nucs per circle, or 128 per group. I'm also running 4 groups of 2 way with 20 nucs per group. Those are far away from the main mating area.


----------



## phyber

found out that I don't care how cool/tough/macho someone may feel in the bee yard without protection...stings to the forehead and neck suck!

Also, dishgloves + mechanix gloves = perfect. I could watch the bees stinging their butts off (literally! lol) and I'm still able to type this post!


----------



## Colobee

7 of 8 hives I'm feeding stopped taking it with the main flow erupting.


----------



## enjambres

Today, I'm inside because it's raining (thank goodnees, we really need it!) but _yesterday_ I checked on all my hives.

In my second Snelgrove split I have two frames with queen cells (a onesie and one-and-a-quarter-sie). I decided to leave both in the split rather move one to a queen castle since the second queen cell on the one with two doesn't look too viable, so essentially I only have two cells in there. I really expected more, so I must have misjudged the egg/larvae ages on what I thought were good candidate frames. Or they have already made and torn down a lot more. There was some evidence of that possibility. Anyway I'm leavin' it up to the bees. I also checked all the boxes below the Snelgrove for any signs of swarm cells, and saw nothing. 

Late last winter I asked for help to learn the technique of just tipping the ends of the boxe up for swarm-cell checks. And I got several helpful replies. It was on my to-do skill list for this summer and I'm happy to say that armed with the comments I got here I tackled it and now do it all the time. So much easier than pulling frames. And contrary to my anxieties, I haven't had any slip-offs. Many thanks to BS for this!

Afterward that I checked the progress of split from last year, and added a deep with some moved-up brood to get them drawing it out as I am on a draw-the-deep kick this year.

Then I checked on a hive that superceded and happily found a huge, fat, new queen in possession. And she's been laying up a storm for at least four or five days judging from the brood stages. Buttercup (the parent queen of this hive) is separated and awaiting her new digs. She is only doing so-so. But at least she's still hanging in, for now.

I admired my first Snelgrove split from the outside, but didn't bother it since I expect to poke around in it for queenrightness on Wednesday, the 24th day. The two bonus splits from this hive that are in the queen castle are really rockin' so I'm hoping there's a good new queen above the board, for me to keep. I'll know on Wednesday - it's like waiting for Christmas, when you're five!

I looked at my friend's hive that I am babysitting for the summer and they seem to have settled down nicely after their move to my yard.

Commercial beeks with hundreds of hives will laugh at my exertions over such a paltry few hives. But it's a big deal to me to feel llke I know what I need to do, can get it done, deal with the unexpecteds that always arise and feel, at the end of a days' work, that my colonies are all in good order and progressing well. I haven't forgotten the bewildered and frustrated sense of panic that marked my first summer.

Enj.


----------



## GSkip

Busy at work today but I did have an interesting weekend. The gentleman that got me started with bees last summer called Friday and stated he had something for me if I could come get it. He gave me three NUC's which were packed with bees. He was a good friend of my dad's before he died and has really helped me through my learning process. Got the NUC's home Friday night and into brood boxes Sat morning. Went out to check the new bees about 5 pm and found a swarm in a pear tree about six feet from my hives. It was getting too late to try and gather them so the plan was to get them in the AM if they still there. Sunday morning they are still on the tree limb hanging about 2 inches from the ground. Placed one of the empty NUC boxes under them with some brood, pollen and honey frames and cut the small limb they were on. Got them housed and left them under the tree for now. I will move them to stand when they are strong enough to go into a brood box. Have not noticed any population decrease in my other hives, hope this was a swarm from outside my yard. 

Free bees are always great but three NUC's and a caught swarm all free is a bonus!!!!!


----------



## snl

GSkip said:


> Free bees are always great but three NUC's and a caught swarm all free is a bonus!!!!!


. 

Yes, you got a super bonus! Good for you!!


----------



## michkel

I checked my hive today and found my bees eagerly filling up the super. 4 frames looking like this.








I wanted to make sure the queen had some place to lay, so I quickly inspected the top brood chamber and found almost every frame wall to wall brood. (with some honey on the outer edges) I checkerboarded some undrawn frames to give her more room to lay. We are in the main flow, and I don't need my queen feeling cramped.








Lastly, as I was closing up, I saw nectar transfer happening on the inner cover, so I had to take a picture.


----------



## GSkip

I pulled six supers today from my hives, only two were full and completely capped the others had several frames filled each. Finished with seven gallons of honey! I'm happy with that. Now to get them to the fall flow.


----------



## michkel

I checked on my split today and noticed the 2 queen cells are capped. The queen must not have mated well, or something is wrong with her, because now they are superseding her. There are very few eggs in the split. Now I have to stay out of the hive for another few weeks and hope for a well mated queen this time. I also refilled their feeder while in there.


----------



## mountainmanbob

Due to recent robber visit, I switched from outside mason jar feeder to inside feeder. Got a little sloppy with the sugar water. Gezz! 
MB


----------



## Michael Palmer

Gave cells to the last 144 mating nucs, set up yesterday. what a nice group, in a clover field knee high with blossoms. Just don't look over the hedgerow. Vermont Maximum Security Prison. k:


----------



## snl

Pulled 26 medium supers from the apiary, took them back to the honey house (garage) to extract. Managed to get 16 supers extracted, the rest tomorrow.......I'm pooped!


----------



## Michael Palmer

After celling the nucs, we returned to the cell building apiary. Re-established the 4 cell builders that gave cells that morning, by giving them a body of emerging brood above excluder...from the brood factories located on the far side of the apiary. Robbing has been horrid in this apiary until today. A little shake, so a bit of a flow is re-starting. Hoping for warm weather soon. Sumac, vetch, white dutch, and trefoil coming on nicely.


----------



## squarepeg

Michael Palmer said:


> I have 4 groups, widely separated. Each group has 4 circles of 8-4way, for 32 mating nucs per circle, or 128 per group. I'm also running 4 groups of 2 way with 20 nucs per group. Those are far away from the main mating area.


understood michael, many thanks.


----------



## biggraham610

Lost a swarm. They had plenty of room to grow, and the open mated queen had really just taken off. Well, she left me a nice fat swarm cell. Hope the mating flights continue to be productive. So Far, 8-8. G


----------



## Tommy Hodge

Added a frame of eggs and open larvae to two queenless hives today. Both had new virgin queens on or around June 4, not sure what happened. Here is hoping they raise a couple good queens if they are truly queenless.


----------



## squarepeg

finished bottling up the last weekend's batch of honey (2 medium supers) and set a new record yield:

7.125 gallons and 3 big spoonfuls


----------



## DanielD

My hive from last year's mid September swarm was found queenless and broodless last Monday.  I first thought I killed the queen 3 1/2 weeks earlier when I pulled the first split off of it. After a little thought, I determined a swarm would equal no brood in three weeks, though I thought I was watching for swarm prep signs, but assumed there would be no swarming going on with the split taken so I quit being concerned about it and left them alone for a while.
Found early brood and eggs today. :applause:

I need to learn more about swarm prevention.


----------



## Cloverdale

MariahK said:


> I really am not proud of this but as your the only people who will hopefully laugh with me here it goes... I was out by the hives in the evening watering my plants, my dog was wondering around A
> and somehow tripped me causing me to bang into a hive hard, of coarse it had to be the the pissy hive. **** things shot out like angry rockets which caused me to run for cover. I could feel a sting on my arm during my retreat. And hear them on the back of my shirt, which half way across the back yard I ditched, and ran into the house topless much to my daughters enjoyment, they watched the whole scene, and were on the floor laughing. I only got one sting and so did the dog, on his nose. But after I suited up to make sure I didn't topple anything and retrieve my shirt. I found the hive was ok, my shirt had at least 6 angry bees in it. I don't think a single member of my family will let me live it down and my husband just laughed and said "you wanted bees"


Been there, done that!


----------



## snl

MariahK said:


> ...... And hear them on the back of my shirt, which half way across the back yard I ditched, and ran into the house topless much to my daughters enjoyment, they watched the whole scene, and were on the floor laughing.


Got pics? :lookout:


----------



## gnor

Still no bees. Buying local does have its drawbacks when we are coming off the worst Winter in years. I'll call him Monday to see where he's at.
Made up a couple of robber screens, mostly to deter skunks until I can get the fence up.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Caught 116 nice fatties today, from 148 mating nucs. Got my numbers wrong in previous posts. Memory challenged. Rained this morning so used a canopy. But, the "dry slot" came through, it stopped raining, and the rest of the day was excellent. What a crew! 7 of us, and they were bringing me queens so fast I couldn't add attendants until I cried Uncle, and they took a break so I could catch up.


----------



## gnor

Spoke to my supplier this morning. Hawaiian queens are all gone, and the first batch of local queens won't happen until July 6. This is almost a month behind schedule for him, and I'll have to feed like crazy to get them drawn out and up to weight for Winter.
The good news is that these are local girls that already know how to overwinter here. What I lose on the swings, I gain on the roundabouts, I guess.


----------



## michkel

Gave some more sugar water to my split. Inspected the super on my main hive to make sure they still have room, which they do. Spent about an hour just sitting there watching the bees.


----------



## Melpy

http://oi62.tinypic.com/2ypkkjm.jpg
I attached a sugar jar yesterday to the bottom of my hive hoping to attract my bees to use the lower entrance since they get so congested every day all trying to squeeze through the two upper hole entrances. They drank up the entire quart in less than 24 hours!!!! I'm considering whether I should add another jar for them?? Is it bad to feed bees during the summer? Even if they are that hungry for it?

My two hives: http://oi59.tinypic.com/azcexe.jpg

Left Hive: http://oi57.tinypic.com/fdyef8.jpg
This one seems to be really big in colony size, every frame covered in bees, so I added the top box with a queen excluder, this hive is really docile and I didn't have to use any smoke. Haven't seen the queen before but the hive seems really healthy. They don't use their top entrance at all really, but I leave it open because I figured it helps with air flow.

Right Hive: http://oi61.tinypic.com/2cx69as.jpg
Opened it last week and saw the queen and lots of good looking brood, even watched some baby bees hatch from their combs, it was amazing!!


----------



## Faith Apiaries

Getting over confident in the apiary today...no smoke, no protection, stung three times. No reaction at all from two of them. One is a little sore but not even swollen.


----------



## biggraham610

I do it all the time, dont worry a dearth is coming, then you will change your tune.


----------



## julieandwadeshelton

Melpy said:


> http://oi62.tinypic.com/2ypkkjm.jpg
> I attached a sugar jar yesterday to the bottom of my hive hoping to attract my bees to use the lower entrance since they get so congested every day all trying to squeeze through the two upper hole entrances. They drank up the entire quart in less than 24 hours!!!! I'm considering whether I should add another jar for them?? Is it bad to feed bees during the summer? Even if they are that hungry for it?
> 
> My two hives: http://oi59.tinypic.com/azcexe.jpg
> 
> Left Hive: http://oi57.tinypic.com/fdyef8.jpg
> This one seems to be really big in colony size, every frame covered in bees, so I added the top box with a queen excluder, this hive is really docile and I didn't have to use any smoke. Haven't seen the queen before but the hive seems really healthy. They don't use their top entrance at all really, but I leave it open because I figured it helps with air flow.
> 
> Right Hive: http://oi61.tinypic.com/2cx69as.jpg
> Opened it last week and saw the queen and lots of good looking brood, even watched some baby bees hatch from their combs, it was amazing!!


Beautiful boxes!


----------



## phopkinsiii

Melbourne, FL 6/23/15
I moved 3 frames of brood from my strong hive to my weaker one today. The weaker hive had lost their queen. The new queen is just starting to lay and they were down to too few bees. 
There was a fair amount of drone brood on one of the frames that I moved over. I didn't bother to destroy it because the stronger hive was getting agitated and I wanted to get it all closed up. I hope that wasn't a mistake.
I may split the stronger hive. Even with the empty frames I replaced the brood frames with, it's pretty crowded. We're coming into a summer dearth, so it may not be the best time for a split.


----------



## Melpy

Thank you Julie!!! I have some new ones I need to paint up too.


----------



## Amasa

It's 5:30AM and I'm out at the sick hive to see how it's doing after I had sealed the entrance the night before so it could be moved in the morning. It's been really hot out so I worry about baked bees. I must have missed just the smallest of spaces because the foragers figured out how to get out and, were now butting against the front of the hive trying to find a way back in. I thought, if they were left behind the new hive might treat them like robbers. I felt awful. I grabbed a spritzer bottle of sugar water and, a mason jar to collect the confused bees by plucking them from the hive by the wings then gently putting them in the jar so they could be taken with away with the rest of the hive. 

I must have been quite the sight.


----------



## mountainmanbob

Amasa said:


> I grabbed a spritzer bottle of sugar water and, a mason jar to collect the confused bees by plucking them from the hive by the wings then gently putting them in the jar so they could be taken with away with the rest of the hive.


That's a nice touch taken. Yes, this new again to bees beekeeper has made a few mistakes here early on. I understand, we hate to lose one little bee. Especially, due to a mistake made on our part.
MB


----------



## Ian G

As I pulled in the driveway tonight, I thought I saw a broken branch from the storms that rolled through the other night, but it didn't look right. As I got closer I realized it was a huge swarm (yes one of mine... AGAIN)! Lucky for me their weight dragged the branch to about 1 foot above the ground. So far they seem happy in their new digs, gave them a frame of honey from another hive.
image link


----------



## AHudd

I thought swarm season was over here. I was wrong. As I was walking past my hives I saw some bees circling a pine sapling. Sure enough, when I looked up I saw what looked like two swarms, side by side.






I thought, surely not, as I had never seen this before.
All the while I was getting everything together, I was wondering how I was going to shake one while not disturbing the other, but by the time I got everything together they had merged into one.








This was the first time I have ever gotten a swarm out of one of these pines on the first shake.

Alex


----------



## jay.landry

Inspected my 2 month and 1 month old hives yesterday afternoon. Both are doing great. Older hive has filled both deep brood boxes and has built comb on 1/2 the frames in the medium on put on a week ago. Newer hive has a good laying pattern and alot of capped brood. Pic is of the newer hive.


----------



## David LaFerney

Almost ready to harvest honey - it's looking to be a better year than I expected it would be a month ago. Regular rains have really helped.

Several hives have either swarmed or superseded by now, but I'm seeing very high success rates with queens all around. Almost all hives have successfully requeened themselves.

But dang it sure is hot...


----------



## squarepeg

David LaFerney said:


> But dang it sure is hot...


yep.

brought in 2 supers this morning before 8:00 am, it's shaping up to be a decent harvest year here too david.


----------



## JRG13

Amasa said:


> It's 5:30AM and I'm out at the sick hive to see how it's doing after I had sealed the entrance the night before so it could be moved in the morning. It's been really hot out so I worry about baked bees. I must have missed just the smallest of spaces because the foragers figured out how to get out and, were now butting against the front of the hive trying to find a way back in. I thought, if they were left behind the new hive might treat them like robbers. I felt awful. I grabbed a spritzer bottle of sugar water and, a mason jar to collect the confused bees by plucking them from the hive by the wings then gently putting them in the jar so they could be taken with away with the rest of the hive.
> 
> I must have been quite the sight.


some foragers stay out all night, could've been them returning.


----------



## DanielD

Today the bees are eating stores instead of storing. It's raining once again. So far since Saturday night we have had 20 inches of rain here, 9 1/4" during the night Monday-Tuesday. My 1 3/4 acre pond is starting to run over the dam a little bit, but it only has a foot of free dam at normal full height.


----------



## Amasa

I wondered about that too, JRG13. Ultimately, it was all for naught because another bee keeper took a peek inside the hive before carting it off to the new location. :geez:


----------



## Faith Apiaries

I may be breaking the rules because it wasn't today but this happened Thursday. I got four new colonies on Thursday. I picked up the NUCs about 90 minutes drive from our place, got home about 10:30 PM and placed them on their permanent bottom boards. We were done about 11 PM. They are now in ten frame deeps, the four frames from the NUC and six foundationless frames. We'll be checking on them tomorrow to see how things are going.

So now have ten colonies!


----------



## Gypsi

This morning I observed that my very hot hive has moved some bees next door. When I brought in the hot swarm I put a queen excluder over the bottom board to keep the queen and her drones in. They haven't permitted inspections, or much of anything else, but have a new ventilated suit and it is time to look and see just how bad they are. I believe they are putting up mesquite nectar as they haven't touched the feed jar I painfully installed on Friday


----------



## Tommy Hodge

Checked for queen cells in two hives that I added eggs and larvae to on June 18. Both hives were apparently queen less. Both had capped queen cells! Wahoo! Check back in 2 weeks for eggs...!


----------



## JasonA

Found the new queen in the split I made on June 6th. Hopefully she is laying by July 4th. Found a 1 capped queen cell left in the top box. Made a nuc split with that cell and 2 frames of bees and brood from another hive.


----------



## beepro

Inspected my 3-way mating nucs last night. Took some night pics for the
record. And added 4 more foundation frames into another crowded hive to be drawn out. We are having a steady flow despite the late Spring dearth now. 
Thanks to the 2 big veggie gardens just 5 minutes, bee flying time away. Don't know where but they got 4 frames fill up with the yellowish pollen already. 
Cannot wait for the virgins to take their mating flight and the Cordovan queen that they tried to supersede to produce more queen cells for my nuc expansion. 
I have never seen so many bees before. This is a very good bee year for me!
Thanks to the moth worms my one frame no grafting project is a step closer.

My prized Cordovan/carnis local mutt queen pics:


----------



## biggraham610

Checked production hives for progress. 3 mediums 90% capped apiece on single deeps. Good year. Went back in questionable mating nuc and found it indeed queen-less, will combine tomorrow. First failed flight of the year. 9/10 not bad. Pull honey and make last splits on the 4th. Clover fields booming, first round of staghorn gone. Second on the way.


----------



## Lonestarbees

That's what my husband always says too!!!


----------



## mountainmanbob

We have a little property here. A friend who I met here on this site is going to do a cut out bee removal today. It looks like he will be bringing them up here so as to keep for a while. 
Mountainmanbob


----------



## Michael Palmer

What a nice catch yesterday. Group three. Eight of us...some employees some observers...some finding queens, some running the comb with the queen to me. So fast there were two or three in line to have me catch their queen. Had to get help putting attendants in the cages after I marked the queens. And to boot, it didn't rain! 133 caged from 148 mating nucs.


----------



## Melpy

A couple of pictures from the photoshoot this afternoon

http://i60.tinypic.com/e05pp1.jpg

http://i62.tinypic.com/f06w79.jpg


----------



## Matt903

Today I set off robbing in my yard by checking some nucs, which were fifty yards away from my production colonies. I wasn't even feeding, just popping tops and looking at frames. It happened so fast it was like nothing I had ever seen, suddenly there were thousands of bees in the air attacking the nucs. It was even late in the evening. Worried that it would continue the next morning, I loaded 17 nucs in my truck and moved them. From now on I am having a separate nuc yard. Lesson learned.


----------



## Michael Palmer

A couple photos from queen catching day sent to me by Richard Reid of Blacksburg Virginia.


----------



## Ian G

Was setting up some new hive stands in my other yard in preparation to move some hives tomorrow. I was about 10 foot in front of a few other hives and one of them nailed me in the ear. That was my first ear sting, they definitely hurt more than the hands and wrist.


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Finished building 80 medium frames! 

Ordered another 100 that I'll have to build.


----------



## Amasa

Every day I pull the inspection tray to get a sense of what's going on inside the hive and, one of the things I've been doing is collecting the pollen to try to learn what they're foraging for in my area. There was a lot of bright yellow pollen peppering the tray for over a week while the False Dandelion has been in bloom, but that's all gone leaving only a few chunks of dark grey green pollen from a flower I haven't identified yet. At this time of the year it would normally be the light grey of blackberries, but they're all but finished, and I'm seeing ripened fruit on the vine a full month early. Everything in our region is far too early and, the weather has been incredibly hot and record breaking dry. 

This morning, when I went to put the tray back in, I saw two wasps enter the hive only to be immediately kicked out. I quickly made an emergency entrance reducer out of cardboard and stuck it in place until I can build a robbing screen. 

Looks like my first dearth has arrived.


----------



## Colobee

Built a half dozen 8F bottom boards from free hardwood pallets, and assembled the first dozen ( Mann Lake) 8 Fr. Med boxes. Stained with Minwax "Golden Oak" & sealed with Linseed Oil - they look "honey stained" - I like it.

The swarm I picked up _*off the neighbor's lawn*_ appears to be queenless after 2 weeks ( not surprising). Added a frame of eggs.


----------



## fntsyfan

Today I did a 5 day check on a Russian Queen introduced to Italian bees. Looking good, no eggs yet but I'm hopeful it will be a different story next week.


----------



## Ian

Last weekend sever weather brough hail and high winds which totally destroyed a swath of crop 6 miles wide 20 miles long. Hail stones the size of hardballs... Our farm missed the majority of the destruction but received severe damage on 10% of our crops. Luckly I only had one beeyard within the path of destruction. The crop damage was so bad I had to move the yard out because nothing living had flowers... the yard went from heavy flow to NO flow.


----------



## gnor

> Hail stones the size of hardballs...


Yeah, I had a pickup hammered up Roblin way one Summer. I moved to Ontario after 44 years in Manitoba, and I could safely say: "No, you don't really get thunderstorms here."
Really nice website, BTW.


----------



## Knisely

Today was a day for growing the apiary. 10 queens from way out west in Roy, WA made their way by mail out east, and two underperforming 10 frame double deep Langstroths got broken down into 5 frame nucs. On assessing what I need to do next: Bang together more frames and boxes for these new colonies, and get my extracting done, as the way those bees were acting made me think we may be entering a bit of a dearth in New Haven, CT. Happy Independence Day, everyone.


----------



## Colobee

All that spring rain is finally paying dividends. My best production hive has 3 mediums, capped ( ~ 100lbs). Added all but 3 of my remaining supers. Time to dust off the extractor. The 5 over five nucs are almost all drawn out.


----------



## fntsyfan

Trying to go foundation free in the brood boxes. But the bees keep wanting to build the comb from the bottom up.


----------



## rolftonbees

Had a good trip out there. I have 7 hives. Had to go on a cloudy day as I had put it off way too long. Only one hive was grumpy. 

Checked all hives for possible honey bound status, for queen right status and to see if they needed another super, disease, etc.

All but one new hive seems strong and is coming along nicely toward enough winter stores. One seems a bit weak in numbers, but has a lot of brood, and honey I think they swarmed while I was out of town.

Another box was pretty full and backfilling with honey. They had done little with their super in terms of filling compared to others. I stole two frames of honey from them and gave them two new deep frames on each side of the brood area, but in from the walls. 3 and 7 They had capped brood, but I did not notice worms or eggs. Will check for queen status again soon. 

The rest all looked pretty good and I need to get frames ready for a couple that should get another super soon. In a couple of cases, I just stole a couple of frames and replaced with drawn comb from last extraction to give room until I have supers ready. 

I collected 4 deep and 5 medium frames of capped honey all together. I did not get into monster hive boxes as it started raining. They have room in supper and I pulled a frame in top deep and got a peek. They had room on the frames I saw, but I will check them further in a few days. I want to make a decision about splitting that large box to get another hive off of them, or two. 

Was glad not to find pests or signs of major problems. It am optimistic that of the 5 I started this year, I will get a couple more that make lots of honey for next year. It is encouraging that some of them have filled out a deep (tops and sides of brood frames and the outside frames) as well as a full super, and I got to take two frames from them so far. 

I have taken 6 gallons from one of last years two hives. I need lots like that one. I am a crappy gardener and organic gardeners love to trade for honey and eggs.

This past week, I had one of the kids putting boxes together with glue and screws. They now have two coats of paint with extra attention given to end grain areas as instructed. You cannot even see the x in the Phillips screws. YES!

The other kid will get a lesson in putting frames together with a tack hammer and glue. Perhaps some wax inserting with a staple gun. This one likes to turn the crank on the extractor. I will have to continue to pretend to fight for the job. LOL


----------



## biggraham610

Pulled a box off each of my 2 production hives Sat. They were still working on capping the next. Heavy. Extracting tonight after work. G


----------



## Terry C

Today I built more medium supers , because late last week I put all but one on the hives . Tomorrow I'll be building frames and wiring them and adding starter strips of foundation . So far , two hives have one medium and the other 2 have two . One hive is doing well on it's own , the other 3 are getting infusions of 3:4 sugar/water syrup to help stimulate comb building . All are building nicely , and I'm very optimistic about them having stores to make it thru the coming winter . I may even get a medium frame or two of honey from the strongest hive . Looks like I''m positioned nicely to both make increase in number of hives and get a honey crop next year .


----------



## Amasa

Added a second deep super last week. Tonight I went in to see if I needed to feed them again and, sure enough they have gone through 2kg of sugar mixed to 1:1 in four days and the feeder needed to be filled. They have begun to draw comb in the second deep, but they're filling it with nothing but sugar. I don't see any evidence of pollen, or brood in the second box. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and I hate it.


----------



## Colobee

Made up a dozen 8 frame inner covers out of mostly scrap wood. Final cost ~ $.60 each (I have a full wood shop). Ferguson Queens ETA, 2 days.


----------



## Cloverdale

michkel said:


> This is awesome. I was sad last year when they removed the beekeeping merit badge.
> 
> My oldest son is a life scout, getting ready to work on his eagle project.


I agree. I am still going to offer some VERY basic beekeeping to local scouts, our future (hopefully!)


----------



## Cloverdale

Colobee said:


> Made up a dozen 8 frame inner covers out of mostly scrap wood. Final cost ~ $.60 each (I have a full wood shop). Ferguson Queens ETA, 2 days.


Lucky you! How did they work out last year?


----------



## phopkinsiii

July 8, 2015
I split my stronger hive today. They weren't ready to swarm-no queen cells, pretty good brood pattern. I did this because I'm moving them to TN in 10 days, and the nucs will be easier to lift by myself. Plus, I think they'll overwinter better this way.
I gave them each at least one frame of open brood and the rest pollen and honey. This queen has never been particularly prolific and I'm hoping one of her daughters will be.
Whether they can raise a queen and go into the winter strong enough remains to be seen. There should be a secondary honey flow going on right now through the end of September. A lot will depend on the rain.
I found the queen and placed her in a 5-frame deep nuc over the one honey super that they had about 1/2 full of capped honey but no brood. My thinking is that she'll eventually fill this with brood and I can split it off early next spring. I hope eventually to go to all mediums. That's going to take some time because all my brood boxes have been deeps. Right now, I'm using what I have. I put robber screens on all of the splits. As you can see, my bee yard is very small and all the boxes are within a couple of feet of each other. I also put some colored shapes on the fronts to help prevent drift. 

Queen Right 5-frame nuc over medium with honey. There's a cloud of orientating bees flying around, but there's too little light to pick them up on my iPhone camera.


One of the nucs ended up light on bees so I left the entry doors open with the hope that some of the foragers will orient to the nuc. It's the box on top of the queen right nuc. Tomorrow evening, I'll close it back up, move it to it's permanent residence and leave it closed for a few days.

The other nucs, I left closed. Langstroth recommends three days and that's what I'm going with. I put two hive top jar feeders on each nuc, one with water and one with 1:1 syrup. The syrup probably wasn't entirely necessary as they ended up with at least two frames of honey and one with pollen each. It's very hot here so the water was a must.

Two other 5-frame nucs, one with entrance to the rear. Both have robber screens which I'll leave closed for 3 days to prevent drift.


I put out some Ultra-bee feed as our honey flow is drawing to a close until the Brazilian Red Peppers fire up in August. Initially I used a plastic cup. The bees weren't too interested in it, but they didn't have much time to find it because the squirrels loved it. I got this 10# chicken feeder with "squirrel preventer" to see if I can get at least a little of it to the bees. From my experience with bird feeders, there's not much that will keep a hungry squirrel away from a free meal. The most I've ever been able to do is slow them down a little.



The last photo is my weaker hive that superseded their queen. They had a Russian Queen that was a very poor layer, and the bees agreed with me. I found capped queen cells on July 2, so the virgin queen should emerge today or tomorrow and fly early next week. I'd prefer that she did her mating flight in TN as my experience with F1 crosses has not been good so far.

Weaker Hive with Virgin Queen (Capped Cells, July 2)


----------



## Colobee

Cloverdale said:


> Lucky you! How did they work out last year?


This will be the first year for both 8 frame & Ferguson Buckfast. My "Tejas" Buckfast have settled right down, after most superseded (due, I think, to 2 months of almost non-stop rain this spring). Perhaps they sense the impending change of leadership?

Regardless, I'm anxious & hopeful that the Fergies will work as well as the Tejas' have in the past.


----------



## Cloverdale

Colobee said:


> This will be the first year for both 8 frame & Ferguson Buckfast. My "Tejas" Buckfast have settled right down, after most superseded (due, I think, to 2 months of almost non-stop rain this spring). Perhaps they sense the impending change of leadership?
> 
> Regardless, I'm anxious & hopeful that the Fergies will work as well as the Tejas' have in the past.


I tried to get on their list for queens but didn't work out. I really like the Buckfast bee; hopefully next year I'll try again and get a few. The rain really messed with my hives, not too much honey this Spring. Again, keep us posted on them.


----------



## Knisely

Amasa (post #182): You're doing right by your bees. Your colony will need to have a place to expand into, and your bees are creating it with your assistance. Trust me, you will be happy you have the drawn comb in the future, when you need to expand your broodiest (next spring). The bees may be storing sugar water there now, but well-drawn worker combs will be the source of your worker bees in the future, when your colony needs to expand its brood nest up into that super, or when you start to checkerboard early next spring.


----------



## gnor

Spoke to my supplier, and he's just now caging up his first batch of queens. I'll be going up Saturday to pick up my nucs. I was told to buy local bees, and these just happen to be Buckfast bees, so hopefully they will be worth the wait.
Made up some syrup this morning, and spent the afternoon chunking up some trees we felled last year clearing the bee yard. The LOMLACOMDY fired up the trimmer mower and hacked all the weeds down, so now it looks like someone cares.
I've mentioned before how I haven't seen any bees this Summer, but today I spotted a native bee going to work on a pink wild rose. I spent a good 5 minutes watching her gathering pollen and packing it into her corbiculae, and paying no attention to me as I got right in close. Amazing how interesting it was, compared to chunking firewood!:lpf:


----------



## Colobee

'Just got my shipment of Canadian Buckfast. 19 of 20 survived the trip. 

One that lost all of the attendants looked iffy, but appeared to be readily accepted by the queenless swarm I picked up a couple weeks ago. They looked like they were doing a bee "jig" when I introduced her - no aggression, just welcome acceptance. The queen cells they started from a frame of eggs last weekend went right into the last failing package from this spring (drone laying queen). 

The rest of the queens looked pretty good. A handful of "Front Rangers" are each giving a couple a try - looking forward to those updates. Mine will be going into splits tomorrow. It sounds like the weather is going to cooperate.


----------



## Colobee

delete double post


----------



## AHudd

Yesterday, was a Queen hunting day for me. I had three swarms about a month ago and the hive two of the swarms came from that I needed to verify were Queen right. Three of four had varying amounts of capped brood and I did find a Queen in the fourth.






































But, by far, the most interesting thing to happen came as I was closing up a hive I was looking into to see the condition of a wet super I had returned to the hive a few days ago.
I had been adding new strips of micro-fiber to the hives. It was just another routine task going smoothly until I started closing up the hive. After I put the inner cover on, I decided to add a left over piece on top of the inner cover. If any of you have ever handled micro-fiber, you know how it sticks to rough fingers. As I was flicking my fingers to get it loose a puff of wind blew it across the opening of the inner cover and a bee stung it. When the bee pulled away, losing its stinger, bees began boiling out of the hole. I have heard this description used, but that was my first time seeing it. Instantly, the air was filled with angry bees looking for something to sting. I was so surprised, I dropped my tools on the ground, stepped back and put my hands way down in my pockets. Things happen quickly with bees.
I was very proud of my jacket and veil that day and glad I had my smoker lit. After a bit of smoking they calmed down and started going back in the hive. I walked away at that point and drank a bottle of water before returning to put on the outer cover.
I always wear a veil and jacket and after yesterday any thoughts of going Macho will not even be remotely considered for me or any guest.

Alex


----------



## rob6118

Hi all, first post in this thread. In the last month my first son was born (Noah 3.37 kg and 50cm 






), and I also made quite some progress with the local municipality which has agreed to let me expand the emplacement at the municipal drainage pond. I'm planning on cutting out all the hay, replacing it with white and red clover, and planting phacelia and lupine on the steep banks and next to the hedge rows to ease my maintenance next to the hive stands and to increase forage.

Last weekend I showed the hives again to the children of friends, we located the queen this time, and as a result I made a split with her + 1 frame of eggs + 1 frame of capped brood + 1 frame of pollen & honey + 1 frame of capped honey in a 6 frame nuc. Then since the super is still being drawn (foundationless) I just stole a single deep frame to crush and strain yielding 3kgs of honey. 

Today I finished the first put of turf removal, enough where I can move the hives onto their new stands and then finish the rest of the emplacement at my leisure over the fall while the girls prepare for winter as well. I've been checking the alighting board of the split for foraging and noticed 2 bees fighting and two others covered in honey and bits of wax. Suspected robbing so I covered the board in straw and sure enough saw 10-20 apparent robbers trying to find their way in at the back of the hive and through the SBB after 5 mins. Did I read that right? Took a quick peek inside and they didn't seem distressed so I hope the straw is enough to calm things down and once the brood emerges they will be strong enough to take care of themselves? I also reduced the 3 production hive entrances down to help avoid robbing as well.

I am a bit disappointed at the lack of honey this year, but try to keep in mind I started all three hives in August last year, on all foundationless frames, superceded a queen this spring, and all the hives are now full. I guess I should be happy with 3 double deep hives, 60+ frames newly drawn, not having to feed as I'm leaving the full hives alone with their honey etc (30kgs per hive in stores is essentially the average harvest here so logic that they wouldn't make much in addition while drawing all the comb). I might take another frame or two when I make my last split this weekend of my other strong queen, but otherwise will let them bee for winter and plan to aggressively expand next spring hopefully with capped honey reserves to spare and finally a reserve of drawn frames (definitely my limiting factor this year which made swarm control and spring expansion more interesting than necessary). I still have lots of homework for the rest of the year finishing the work at the emplacement, sourcing black and carnolian queens, and ordering or trying to build all the additional equipment I need for next year (will try queen grafting, mating nucs, additional overwintering nucs + the additional deeps and supers I'll need).

Best Regards,

Rob


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Picked up a nice 3-4 pound swarm. Hived them in our home yard and they are already settled in!


----------



## Cloverdale

Rob6118 Congratulations to you and your wife on the birth of your son. :-D


----------



## snl

I just drove on by and waved to them............ it was 102!


----------



## biggraham610

Finished building boxes tops and bottoms last night. Made up a half a dozen nucs for mated queens. Some just arrived and some on the way. (Thanks Bob and Johnny:thumbsup. May make a couple more off of my production colonies tomorrow, depending on what it looks like in the supers. The unusual amount of nicely timed rain has kept the nectar flowing pretty freely. Down to white clover for main source, but the 5-6 acres I planted last fall are a lush white carpet and paying dividends to not only the bees but the fawns, turkey poults, and the rest of the various wildlife in mind during planting. G


----------



## gnor

The Bees are here at last! Big, fat, beautiful, Buckfast girls! The queens are already big and long and fat, ready to go to work the moment they are released. I went up mid-morning, but he hadn't got my nucs ready yet, so I helped him pick the frames. Two frames of capped brood, 2 frames packed with stores, and a few more bees shaken in for good measure. The girls are an absolute pleasure to work with. We were bare handing the bearded bees back into the box, and even after I clumsily dropped a frame on the box, they just responded in alarm, but not aggressive at all. I did put my finger down on one of the girls, and got stung for my trouble, but I'll give her a Mulligan for that.







I set the nucs where the hives will be, and stacked the hives in the middle for now. I will transfer them in a few days, once they have released the queens.







The nuc boxes are screened on top, so I made a temporary rain/ventilation cover that also keeps the sun from beating in on the queen cages.







Aren't they lovely? They start out hovering back and forth, facing the hive, then ever increasing circles, higher and higher. Eventually, the crowd around the nuc thinned out, and it looks as if everyone is settling in just fine. They were after the candy plugs the moment I set them down.


----------



## fntsyfan

Today I was outside the bear fence looking at a few blueberry bushes a good 10 feet from the hives when 1 of my girls decided to land on the bridge of my nose and give it a good sting. Dang that smarts!


----------



## JasonA

Went today to check for brood in my walkaway split I made on June 6th. This is what I found.
















Here is the queen!


----------



## Colobee

'Got the rest of the Fergies installed, & the new bear (hot wire) enclosure finished. The big boar ( 42" x 400 lbs) paid a visit to a neighbor down the hill a couple nights back. She complained on the neighborhood forum that he got into the trash that she left out the night before, again...:lpf:

One of the Buckfast hives I borrowed brood from had a lone supersedure cell. They were a tad honey bound. Gracias! 

I had about a half dozen "testy" bees after getting way down into three (with no smoke). They forgot about me after 20 minutes of absence. All the recent rain is extending the strong main flow. It's SO NICE having gentle bees again!


----------



## Lost Possom

Moved 4 hives to black oil sunflower field yesterday. There were bees already working them. Lots of ferrel bees on them. Wasnt sure they would work them but feel better after seeing every head of sunflower with bees on em.


----------



## phopkinsiii

JasonA said:


> Went today to check for brood in my walkaway split I made on June 6th. This is what I found.
> 
> View attachment 19884
> 
> View attachment 19885
> 
> 
> Here is the queen!
> View attachment 19886


Jason,
Nice queen? How long did it take for her to start laying that beautiful brood?


----------



## phopkinsiii

The swarm that I captured 3 days ago flew away. Actually, I think that they drifted over to my queen-right hive. There was a cloud of bees around there and the colony seems a lot more crowded today than before. If that's the case it wasn't a total loss. Other than the fact that I got some free, young bees, I learned something about capturing a swarm. First, I didn't use a sheet under the box that I shook the bees in. This wasn't a clean shake because they had moved into a birds nest that was awkward to shake out. Many of them ended up on the ground. If I'd had a light colored sheet I probably would have seen the queen, and/or she would have made it into the box on her own.
One of my 4 splits failed to produce a queen cell, so I put the frames with brood and all the bees into another one that did have a cell started. I'm hoping that at least one of these succeeds in raising a queen.


----------



## Amasa

Knisely said:


> Amasa (post #182): You're doing right by your bees. Your colony will need to have a place to expand into, and your bees are creating it with your assistance. Trust me, you will be happy you have the drawn comb in the future, when you need to expand your broodiest (next spring). The bees may be storing sugar water there now, but well-drawn worker combs will be the source of your worker bees in the future, when your colony needs to expand its brood nest up into that super, or when you start to checkerboard early next spring.


Thank you. It's just I'm thinking things should go this way, but they're going that way and my focus/expectations at this point is aiming to have lots 'n' lots of fat chubby bees that'll survive the winter. I was listening to a really good talk on summer splits which is helping me reframe how to get them there.


----------



## JasonA

Phopkinsiii I saw eggs on July 4th. So I would say almost 30 days


----------



## gnor

Day 2:
After a showery morning, it cleared up nicely, and the girls got to work. They were bringing back huge loads of nice orange pollen, and the odd load of white stuff. Unlike most years, there is no water laying around, so I set up a water pail with a styrofoam float in case they needed any water. There is always a heavy dew here, so they will have some each morning.
I took a peek under the rain/sun shield to see how the queens were doing. I suited up, because I didn't know how the guard bees on top of the screen would react. I needn't have bothered, because they completely ignored me. There's only a quarter inch left of the plug on the one cage, and I can't see the queen on the other one. I'm going to hive them up tomorrow, because we have some rain coming, and I will want to get some feed on them.
One solitary girl washboarding, and I admire her persistence. In spite of being pushed around and climbed over by the arriving and departing bees, she kept at it with admirable fortitude for over half an hour.


----------



## frustrateddrone

Planted 6 grape vines to go up the 4x4 posts that have sun sail shade on them. I put 2ft high fencing around them so the rabbits don't eat them.


----------



## MariahK

I did my second cut out today, hived them in a top bar. It should be a fun new experience. It went very well, towards the end we swathe queen at convinced her and her friends to crawl on my husbands hand and take a ride to the hive where she happily crawled off onto a frame. She was a beautiful dark queen. We ended up with about 4 super sized pieces of fully capped honey, the hive seemed very healthy and gentle. The brood that died when we cut the comb I checked and saw 0 mites on any which surprised me. I peeked in the window on the hive and bees are happily attaching the frames in to the hive and look to be festuning on an empty bar....I guess they are wasting no time setting up shop.. pretty good week did 2 cut outs in 1 week, now have 4 hives..


----------



## gnor

Day 3:
Hived up the 2 nucs today. Both queens had been released, but I didn't see them, because the bees are several layers thick. Not much room to lay so far, as there are 3 frames of capped brood, and they have backfilled everything else with nectar. They have room now, though, and they will have plenty of help in a few days. I'll have a peek under the cover tomorrow to see if they are taking syrup, but I'll have a closer look on Friday.
Don't know why I bought a smoker. I suited up and lit the smoker to move them, but I didn't need to. Puttered around all afternoon in a t-shirt, and was ignored. I kind of feel left out.


----------



## GaryG74

Checked on a swarm trap I brought home last Friday. There had been bees in it for about three months. I couldn't get in touch with the land owner, who said they would call me if bees moved in. There had been a death in the family and the wife had been in and out of the hospital. Very gentle "Italian" looking bees that probably came from one of the two bee trees in their yard. Because they had been in the trap hive so long, they had built on the bottom of the deep frames. Comb extends 8-10 inches below the bottom of the frames. Luckily the trap was about 20" deep so they had plenty of room. I moved them into 8 Frame equipment, deep holding the six frames over a deep with one frame each in the #1 and 8 position. I'll give them a couple of days to settle in then go in, cut the comb, rubber band it into deep frames, and let them get ready for winter. Lots of brood, nectar, and capped honey. I'm hoping for some good feral genetics.


----------



## michkel

Week 2 of adding brood/eggs to my queen less split. I got lucky and my main hive had 3 capped queen cells. 1 queen cell was on a frame loaded with eggs, so that is the one I moved over.

So with some luck, my split won't be queen less for long. They had started to make queen cells from last weeks frame too, but this one is capped and should hatch soon. (Dark in color)

My main hive has plenty of room, so hopefully they are just supersedure cells and not swarm cells.


----------



## Colobee

The new "queen annex" is all set - the queens are out & the feeder boxes are on. I set up a~10'x20" expansion area north of the "behind the garden" enclosure. 'Just another 40' x '20 to clear, level & enclose - maybe next week?...

Our big goofy "Mast-ador" (Mastiff/Lab) was romping around and brushed the hot wire. Now I know it is _really_ working - he yelped & made a "bee-line" for the house. Poor guy!


----------



## Michael Palmer

Special day yesterday. Grafted into the last 4 cell builders of the year. Long busy season and I'm glad it's done. Hooray. Total for the season was an average of 45 cells from 52 cell building colonies. Nice queen catches with the best totals ever. Over the last 3 weeks we've made 350+ nucleus colonies. Should finish with that tomorrow or Friday, and then it's on to re-queening production colonies. After a miserable June and hints of a poor honey crop, the weather has changed, the flow over the last two weeks has been exceptional, and the supers are full. Boom. Even the comb honey supers put on two weeks ago are drawn and puffed out, just needing to be capped. Only one thing to say about this season so far....Ka-Ching!


----------



## rookie2531

Congrats on the season Mike. I went from 3 to 27, from a few grafts and a couple walk away splits. Could have been better, but cant complain too much. I sold my strongest nucs to help justify my initial investment. I now have 20 that are starting to build up strength. I could do a few more, but think I will just concentrate on getting more comb now. Next year should put me in the black.


----------



## rkereid

Michael Palmer said:


> After a miserable June and hints of a poor honey crop, the weather has changed, the flow over the last two weeks has been exceptional, and the supers are full. Boom. Even the comb honey supers put on two weeks ago are drawn and puffed out, just needing to be capped. Only one thing to say about this season so far....Ka-Ching!


What a difference two or three weeks makes! At one point you were wondering if the comb supers would even go on. Just shows as beekeepers you have to be ready with equipment. If you have to stop to build boxes and frames, you missed it. Really glad it worked out.


----------



## LynnY

Congratulations! I am brand new to it so this is great to read.


----------



## fntsyfan

started the season with 1 pkg of Italian bees, week 2 added a purchased production hive 1 deep, 1 medium, 3rd week picked up a nuc of blackish bees. The more I read the more interesting it becomes. week 6 split production hive and added 2 new queens both took well and are into the capped brood stage. This last week has been so good the package filled 8 of 10 foundationless frames with comb and the queen has it full from side to side top to bottom. I added a super so now it has 2 deeps and a super. now I'm second guessing and thinking I should have put a 3rd deep on to have honey frames that could be shared to the other hives come fall.????


----------



## Amasa

I decided to try and move a couple of frames of brood up to the second box after seeing about 5 frames of sugar, much of it capped, in the second super with only a spot or two of pollen. The used equipment they came on needs be replaced. It's gummy, sticky with wax/propolis and a lot of force is required to get a frame back in place. I'm not looking forward to this because I'm always worried I'm going to crush some bees. Today when I pulled a frame I uncapped a few white pupa (drones) just by lifting the frame from the box. I don't like hurting my bees. I cry when I do.

I scraped away the burr comb from the bottoms of frames in the top super and moved it out of the way to begin cutting away the burr comb they had built on top of the frames of the first box. Then one by one I pulled frames to try and see where things stood (I always feel so clueless!) I'm seeing capped workers and drones, eggs still on end, larva in various stages of development, and a few baby bees chewing their way out of their cells. Everything looks healthy. I had decided I wanted to photograph each of the frames during inspections and so this had to be the time to drop one. I think what surprised me the most was in the midst of the chaos, and the sickly smell of something not like bananas, was not a solitary bee tried to sting me. I had a few bump my veil, but the rest just hung out on my jeans looking a little lost. I ended the inspection early leaving the last three frames untouched, but not before I switched two frames of brood for some undrawn ones moved down to the bottom. What a mess.


----------



## RayMarler

I have 8 - 2 story 4 frame nucs, and 2 - single story 8 framers. That's a total of 10 hives or nucs, with 8 frames each. All of these are deep frame boxes.

I went out today and marked all 10 queens, I only had one that was a problem to find, she took a second look, later, after all others were marked. She was in a single 8 frame box. 

Two queens look to have Cordovan genes in them, one is in a two story 4 frame and the other is in a single deep 8 frame. 

Found one queen to be a runt, and another is a non-performer. Both of these are in 2 story 4 frame nucs. I will be using these to pinch the queens and use as resources to nuc 3 queens that I have on order, that should arrive sometime soon.

I put apivar strips on all ten.

This all took most of the afternoon, I can not stand long without taking a break, and it took me 4 working sessions to get all the work done. next Time I check them, in about a week, I'll be adding pollen sub to them all.

They all have 1 or 2 or 3 combs that are not all drawn out yet, I've been feeding syrup for the last 6 weeks or so to get more combs drawn. Looks like I'll reach my goals for the start of winter this year. My syrup mix I'm using now is 2 quarts of sugar in a 5 quart jug, with 1 table spoon vinegar and 1 teaspoon of Mannlake's Bee Pro-Health essential oil concoction added.


----------



## Lauri

I had a little time to do something other than sweat and slam out frames...
It's queen condo time 










Burned and waxed:










WIth light weight insulated polycarbonate lid:










It could be used for mating nucs, but I plan to hold mated queens in it on occasion. When mating nucs are FAT, there's a delay in shipping (Usually due to hot temps) and I have cells or virgins to place. 

http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/pp340/tweety4926/2015 bees/P6110353_zpsjv8lugwm.jpg

If they work well, I be making more this winter at my leisure. I enjoyed the chance to be a little creative for a change, instead of fabricating out of immediate necessity.


----------



## fntsyfan

Did a quick check on Russian queen NUC. 3 of 5 frames mixed capped brood, larva and eggs. did see the queen running around a frame in the bottom box. Thinking I want to steal 2 frames from a booming hive and give the NUC a boost.


----------



## rkereid

fntsyfan said:


> Did a quick check on Russian queen NUC. 3 of 5 frames mixed capped brood, larva and eggs. did see the queen running around a frame in the bottom box. Thinking I want to steal 2 frames from a booming hive and give the NUC a boost.


That's an excellent idea considering fall is just around the corner.


----------



## Amasa

Lauri, how do you find the burnt boxes (is shou-sugi-ban?) hold up over time? Do they wear better than other methods?


----------



## gnor

Did an inspection of the 2 new hives on Saturday, with my mentor present. Still didn't find queens, although the bees don't seem to be upset at all. First hive had some drawn comb cleaned out, but didn't see eggs or brood. Second hive is drawing comb and backfilling with nectar. I will look again tomorrow, and maybe call my supplier if I don't see brood. Mind you, these are young queens only a week away from mating.
Once again, put my finger on a bee, and got stung for my trouble. Had a really bad reaction, so I will be wearing gloves from now on.


----------



## fntsyfan

So I opened my package hive today that has been doing awesome and I find a bunch of queen cells. Some in the supercedure area and some in swarm area. I know they use what's available for emergency. Last week I had eggs this week I have queen cells about 10 all together. Not sure if she left or if she died. Did not see her today either way.


----------



## fntsyfan

I hope whatever new queen emerges has time to mate good and prepare for wisconsin winter.


----------



## Barry

A reminder, this thread is not for general discussion or to ask questions.


----------



## Gypsi

Went thru 5 hives today, split the hot one. robbed about 8 Illinois medium frames of honey (not up to suiting up to check the box on the porch between telescoping covers)


----------



## Miss Marianne

That is a great story! Congratulations Master Scout! Your Scout leader left you a legacy with his knowledge and love of bees.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Found one queen to be a runt, and another is a non-performer. Both of these are in 2 story 4 frame nucs. I will be using these to pinch the queens and use as resources to nuc 3 queens that I have on order, that should arrive sometime soon.


I ended up not doing this. The queens arrived today, and I just went through all hives and removed enough frames to make up three 3 frame nucs to introduce the queens into. I removed the attendants from all the three queen cages and intro'd the queens, alone in their cages, to each nuc that I'd made up. The bees all seemed glad to see the queens, I'll be checking on them in a day or two.


----------



## gnor

Came to the conclusion that the 2 colonies had killed the new queens and were going about the business of making their own. Made arrangements yesterday to pick up a couple of replacements, and knocked down all the queen cells. There's no brood left, and no queen cells, so today they may be in a better mood to take my advice and accept a new mated queen.
My mentor visited yesterday. His bees seem more interested in swarming than making honey, so he's pretty well run out of nuc boxes at this point. Mine, on the other hand, are doing nothing BUT storing nectar, and I wish they would draw some comb and start making babies.


----------



## mcon672

Yesterday I started a massive robbing frenzy in the apiary.  I was doing inspections and moving frames around between hives. Had more than one open at once when it started. They started on the two I had open so I closed them up, reduced entrance, and did the wet sheet thing. The robbers just moved down the line to the next hives. I tried smoking the crap out of the whole area, enough smoke to run an old lady out of a poker parlor, but it didn't work. No water where my hives are so I took buckets over and tried to simulate rain. This went on for two hours and then our daily monsoon hit and slowed things down. Last night the robbing was calming down a bit but two hives were still battling with the robbers. Lots of dead bees laying around. Pretty helpless feeling when it's going on. Going over in a few minutes to see if it has started back up or if the robbers gave up. Looks like I need to make robber screens. The strength of the hive didn't seem to matter, they attacked them all. I did see some knotweed starting to bloom yesterday so I'm hoping once a little nectar is available this will stop. Just when you think things are going good....


----------



## gnor

Sorry, wrong thread. Is there a way to delete posts entirely?


----------



## VickyLynn

Yesterday I combined two nucs that I had made from a hive with swarm cells on June 27. One of them had a queen return, mated - the miracle is that I actually saw her - she is beautiful, amber and long. There were lots of eggs but none had hatched into larvae yet. I was concerned there might not be enough nurse bees to cover them. The queenless nuc was full of uncapped nectar and a recognizable queenless roar. Used one sheet of newspaper with slits and put a newly extracted comb in each nuc for them to clean out. I didn't see any apparent fighting, and there should be enough bees in there now. Some of them will have to change jobs, lol.


----------



## Cloverdale

RayMarler said:


> I ended up not doing this. The queens arrived today, and I just went through all hives and removed enough frames to make up three 3 frame nucs to introduce the queens into. I removed the attendants from all the three queen cages and intro'd the queens, alone in their cages, to each nuc that I'd made up. The bees all seemed glad to see the queens, I'll be checking on them in a day or two.


Hi Ray, why remove the attendants? Deb


----------



## gnor

Drove up to Berwick and picked up a couple of queens. Placed them in the hives this aft, and the mood changed almost instantly. No more moping around on the porch – everyone had a purpose. No more Nasanov Glands; just go and bring nectar. Everyone knows where they live now, and what to do.


----------



## GaryG74

I had a split I made the end of April have a robbing scenario two days ago, put on a robbing screen and went back to check it today about 2 PM. Saw fire ants all over the place under the hive. I looked closer and saw the ants were grabbing and hauling away SHB larva. Upon closer inspection, I saw the larva crawling out of the hive. I got suited up, opened the hive and found a mess. SHB larva and a few wax moth larva in and over three frames of brood and stores. Put the worst frames in a trash bag, put it in the freezer to kill the larva, checked the remaining five for larva and put them, with the bees, into a nuc. I didn't see the queen so I don't know if she died during the robbing or what. When I checked the hive about three weeks ago, everything was fine. I must have missed a critical indication that something was wrong. Just goes to show how fast SHB can slime a hive. I'll check the nuc in a day or two and see what I need to do.


----------



## BEES4U

7/22/2015.
Topic: LAYING WORKERS and My Home Made Double Screen Board with a 4" circle. 

I was pulling queen cages 16 days ago and observed laying workers in a strong nuc that have been busy laying their typical egg patterns, multiple eggs/cell. I have four Italian queens in my Queen Bank and I thought about adding two frames of capped brood and a queen after the bees were shook off the frames about 50' away and I had a 2nd thought which was to give the nuc two frames of open brood including eggs. I checked the nuc 5 days later and I did not see any emergency queen cells. Added another two frames of open brood that had 1/2 of the frame capped. Checked for emergency queen cells in 3 days and none seen. Added another frame of open and capped brood and checked for queen cells. Checked today, observed no Laying Worker activity-no multiple eggs/cell, and 6 queen cells. The queen cells are not high quality in size and they were cut down.

7/23/2015. Today I will change out the 1/8" hardware cloth and staple plastic queen excluder on both sides of their Double Screen Board. The bees have access to a June 2014 queen in the hive body on top that covers 5 frames.

Regards,
Ernie


----------



## Colobee

Found 7 of 9 new queens progressing on schedule at 10 days. No queens, and capped queen cells in the other 2.

Put triangular escape boards on yesterday afternoon and pulled 6 capped mediums this morning. About a dozen bees hadn't escaped. 

Brushed up against the hot wire in passing - DANG THAT HURTS! At least I know it's still working.:lpf:


----------



## gnor

I watched the bees begin their day yesterday. The nights are cool here, so it takes some time for the hive to warm up and the cluster to break. It's hard not to attribute human behavior to them, but I know just how they feel. They walk out onto the porch rubbing their eyes, and you can almost see them yawn and stretch. Some sit there and warm up in the Sun for a few minutes before beginning work. Others do a nice grooming before they take off. The first flight always seems to be a bit wobbly, compared to later in the day, when they take off like rockets.


----------



## fntsyfan

Yesterday I stopped to check on things and noticed alot of bees comming and going from both the fron and the back of my #1 hive. Got down on the ground to peek under and found that a large group of bees are clustering and building comb on/under the bottom board. Assumtion is that a new queen took a mating flight returned and some how unded up under the hive.


----------



## GaryG74

Checked my nuc today that came from the SHB infested hive. No queen and only about 100 bees in the nuc. It's a goner, no use trying anything else with it. Also checked another hive that had gone queen less in April. I had put a queen cell into the hive, she emerged and had been laying but is gone now. There were a few drone cells capped but no eggs or uncapped larva. I figured the queen has been gone about three weeks. Put a frame of young brood from another hive in this hive. I'll check for queen cells on Monday. There are still lots of drones around right now so I think there is still enough time for a queen to emerge, get mated, and start laying. Just hope the robber flies or dragon flies don't get her.


----------



## RayMarler

I released the three queens yesterday that I had intro'd in cages Tuesday. And as always, feeders are kept full for drawing out comb. I'm no longer using any essential oils in the syrup though. I've decided it does not help, I still have to treat varroa with Apivar, so why feed the EO's.


----------



## BEES4U

Credit:
Egg-laying Worker Bees
By Khalil Hamdan, Apeldoorn, The Netherlands

Add unsealed brood: In order to prepare a colony with laying workers to accept a new queen, the status of the egg-layers must be changed. This can be achieved by adding a frame of unsealed worker brood and adhering nurse bees every week for three weeks. They will start queen cells by then. At this point a new queen can be introduced or let the bees raise a queen. Bees making queen cells may be willing to accept a new queen. When introducing a new queen make sure that she is not released from the introducing cage for at least 3 to 4 days.
The pheromones from the workers brood inhibits the ovary development that has taken place in the laying workers and provides stimulus for the laying workers to refrain from laying eggs. This increases the chance of queen acceptance by the colony.



7/24/2015.

Cut down emergency queen cells in the laying worker nuc, changed out the Double Screen Board with a Double Queen Excluder Board. I lifted a cover on the top queen right nuc 20 minutes later and I could see that the bees are passing through the two excluders and filling in the frames with a 2014 queen. Checked back at 70 minutes and the upper queen right nuc covers 8 frames without fighting. I will let these bees work together for 7 to 10 days and check them for progress.
Regards,
Ernie


----------



## JRG13

Finished introducing my 7 Old Sol queens yesterday. 3 caucasians, 2 premium, 2 standard queens are now in nucs. Will check Monday for release. Made notes while pulling nucs for the new queens, definitely time to get some Apivar in the hives. Had 3 Broke-T queens from last year, really haven't done much this year, but I'll give them this, they looked better than some of the boomers which are under mite duress now in terms of brood quality and counts, this is not to say they have a higher bee population though. Was able to pull a nice 3 frames from each to get the last 3 queens hived up. Probably time to start feeding some as well to keep hives brooding and building up for fall.


----------



## hisnibs

Today one of my hives is unusually active. The activity began after I added syrup to a top hive feeder. My bees are facing southeast. They normally leave the hive and travel that direction. This evening I have bees flying in every direction away from the hive and back to the hive. They seem to be edgy as they are darting around different objects and me as I walk up on them. It is slightly cooler than it has been in central Virginia. I looked for signs of robbing but I didn't recognize any obvious signs. But the activity seems to be focused on the top entrance / vent which is directly under the top feeders. I am wondering if the hive bees, themselves, are just trying to get to the syrup. I am going to reduce the main entrance tomorrow morning. I will also take a peek inside and try to determine if any damage exists from robbing. I picked up some hardware cloth this week so will add to the top entrances as a robber screen. 
I just had my second hive swarm this week. I replaced the existing queens and cut out swarm cells. I put some VP Queens in. It's been a busy week for my hives.


----------



## hisnibs

Oh, almost forgot... Bought an Oxalic vaporizer today as well.


----------



## RayMarler

Checked through all 13 nucs today. The 3 queens I released two days ago are doing well. One has laid up all available space, one has laid on one side of one frame, the other is just starting and needed feed, they were dry. Added a frame of open nectar from a different nuc in the yard. All looks good so far, drawing wax as I'm still feeding a quart every day to every other day.


----------



## NeilV

Last weekend, I found 2 hives without queens. I had one hive set up with a swarm that I caught earlier this year, and I did a combine of the new/swarm hive with old queenless one. I did not have a queen for the other one.

However, I remembered that the swarm trap at my brother-in-laws had a swarm in it. So last night my 11 year old and I went to the brother-in-law's and the 3 of us got the swarm down after dark. I brought it home last night.

This morning, I combined the swarm into the 2nd queenless hive. If all goes well, all my hives will be in pretty good shape. 

Swarm traps and catching swarms can supply an emergency queen and fill the role of a nuc.


----------



## Michael Palmer

RayMarler;1306557 The 3 queens I released two days ago are doing well. [/QUOTE said:


> Well that's good. Glad your 3 new queens are laying and hopefully they'll all prove to be breeding stock.


----------



## fntsyfan

Yesterday I took down the #1 hive to bottom board to fix the bees underneath issue. Cut the comb off the screen and rubber banded it into open frames got it all back together shook remaining bees into hive and closed it up.

Today I have a swarm hanging from a branch in my yard not sure but think It is from the same hive. I would share a picture but I can not get that one to load and the site doesn't indicate why.


----------



## fntsyfan

I managed to get a ladder and a hook catch the branch snip the smaller branch above the hive get down the ladder and box the swarm without breaking my neck.


----------



## Phoebee

Well, this weekend, anyway. Last weekend we split our best hive to make two nucs. We finally gave up waiting for swarm cells and rolled the dice to see if they would produce emergency queen cells. But we never did spot the queen in this exercise, suspecting she was hiding in the donor hive. This is her second year and we really want some offspring from this marvelous bug.

So this weekend I went down to check the nuc we'd placed at a neighbor's home, on top of the abandoned 10-frame from his attempt at raising bees. A quick glance revealed a frame with five queen cells, most of them capped already. And they'd drained a pint feeder.

The next morning I got into the other nuc with high hopes. But no queen cells. So into the donor hive ... queen cells, at least one capped. Back into the nuc, and I spotted Her Majesty. And that's good because I've been told more than once that the donor queen should go into a nuc.

Sure is nice when the bees figure out how to do what I wanted them to do.


----------



## Dave A.

I'm a first year-beek and I do weekly inspections. 

Yesterday I noticed when I pulled off the telescoping covers there were more bees than usual on the top of the inner covers. I run all medium, both stacks are 3 boxes high. I have the standard inner cover, and telescoping cover, but right now I have the telescoping cover's front edge sitting on top of the front edge of the inner cover. I think I read where that gives a bit better ventalition during the heat. This made sense when I read Walt's article on the "attic". So when I saw those extra bees on the first hive, that's what I attributed it to.

When I open the second hive, there were even more bees on the inner cover than on the first hive. That made sense, this is the stronger hive. But, there were enough that I spent a minute looking at the bees on the inner cover. Nothing out of the ordinary, so I set the cover down, leaning it against the hive stand and preceded with my inspection. After a five minutes or so I noticed a lot of bees nasanoving on the landing board, and the top bars.

THE QUEEN IS NOT IN THE BOX

Golly - for us rookies that's scary. I looked again at the inner and telescoping covers - and there is a festoon of bees on the telescoping cover. I put the inner cover back on and I very carefully move that festoon to the inner cover. I wait a minute for the bees to march down inside and put the telescoping cover back on. I check back in 10 minutes - nobody has their butts in the air -- Phew


----------



## Pooh Bear

Dropped a whole frame with honey and bees trying to carry three frames at once. WHAM!! And bees and honey everywhere. That's what happens when you try and take shortcuts. Reasonably certain the queen was not on the frame.

Once the honey spilled, there was a mass of bees in the air so I decided to quit my inspection, put everything back and leave the bees alone for a while. Will go down as one of my stupider actions


----------



## michkel

Checked on a split that had laying workers. I added frames for 2 weeks and they were making queen cells, plus I moved a frame with a capped queen cell over a couple of weeks ago. Looked in it yesterday, and the queen cell is hatched, but no sign of a queen or eggs yet. The other queen cells were torn down. I'll check again in a couple of weeks and see if she's up to speed yet.


----------



## my2cents

Syrup sprayed on the frames will entice them to stay in the super.


----------



## my2cents

I inspected 8 hives today, in a t-shirt, shorts and sneakers! Went to the bottom board. Checker boarded some of the hives. All seemed to have a lot of eggs, uncapped and capped brood. Saw a queen cell, no egg or jelly. Edges looked crisp. I had seen a queen cell on frame # 8 a month a ago but it was no longer there.
Got stung 3 times due to me squeezing bees when I picked up the super or top board.
A lot of stores, and pollen stored. Looking good for the fall splits on 3 of the hives.


----------



## RayMarler

Whew, what a day. Got three more queens arrive today, from a different supplier. These three got here, I gave them a drop of water and let them sit in the dark on a shelf. I was worried, didn't hear any buzzing or see much activity. An hour later I checked, still no activity, so I opened the cages and was surprised at the bad conditions of the queens and attendants. One queen I figured was toast, but saw her moving some, all but one attendant was dead. The other two queens were moving better, but were lethargic and only had 2 and 3 attendants alive, the rest were dead. So, what to do... I moved the queens into brand new never been used cages, and went to the beehives and loaded each queen up with 7 attendants. I then rubbed honey on the screens, and put them back in the house in the dark. BTW, it's hot here today, 104 at the moment and the hottest part of the day is not here yet...

I then went to the bee yard to make up 3 nucs... Eight frame boxes with four frames foundationless and two frames of sealed brood and two frames of open nectar with the bees, and another added shake of bees. Then put on entrance reducers. This all came from 8 or so two story 4 frame nucs I had in the yard. I replaced removed frames with foundationless frames.

I then went back into the house and grabbed the three caged queens with attendants and inserted one into each new nuc, and let them set for an hour that way. After the hour, I went out and brought all three queens in cages into the bathroom, got out my paint pen and my queen muff. I released the bees from one cage in the queen muff, and to my great satisfaction, the queen had revived quite well. I marked her, and returned her to the cage alone with no attendants, and took back out and put her in her nuc. I did the same with the other two queens, and was relieved that both of them also had revived and looked good.

They have now been in the nucs for half an hour without attendants. I'm undecided, I'm thinking of going out to release them now. The bees act accepting of them, but maybe I'll wait until sunset. I'm anxious to release them because the nucs will keep more of their populations with the queens released, but I worry that they may reject the queens... decisions decisions... LOL I'm going out now to check on how the bees look, if they still look accepting of them. I don't think I'll release them quite yet. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, just in case folks are wondering where I got these queens, the first three came from Michael Palmer @ French Hill Apiaries in Vermont, these last three came from Sam Comfort @ Anarchy Apiaries in New York, It will be interesting to see how they fair here in HOT California!


----------



## RayMarler

I messed up. I went out and checked just now, seemed good. The cages I put the queens into are hair roller cages, and I did not put any candy in them, and no attendants. The bees seemed to be trying to feed her through the cage, so I released one on the top bars. She came out, walked forward, a couple bees came near, one climbed on her back, OH NO I thought, she started to buzz her wings to get away, another climbed on, I tried to grab her wings over and over, could not catch her, didn't have smoker lit, lost her, found her, kept trying to grab her, got stung twice (no biggie for me)... I could not catch her in time, they killed her.

I took a frame of brood and frame of honey and put in the nuc I'd made up beside, and took the other frame of brood and one honey and put in the other nuc beside that one, set the hive box on it's end in front of the two hives. I'll not be releasing the other two queens until Sunday at the soonest. Hope they make it until then with no candy. I will of course check for queen cells started, may not release them then, but that's just the soonest I'm going to be checking.

Some times I am such an idiot! inch:


----------



## fntsyfan

Checked on my 2 strongest hives today because I know 1 of them threw a swarm last Sunday, which I caught and are busy making comb today. Any way The hive in question still has a good population of bees but I could not find any eggs, and almost all 20 frames in 2 deeps are back filled with pollen and capped honey. The second hive also backfilling honey and has 4 swarm cells on 1 frame. No eggs no queen seen.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Had a swarm 2 weeks ago caught the swarm brought the remainder home and combined with 2 strong nucs. I then remade the nucs useing the queen cells and a couple frames of brood. While I was outside today one nuc had a bee frenzy must of had some queen action going on. In a couple of weeks I'll have to see if they were successful.


----------



## Tim KS

Raining here this morning as I checked the bee yard. Not a bee in sight except for one nuc that was made about the first week of June. It had a ton of bees clustered on the front of the hive in the rain. They were looking pretty pitiful for being all wet. I wondered why they weren't inside on such a rainy day. I decided to check them later after the sun came out. The two story nuc was crammed full of bees....it didn't look like enough room for all the girls inside so I moved them to a 10 frame deep and added a second deep on top. This evening all looked well again with most of them inside. I'm surprised they didn't swarm out for the lack of room inside.


----------



## GaryG74

Checked ten hives today. This years splits and swarm hives all looked good, most in double deeps (8frame), a couple a deep and a medium, one two deeps and a medium.
One split must be going through a supecedure, saw four or five queen cells, capped and uncapped drone brood. I did not find the queen. She may have been on the bottom or one of the inside surfaces. Lots of bees there.
My queen less hive has started a couple of queen cells on one of the frames of young brood I had put in so maybe the hive has a chance to raise a new queen and recover.


----------



## RayMarler

Checked on the two remaining queens that were new, one dead in cage. The other looked fine. put in large marshmellow in the end of the roller cage as a candy plug. Removed the dead queen from the other one and joined the two. That was this morning. This evening, queen looks good. Bees are calm. Put feeders on all fifteen nucs in the yard. Put Apivar in the last three nucs that now have laying queens.


----------



## Cyan

A decent day I think. Checked the garden hive after adding a 2 gallon pail feeder last week. There's new comb being drawn and syrup being stored, to the point it became necessary to give them a second box. Hopefully the fall flow & weather will be good to us.


----------



## Gypsi

Sold off a hive headed by one of my vsh queens moved into his hive box on thursday, fed a couple of hives.


----------



## RayMarler

Removed a Carni looking queen from a nuc and caged her, no attendants with candy plug, in a JZBZ cage. Took her up the hill here to my Mentee's house to introduce into a queenless box she had. Bees seemed to accept her so slipped the cage down between two center frames and closed it up. I'll be back to her place last week of August to move her 2 hives to my place to care for them while she's on vacation for a couple months.

Came back home and fed the nucs that needed it. Checked through that last of the three queens from Sam Comfort intro'd last week and saw her candy was gone, bees seemed very calm and taking syrup well, so closed it up. I'll check them in a week to find the queen and see eggs.

The hive I removed the queen from for my Mentee will now become a cell builder here for late queens. They had virgin wax combs with eggs in the cells. Pretty populous. I'll check them in a week and see what cells have started and how they look for size. If non are large pretty looking, then I'll destroy and add a frame of eggs from Sam Comfort's queen so I get 2 daughters going before winter here, so I'll have three with his genetics. If the cells look good, then I'll split a few 2 story nucs here and make up mating boxes. Then I'll add eggs at that time from Sam's queen.


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Finished ten more medium supers (and 100 frames) yesterday, then added additional supers to six hives today.


----------



## skidmld

Lots of pollen coming in. I love the way the hives smell. I have 2 nucs with queens that should be making mating flights. Did oav treatments on my 3 established hives, and I will treat the nucs before they cap any brood. That is if I get mated queens. Hoping for a good fall flow. I think I will extract some goldenrod honey for the first time, if I think the bees can spare it.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Our county bee inspector went through my yards recently .... got a clean bill of health. :thumbsup: Always a good thing.

Re-visiting a yard later I noticed that on one of the hives he put the top super back on upside down.  The frames had all slid down and were kind of glued to the top bars in the box below. What a mess trying to get that super off. First time that's every happened to me .. hope it's the last.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Began re-queening today. The colonies to be re-queened had excluders placed between each box on the hive. Today was 4-5 days later. Queens were in box with eggs. Slaughtered the old queen...two colonies had doubles...and located new queens under push/in cages. Did 30 today, 15 more for tomorrow plus 4 more apiaries to exclude re-queens. Honey harvest is next on the agenda. Looks like a good crop.


----------



## MariahK

building hives for 2 cut. Outs this weekend feeding bee's and doing inspections, I combined 2 weak hives today, and had the joy of watching my 17 yr old son get chased by bees. He followed me out for feeding and I told him they were pissy today and to keep back. He said I'm fine then hive B my meanest hive decided they didn't like him. One got him on the calf, and as he flicked her off about 6 of her friends decided to get him. I almost wet my pants watching him run and jump as they were clinging to his shorts and shirt, first I just yelled you got one of the crack of your butt! But then I went and helped him squish them. He only got the one sting but that was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. I think next time he will listen when I tell him they are super pissy.


----------



## VickyLynn

Treated my five hives with MAQS strips since we are having a run of fine weather (to be followed by a week of thunderstorms and badly needed rain). One hive is weak - consolidated into one deep from two - may have to combine it with a stronger hive in the fall to survive the winter.


----------



## maynard

Michael Palmer said:


> Began re-queening today. The colonies to be re-queened had excluders placed between each box on the hive. Today was 4-5 days later. Queens were in box with eggs. Slaughtered the old queen...two colonies had doubles...and located new queens under push/in cages. Did 30 today, 15 more for tomorrow plus 4 more apiaries to exclude re-queens. Honey harvest is next on the agenda. Looks like a good crop.


Mr. Palmer,
I'm curious as to why you are requeening and not making nucs? Are they just non-productive production coloines?
My guess would be that you are wanting to keep a specific number of production colonies going into winter, and have enough nucs.


----------



## Tim KS

This morning on my visit to my #2 apiary I noticed a bit of activity at the entrance to a swarm trap that's been hanging behind the 8 colonies that are located there. There's not a lot of coming & going happening at the entrance, but there is some traffic (one or two bees in & out per minute). 

Upon closer inspection I can see 3 or 4 bees in the entrance, all of them fanning. What do you think......has a small swarm moved in or just scouting it out?

(The image below needs to rotate 90 deg. clockwise.)


----------



## Hustons

How should I store grafted queen cells until I need them? The person that gave them to me had taken them out of his incubation hive yesterday and I picked up this morning; are they still viable? I will be using one tomorrow to make a split...THANKS!


----------



## Phoebee

Hustons said:


> This morning on my visit to my #2 apiary I noticed a bit of activity at the entrance to a swarm trap that's been hanging behind the 8 colonies that are located there. There's not a lot of coming & going happening at the entrance, but there is some traffic (one or two bees in & out per minute).
> 
> Upon closer inspection I can see 3 or 4 bees in the entrance, all of them fanning. What do you think......has a small swarm moved in or just scouting it out?
> !


Watcha asking us for? Open the trap and ask the bees! Hope you got some. In my case, the bees check it out now and then but nobody has moved in.


----------



## Tim KS

Phoebee said:


> Watcha asking us for? Open the trap and ask the bees! Hope you got some. In my case, the bees check it out now and then but nobody has moved in.


I'm asking for your guess on whether a small swarm has moved in there. Do scout bees fan at the entrance of a possible new hive? How long before I see more foraging going on by a new colony? 

The trap is a PITA to open, and I don't want to disturb a new swarm that might be there by tearing up new comb etc.


----------



## gnor

It's been 2 weeks now since I requeened my 2 hopelessly queenless hives. Aside for a quick peek to recover the cages, this is the first time I have had a good look inside. Here's what I saw:

I didn't see the queens, but some of the workers are almost as big as a queen, and they aren't marked.
Brood at all stages from tiny to capped. My eyes can't see eggs with no help.
Lovely laying pattern, almost a solid mat, with few spaces, and fresh brood nicely around the outside.
Areas of old comb that have been cleaned for laying.
They are drawing the new foundation out nicely, and each hive has one side full of capped honey, plus another 2 sides coming along.
A few cells with pollen, but they seem to be concentrating on nectar for now.
No sign of sick brood or sick bees.
They are taking a litre of syrup every 2 days or so, plus all the nectar they can bring in.
Goldenrod just starting here.
I haven't seen any mites on the SBB tray, but I will soon do a sugar roll and do a count.
{EDIT} I also cleaned off a ton of burr comb. The girls delight in gluing the plastic frames to the inner cover, and in the one hive, they bulit a comb tower through the inner cover and half the height of the 1 litre feed jar.


----------



## Amasa

Despite moving some brood up one level into a new brood box they've decided to turn it into a box full of honey and nectar instead. After 2'ish weeks, the two brood frames have some capped brood and the rest is back filled with nectar. I've robbed them of four frames, two from each box, and will check in a week to see how badly I screwed up this time. I swear, if I were my bees I would have run away by now, but they've been incredibly forgiving of my all thumbs approach. I still feel clueless.


----------



## michkel

It is windy and overcast today, so just a quick check on my split that I'm having difficulty with and check their sugar water. Then onto the main hive to make sure they still had room in the super. Unfortunately, they still have plenty of room.


----------



## Cyan

Checked the hive today- comb being built but not as fast as I'd like to see. They only took half the syrup that they did in the week prior and I'm beginning to lose laying space. So I pulled the feeder and will check again next week.

Note: seeing a lot of yellowish/orange colored pollen coming in. Could this be from early golden rod or are they into something else? Prior to this the pollen was white and yellow, most coming from Rose of Sharon, but those are almost done with for the year.


----------



## Colobee

Out before sunrise this morning, and there was a chill in the air. The first taste of fall? The porch thermometer was reading mid-50's (F).

'Combined the last (failed) package that refused to rear a queen all summer, despite numerous interventions. 4 other units have newly mated & laying queens. Numbers are up, from 6 overwintered, to 22 viable colonies in various stages.

Time to put the last of the supers on. A slow, steady, flow is lingering - the production hives are still drawing wax & capping honey (as are all the others). 

I suspect the bear cub, that learned about electric fences here a couple years ago, has been taking advantage of unprotected colonies in the neighborhood. One hive was destroyed, and a shed with a feral/swarm colony was ripped apart in the past week or two. The local bruins apparently seem to dislike my "T-post & twisted (doubled) hot wire perimeter. Or maybe it's our dog pack. Or both? Regardless, I'm going to see if I can twist up a triple wire


----------



## Colobee

Ran out of supers. 'No more "replacement" extracting to fill the gap. Painted wax on 4 more cases of PF 120's (enough for 10 more supers, plus). This year is looking very good.  1 gallon of wax covers ~120 frames. The bees seem to love it.


----------



## biggraham610

Made my last 2 nucs of the year today with a couple of Ohio VSH queens, added some diversity this year that's for sure, still have a super apiece to pull off of my production hives, that will wait, second round of sumac in full swing, after that, it will be button em up time, nothing left here for em. Fell 2 short of my target, but up from 4 overwintered to 18 colonies in various stages, all are progressing well and look like they will be strong and ready for winter. G


----------



## RayMarler

Yesterday I checked through a few boxes. All three queens from Mike Palmer doing well. The last survivor from Sam Comfort did not make it, they released her and killed her I guess and had queen cells everywhere, so I split the two boxes and set side by side. Checked through the box I'd made queenless a week ago and it was full of nice large cells on 4 different virgin combs. Put pollen sub in the three MP queen boxes as they had none stored and weak on bees. Put syrup on all queen right boxes.

Planning on making some splits for all the queen cells later today. Can't sleep tonight, need to get busy early in the morning, but just got up after trying to sleep for the last two hours.


----------



## RayMarler

OK, just got in from the yard. Made up yesterday and today, a total of 8 nucs that all have nice looking queen cells. All are 4 frame nucs. Making up syrup now for feeding all the queen right hives. Caged and shipped out a queen today to a fellow BeeSource member. 

As a side note: I don't think anything was wrong with Sam's queens other than the trauma they had during shipping. I fully blame myself for not being more careful and forward planning when ordering and introducing them.


----------



## Colobee

With all the recent bear activity in the neighborhood, I was beginning to be concerned that my electric fence might not be up to the challenge. Last night's extreme weather - heavy rains and violent down drafts - eased my mind. 

At midnight, the winds were howling. This morning, when I walked out to check on the hives, I found a formerly unsecured 4'x8' sheet of 1/2" wafer board, lodged up against the un-yielding double twisted hot wire & T posts. The fence was a bit stretched, but still doing it's job.


----------



## fntsyfan

Swarm captured on July 26 has pulled 10 frames of comb and added a fair amount of pollen and goldenrod nectar in 16 days. Unfortunately no queen so I did a newspaper combine with another weaker hive that was queen right.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Had a swarm about a month ago. Made 2 nucs with queen cells. Now I have 2 mated queens in the nucs they have the bottom nuc box filled with brood. Missed a swarm out of one of my nucs they are gone. Made 2 more nucs with those queen cells it's getting late in the year but if I get mated queens out of them I can help them along with the resources from other hives. I'm running out of equipment so I hope I can stay ahead of those bees. Went from 4 packages to 12 maybe 14 hives this year.


----------



## gnor

I added more feed yesterday. They are taking a litre every 2 days or so, and are bringing in nectar like crazy too. I'm seeing lots of Goldenrod pollen going in now, as well as some pale yellow stuff, and the odd load of a bluish charcoal colour. The foragers are all healthy looking and active. There are also some drones coming and going. I'm going to have a look inside tomorrow, and see if I can spot the queens. I'm also going to do a sugar roll to see where the mites are, as long as I can find the queens.
I watched the girls dragging a large cap out the entrance, and an ant trying to get a piece. The ant would dart in and tug on the wax, or a bee's hind leg, and then back off a bit. Finally one of the workers turned and gave it a nip, and the ant smoked off over the edge. There are always a few ants on the SBB tray, but this is the first time I have seen that.
There were also a couple of bumble bees with robbing in mind. The girls herded them around the bottom board for a while, but the bumbles were persistent, and eventually made their way inside. It doesn't look like a huge problem right now, so I'll let the bees take care of it. If it gets worse, I have some robber screens already made up.
Made up another batch of 1:1, and a batch of essential oil additive. I'm going to see if I poison the bees or not. It smells nice.


----------



## gnor

I was taking a break, sitting in my chair watching the bees come and go, and was lucky enough to watch a Yellowjacket get the bum's rush. I ran and got my camera, and got back in time to see them ball it just outside the door:







Within a minute, the porch was crowded with bees, and even the foragers returning with a load got into the act. Those not involved in the ball were facing out, guarding access. The bees were pretty good at spelling each other off, too:







Here you can get a glimpse of the Yellowjacket as they begin to drag it towards the edge:







Another glimpse of the Yellowjacket being dragged to the edge:







*And stay out!*







Lots of little Nasonov glands signalling the all clear. Lots of pheromones remain at the original ball site, though:







Business as usual. Huge load of Goldenrod pollen, and look at the big fattie with a load of nectar just disappearing inside:


----------



## jakec

found one of my queens for the first time!


----------



## fntsyfan

Checked 2 hives that have swarmed today for queens or eggs. I hive has re-queened itself the other was queenless. I added a Mike Palmer queen will need to wait a week and see what happens. Made a nuc with the other queen since the other hive fixed itself.

Also checked the swarm I caught Sunday and hived in a NUC they have a queen now it will be a wait and see for a week or so before we will have capped brood


----------



## Pooh Bear

Did a late evening inspection today of my main hive and nuc. Noticed some SHB on the main hive for the first time (darn darn Darney DARN) but managed to kill quite a few of them. They like hanging out between frame support and rabbat area on the super. 

Also noticied a whole bunch of dead mites on top of the inner cover. This is one week post application of thymol treatment so dead mites is a good thing. Nothing left of the thymol strips I added; the bees seem to have shredded them. 

The bees in general where more irritated. If I wasn't wearing two pairs of gloves, I would have gotten at least 20 stings


----------



## DanielD

I have a swarm trap in a tree near my hives and a swarm moved in a few weeks ago. It's still in the tree, not being able take the time to move it down, and they've been washboarding from around noon till dark on the outside below and above the top entrance. Interesting.


----------



## gnor

Did a double sugar roll on both hives and saw no mites. Added second brood box as the first boxes are 60-75% drawn. Tons of capped brood and beautiful pattern.


----------



## beestudent

today I'm testing an idea I got from here on BS, adding (green) food coloring to the sugar water I'm feeding my bees. Its neat to look in the hive after them taking the syrup in. hey! I got the 300 post spot!


----------



## Colobee

Went through the new queen units - all is well. Went through the production hives. 3 of the 4 "bare frame" supers (that I added last week) were drawn out (but not capped). That's 26 mediums so far, from 5 production hives, _& one of them was a May swarm_. The afternoon/evening monsoon showers seem to be prolonging the flow.


----------



## biggraham610

Built a permanent nuc base out of block and 4x4s. Nice to get them all off the random stands they were on. Found a virgin scurrying in a nuc that had a mated queen for the last month. At least they let her lay it up and bolster the population before they gave her the ax. She was working slower than her sister in the next nuc down. The bees know whats best. hope she has a successful mating flight.


----------



## Gypsi

Went out hoping to find the mini-dearth created by the weather and my not feeding for a week had stopped the queens from laying so I could dust with powdered sugar. Also to merge a queenless nuc with a mature hive.

Found the queenless nuc's virgin queen was obviously well mated and very busy filling every available cell in the nuc. (not enough bees to up them to a deep at this time either) and so much capped brood in the mature hive I opened that I know IF there are mites they are under those caps, no sense in doing any kind of treatment at this time.

Fed them and closed them up. Not taking much syrup but they are building some wax to hold nectar from vitex sunflowers, some mesquites are still blooming and soon goldenrod will bloom. Rain expected next week


----------



## Arnie

Colobee said:


> That's 26 mediums so far, from 5 production hives


That's impressive. Nice work, Colobee.

Took a look yesterday and we'll probably get another super and a half of cut comb. 

This has been a great year,,, it's too bad we started with only one strong hive. Could've had a lot of premium honey.
But that's OK, we built back up and now have 7 strong hives for next year.


----------



## michkel

Checked on my split this morning with a caged queen that I just introduced in it. This colony was queenless for so long off and on (tried several times to get them to raise their own queen), that the beekeeper I bought the queen from wanted to keep the queen in the cage for a couple of extra days, so he covered the candy plug with beeswax. I went in this morning and removed the beeswax, exposing the candy plug for them to get her out. I was very happy to see that she was still alive and the worker bees were actively tending to her through the cage.


----------



## gnor

Went out and sat with my bees the day following the sugar rolls. I'm not so sure when they claim that the sugar roll doesn't hurt the bees. Yesterday afternoon, there were a couple of dozen dead'uns in front of the one hive, and today there were a number of bees crawling around in the grass. They were still cleaning up the bodies, too. Several bees would carry the body 15 - 20 feet away before dropping it. I guess that would keep the scavengers away from the hive. Pulled the trays, too, and there were a lot of wings and legs laying there.
They were pretty mean (for them) after I dumped the bees back in, so I'm wondering if an alcohol wash may be the way to go. If I could get some pure ethyl alcohol, I could feed the chickens and have the happiest chickens in Nova Scotia! 
I used the white metal hive cover to shake the sugar on to, and never again. Covered with ants and hornets all day, even though I wiped it clean, and it's not going to rain until Saturday.


----------



## Phoebee

Today I went out to feed the two strong hives, and weigh them. As usual for this operation, I did not wear a bee suit or use a smoker. One little guard bee took offense and started hovering around my head. I left the apiary and went back to the cabin, and she followed me to within 10 ft of the door. I suggested that she go ahead and follow me inside, but she declined.

A few minutes later I came back out. She picked right up where we had left off, and followed me to the garage, about 100 ft away, again peeling off just short of the door. Twice more this afternoon she followed me around, buzzing my head. She never tried bumping me, and never tangled in my hair. 

This kind of behavior of individual bees has always fascinated me.

Ah, and the weak hive down on the end had a marvelous orientation party going on this afternoon. We re-queened them a couple of weeks back, and gave them a frame of bees and brood last week to give the new queen some help raising babies. Evidently this has punched things up a bit. They even put on a pound on their own.


----------



## Phoebee

Deleted double post


----------



## skidmld

I removed my feeders and did my 3rd OAQ treatment today. I will add 2 supers of drawn comb to try to get some of the goldenrod flow. I've never tasted goldenrod honey. I usually just leave it for the bees. We are getting plenty of rain and the goldenrod is already coming in. I am hoping for a good flow this year.


----------



## phopkinsiii

I transferred the swarm that moved into my 5-frame nuc swarm trap on ~8/4 to a 10-frame deep with 5 foundation-less frames. I'll be curious to see how fast they draw out the frames. We're in a dearth right now so I'm feeding them 2:1 sugar syrup. Within the next couple of weeks, the sumac should start to bloom, but I haven't seen a lot in my neighborhood.
I found the queen-a nice fat orange-yellow Italian. She had already filled 2 full frames with capped and open brood. The bees were fairly gentle. I think she's a keeper.


----------



## Cyan

Before settling in for the night, I went out to check the hive and noticed what I thought to be balling. I couldn't see what they were balling and didn't want to disturb them because it was after dark, but I began to worry that perhaps I was losing my queen. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to go back out for another look. Here, they were balling what I think is a black wasp. It obviously lost the fight, but it was interesting to see this activity for the first time.


----------



## gnor

Made up another batch of syrup yesterday and filled the feeders today. They don't seem to mind the essential oils, and they are not dying in handfuls. Saw pollen coming in but no nectar. I've seen the bees turf the odd robber, but the biggest robbers right now seem to be the bumble bees, and the odd yellowjacket. The girls seem to be handling it OK, so I will leave them to it for now. The bumbles walk right into the entrance and get shooed right out again. It doesn't take much to discourage them. I've seen a whole clump of bees fly off with an unwanted honey bee and dump her 20 or 30 feet from the hive. Amazing what you see while you are "doing nothing."
Got a couple of head butts today changing the feeders. I looked down the handhold in the inner cover, and there were nothing but rows of beady little eyes staring back at me.
Cut a few Sumac bobs today to try them in the smoker. I can't get a lot, because I have to crawl through chest high Blackberry thorns to get at them. I'll grub out around them and let the patch grow a bit, and get more next year. I'm looking forward to trying some tea.
A nice heavy Summer shower just started. Hot and muggy, and we're expecting a few days of the same. Hopefully it kickstarts some nectar.


----------



## gnor

Made up another batch of syrup yesterday and filled the feeders today. They don't seem to mind the essential oils, and they are not dying in handfuls. Saw pollen coming in but no nectar. I've seen the bees turf the odd robber, but the biggest robbers right now seem to be the bumble bees, and the odd yellowjacket. The girls seem to be handling it OK, so I will leave them to it for now. The bumbles walk right into the entrance and get shooed right out again. It doesn't take much to discourage them. I've seen a whole clump of bees fly off with an unwanted honey bee and dump her 20 or 30 feet from the hive. Amazing what you see while you are "doing nothing."
Got a couple of head butts today changing the feeders. I looked down the handhold in the inner cover, and there were nothing but rows of beady little eyes staring back at me.
Cut a few Sumac bobs today to try them in the smoker. I can't get a lot, because I have to crawl through chest high Blackberry thorns to get at them. I'll grub out around them and let the patch grow a bit, and get more next year. I'm looking forward to trying some tea.
A nice heavy Summer shower just started. Hot and muggy, and we're expecting a few days of the same. Hopefully it kickstarts some nectar.


----------



## Pooh Bear

Main hive doing very well, too well. 2 deeps, 2 medium supers with about 50 to 60 lbs of honey stored. Lots and lots of bees and brood in development. Queen is healthy and yet I find two recently capped queen cells. Bummer!

This had me perplexed. I'd say this are swarm cells giving the above info. Also, I had been feeding them a little syrup so that trey wouldn't rob a nearby nuc I am heavily feeding. This is the second time that I have fed them and they decide that they want to swarm. Need to learn from this.

I ended up destroying the cells by accident when I put the frame down and squished them. Felt bad about that but if hey did develop, there would be no hope of getting a nuc up and running from scratch. At least I don't think so.

All very vexing.


----------



## squarepeg

after a week or so of ground soaking rains the foraging went into high gear today. just walked through the bee yard and heard that unmistakable roar associated with the drying of nectar coming from the established hives for the first time in almost 2 months. i'm calling it, fall flow has begun here.


----------



## Terry C

Actually yesterday ... I checked all 4 hives , everybody has good brood patterns and the queens are layin' up a storm . Since we're in our late summer dearth I've been feeding 1:1 as advised by AR Beekeeper , who tells me that we don't get a fall flow here . They sure are testy when I pull the bottles to refill , so I've been suiting up to feed . I've also completed my hive weighing device , though in a simpler design than originally planned . The hives were all a lot lighter than I thought , especially the "strongest" one . Since I started feeding they've all started gaining weight . I'm shooting for 120 lbs for the ones with a deep and 2 mediums , 100 plus for the ones with only one medium . My main objective at this point is to have all four hives survive this winter , putting me in a position to both increase hive count and at least break even monetarily next year .


----------



## michkel

Yesterday, I removed the queen cage in my split that I have not been able to get to raise their own. I pushed all of the frames back together, and fed them.


----------



## Phoebee

We started the weekend with a nuc and a hive that we knew had good queens, and three works in progress which we _*hoped*_ had good new queens.

The enemies of hope: hungry birds, not enough drones, and queen murder. So much can go wrong.

We had pulled the queen from our largest hive and put her in a nuc. The big hive was raising a queen but we had left that one alone until we thought we ought to have a mated queen. Popped the hive open, and looked at all the pretty brood, all the way to capped brood. One down.

The second nuc made from that split also had plenty of larvae and capped brood. We spotted the new queen in this one and she was nice and fat, with a pretty golden abdomen like her mother.

The third hive was a purchased queen that looked a little scrawny in her cage. The hive we put her into was too weak or clueless to dig thru the sugar plug. We found her still trapped after 10 days, and let her out, worried about the outcome. We gave her an extra frame of nurses and brood to run the nursery. She, too, now has a couple of frames of larvae and capped brood, and has fattened up to another pretty queen.

Sure is a relief to find them all in good shape. Not only were they all mated, and laying, but they had wasted no time doing it.


----------



## JasonA

Did my first of 3 OAV treatments today. Gave 2 queenless nucs a frame of eggs to give them one more shot at making a queen. It's getting awful late in the season but I still have drones in all my hives. Took a couple stings. One to the back of the neck and that one hurt lol. I'm still looking for some mated queens to buy but so far no luck. Trying to figure out everything I need to do to get through my first winter.


----------



## biggraham610

Checked all nucs and added feed. Found 1 out of 2 superscedure queens laying, the other I will give another week, Nuc had the old familiar roar, so, a combine is likely, but I will give em a week. Boxes packed and getting ready for the coming winter. Good day, nice pleasant mid 80s and low humidity for a change. Have 3 at this yard to check tomorrow and get ready for the trip to the main yard. 2 youngest will stay on site here until I am secure they are built up enough for the coming months. G


----------



## GaryG74

Checked several hives today that seemed to be a little less active than the rest this morning about 0730 hrs. I guess they were just late starters. All had at least a deep and some a deep and a medium above the bottom deep that were packed with honey and there were lots of bees in each. Saw the queens in two, all had lots of uncapped and capped brood (5 or 6 frames in the bottom deep).
I also saw the new queen in the hive I was having problems getting re-queened. That hive was successful so now they can get ready for winter.
We're supposed to have temperatures with the highs below 85F next week so I'll be starting fall mite treatments soon.


----------



## DanielD

Yesterday I finally checked my aggressive split from a month ago. I split one large thriving hive into 6 with the amount of cells on frames available in the one initial split. 3 of the 5 queenless splits made it to laying queen with eggs, larva, capped brood and spotted queens. The queens were laying quickly it seems. The two remaining splits have eggs and just hatched larva, but my daughter and I couldn't spot any queens. One was a 3 frame with only a handful of bees left, though I saw the queen in that one that looked mated over a week ago. They both have eggs at the bottom of the cells, but also a few doubles and eggs at bottom sides. That could be early queens or laying workers, so I will wait till they're capped next week to be sure. If laying workers they will just get shaken out somewhere. I am satisfied with my splits. They are planning to go in an old house with a basement for winter as nucs.


----------



## pink bee man

Hi barry hot muggie ,day to day all bee boxes are lite but a few. Got a small swarm , really making a go of it asters, goldenrod beginning to bloom some are chest high
and thick. Win horseweed came out it was a party in O B hive. Lost 3 hives to wax moths,they are every were! C U Later


----------



## Cyan

Performed a checker boarding move of 4 full (mixed) frames into the upper box and replaced with empties in the bottom box. The bees are bringing in tons of pollen now, increasing their numbers at a decent rate, and building new comb. I replaced the pail feeder with a modified Miller feeder to allow more bees at the syrup, and replaced the ventilated inner cover with a standard inner cover because it was being propalized. Never seen so much goo in a hive. lol. As well, I built 2 candy boards and a quilt box for winter. I just hope it's enough to get them through.


----------



## pink bee man

Cyan said:


> Performed a checker boarding move of 4 full (mixed) frames into the upper box and replaced with empties in the bottom box. The bees are bringing in tons of pollen now, increasing their numbers at a decent rate, and building new comb. I replaced the pail feeder with a modified Miller feeder to allow more bees at the syrup, and replaced the ventilated inner cover with a standard inner cover because it was being propalized. Never seen so much goo in a hive. lol. As well, I built 2 candy boards and a quilt box for winter. I just hope it's enough to get them through.


Hi thanks 4 the buzz ,just checked my other hives /20/ all r getting started all r full but 3 . T hey were packages,prob. Should requeen ,but not counting them out yet. Seen a giant swarm Thursday it filled 2 /10 frames , really kickin it. Keep your brewed tight & your honey lose" PBM CYA


----------



## Stephenpbird

I just spent half an hour watching lovely birds like these hunting in my apiary today. The European Bee eater really is a fantastic sight, very agile and effective hunter. Just hope they enjoyed some wasps as well as the bees they caught.












Photo. Pierre Dalous


----------



## Cloverdale

Beautiful bird!


----------



## Phoebee

Saturday's main goal was the Ambush Makeover of four unmarked queens. Three now have pretty blue dots on their backs. Number four, the Tzarina (we suspect some Russian in her makeup), found some secret passage in her palace and hid, but we know she's in there because of all the eggs.

Two of the unmarked queens are recently-mated. One filled her big green deep drone frame with brood, about 80% capped. This is a nutty waste of resources for the end of August, so we guess she's just overly enthusiastic about this new laying business. With some sympathy (we found 2 mites dropped in 48 hours), we pulled the green frame and killed it with CO2 (no freezer available).


----------



## biggraham610

The nuc I was worried about, has a newly mated laying queen. All hives are queenright and building for winter. Now, just polish off winter stores. The season is over here. Just make em fat, and happy before Oct. G


----------



## Cyan

I did a very brief inspection on Saturday to see how the comb building was coming along- looking good. Except for 1 wonky comb, I can't complain. They are really hammering that Miller feeder, so removing the bucket feeder was a good move. I added a 3rd super and re-filled the feeder. I'll take a better look this coming weekend.


----------



## RayMarler

Checked through my 8 mating nucs and have 8 laying queens now. I marked 7 of them, then one I could not find. I'll look for her next time. One was exceptional in size and shape, a couple were a little small, but I've found these bees here when they throw black daughters, they are smaller. I'm thinking it's in the genes. A couple were on the shy side as far as populations, I'll work at getting them re-enforced with added bees or comb by end of the week.

Checked through the hive my mentee brought over for me to hive sit. Took out her apistan and put in two strips of apivar. Re-arranged the combs some, put the weird drawn and honey combs in the bottom, next box up was empty and some brood, top box is mix of empty, or some honey, some brood. Added a good amount of pollen sub between the two top boxes. I'm hoping they will move the honey up from the bottom box, emptying out those wonky combs, and move it up, simulating a nectar flow, and start pumping out some brood again with the pollen sub I gave them. This is a hive of three 8 frame medium depth boxes that has had struggles this year. I'm going to try to locate the queen also, did not find her in there today.


----------



## RayMarler

I went and found that queen that I could not find yesterday to mark, one of the newly laying queens, and marked her. She's fat and black with orange ring-stripes, looks like a halloween queen. Swapped positions of two mating nucs with two different mating nucs, two were very crowded and two were weaker, hoping to equalize them out a little.


----------



## RayMarler

Went through the stronger hives and swapped fully drawn frames with stores and/or small amounts of sealed brood, into the 8 nucs removing from the nucs a frame needing drawn and/or partial drawn mostly drone frames. Every one seems happy, has stores, and brood, some small flow is on somewhere around here.


----------



## gnor

The girls are getting a lot more defensive now that they are getting full. I went up yesterday to check on the feed, and got nailed right between the eyes. No prob getting through facial recognition software now.


----------



## Tim KS

Actually yesterday....and not in my apiary either..... 

Bad luck colony!

A friend had a limb break out of a large maple tree last week and exposed a large hive of bees. We went to the rescue because they'd never survive the winter exposed nor a good rain storm for that matter. Half of the comb went down with the limb that broke off, but they had done a good job of robbing out the honey and moving it up to the remaining hive. For being completely exposed, they were mild mannered.

We cut all the brood comb that we could find and rubber banded it in frames in a bottom deep. Next to it went several pollen & honey comb. All the while we are looking closely for the queen, but never saw her. We cut as much heavy laden honey comb as we could for the top deep, but it was hard to band into frames. We did the best we could in the 98 degree heat of the day.

We bee-vac'd most of the rest of the bees into a stick ball the size of a basketball. I knew we were going to loose many of those but thought we'd try anyway. Huge stick mess, but now hopefully they had a chance.

Place the hive several hundred yards away from the apiary hoping to avoid robbers with all the sticky honey....we'd move it later if it survived. That didn't work.....robbers showed up immediately, so I reduced entrance to one inch and left it for the night.

During the night a thunderstorm rolled through and tipped the hive boxes and dumped frames & bees out in the grass. Bad luck bees! 

This morning I reassembled everything, rescued as many bees as possible and put the lid on. I'll give them a week or two and then take a look to see if anything survived. If we need to combine with another hive we'll do it then.


----------



## Cyan

Sunday I checked on the bees and found probably 100 floaters in the feeder. So I cleaned it up and replaced the original floats. The queen is still very busy laying and there's plenty of pollen coming in, so I seen no reason to panic. 

Today however, I wanted to use up the remaining syrup (a quart or two), and low and behold, there are probably about 10-20 drowned bees decorating the floats. Some would probably say that this is acceptable, but I would counter "not on my watch!" So after they have the feeder cleaned up in a few days, it's being removed (and burnt :applause and I'm going back to my friend, the pail feeder. 

On a lighter note, I caught the bees working our sunflowers and Aster's today, along with Sedums. It's nice that such work is appreciated, if even on a small scale.


----------



## Beeathlon

Got my first shipment of frames and foundations today. Could not resist the temptation to melt in some foundations into frames. Now I wonder if i have been a bit quick. Will the foundation in frames endure until spring when I get bees? Will the wax foundations do well in storage if not in frames? Have I received the foundation too early considering I wont use them until spring?


----------



## Phoebee

Beeathlon said:


> Got my first shipment of frames and foundations today. Could not resist the temptation to melt in some foundations into frames. Now I wonder if i have been a bit quick. Will the foundation in frames endure until spring when I get bees? Will the wax foundations do well in storage if not in frames? Have I received the foundation too early considering I wont use them until spring?


Indulge yourself. Build a few supers, too, hang the frames in those, store indoors. Presuming you have wax foundations, go in and smell them from time to time and think about the bees you'll have in the spring.


----------



## Beeathlon

Thank you for the reply! The foundations smelled great after melting with a hint of raspberries. (Our main nectar source.)


----------



## gnor

Weighed both hives today. 113# and 100#. Still a ways to go, but it was a late Spring and I didn't get the nucs until July. Both hives have a ton of bees and lots of brood, and I am going to look inside to check on the new comb. I have to make up my mind when to switch to heavy syrup to finish them off.
There are plenty of bees camped out on the porch right now, and they are getting defensive. I went over to have a look, same as I have done all Summer, and got stapled right between the eyes. Veil and gloves from now on.


----------



## gnor

Beeathlon said:


> Got my first shipment of frames and foundations today. Could not resist the temptation to melt in some foundations into frames. Now I wonder if i have been a bit quick. Will the foundation in frames endure until spring when I get bees? Will the wax foundations do well in storage if not in frames? Have I received the foundation too early considering I wont use them until spring?


The wax will be OK, but if you store it in a damp place, the paper separators can get moldy.


----------



## Beeathlon

Separators? I received the wax sheets "én block". They are stacked 60 on top of eachother in a lump.


----------



## gnor

Beeathlon said:


> Separators? I received the wax sheets "én block". They are stacked 60 on top of eachother in a lump.


OK, I have seen them with paper between them to keep them from sticking together.


----------



## Vincent

I have boxes of foundation that were stored for years without use and were fine. It was still flexible and the bees took to it fine. At some point wax moth got into the boxes, but only left the finest of traces of their passing - foundation just didn't appeal to them.

I'm told that leaving foundation in frames for a long period can cause it to become brittle, and the bees will be slower to draw it out.


----------



## Beeathlon

Ok. I will melt in enough for a couple of hives and leave the rest in the "lump" over winter. Thanks for the response!


----------



## Pooh Bear

Good inspection today. Found that my 4x4 nuc was nearly maxing out in terms of space and stores. Looking for opinions on what to do next over in the Equipment/Hardware forum. Do I go vertical again and have an apiary that resembles the Manhattan skyline?


----------



## fntsyfan

9/12 47 degrees at 7:30 AM and the girls are flying and bringing in polen already today.


----------



## Phoebee

I fed pollen substitute patties today. I got a little careless on the first hive and did not have my gloves on. Lifted the top feeder and got nailed on the knuckle by a girl on the bottom of it while placing the patty.

But at least she did it on my right hand. My arthritis is noticeably relieved.


----------



## RayMarler

Looked through my main ten hives. One has white wax on the top bars, but also has one comb that needs to be drawn (I use foundationless frames). The others, some I rearranged combs so that there was an open larva comb next to the comb needing drawn, as that creates condition that encourages them to draw that comb and do it straight. All ten will need feeding again, as they have not started drawing the combs I'd put in there recently, and stores have diminished somewhat from last inspection. Also checked through the hive I'm baby sitting for someone that is on vacation, added a couple pounds of Nurta-Bee pollen sub to them as they have no pollen stores, and will be feeding them also. Did not check through the 8 nucs as they looked fine last time around, and should not be needing any attention from me. Now I'm off to make up more syrup for feeding tomorrow...


----------



## 1102009

Checked my one queen less hive yesterday.
It was 3 weeks before when I found queen cells, two capped, no queen present. 
Closed up quickly then because the bees wanted to kill me.

Still no queen visible but maybe I`m not able to find her. Many bees, but very gentle, no attack.( These are the AMM which are not very gentle normally).Comes as a surprise. 
No eggs or brood. Broodnest mostly filled with honey but bees cleaning out cells in the middle.
Pollen is brought.
Queen cells are removed, chewed off.
I think it`s possible they prepare the comb for new brood.
Maybe the new queen is hiding or going out having some fun with drones.

I want to combine if they stay queen less but now I will wait another week and look again. I don´t want to endanger the other queen.


----------



## 1102009

Checked my one queen less hive yesterday.
It was 3 weeks before when I found queen cells, two capped, no queen present. 
Closed up quickly then because the bees wanted to kill me.

Still no queen visible but maybe I`m not able to find her. Many bees, but very gentle, no attack.( These are the AMM which are not very gentle normally).Comes as a surprise. 
No eggs or brood. Broodnest mostly filled with honey but bees cleaning out cells in the middle.
Pollen is brought.
Queen cells are removed, chewed off.
I think it`s possible they prepare the comb for new brood.
Maybe the new queen is hiding or going out having some fun with drones.

I want to combine if they stay queen less but now I will wait another week and look again. I don´t want to endanger the other queen.


----------



## Cyan

From about this point on, the nights will rarely get above the 50's. So I ditched the Miller feeder from hell (as mentioned previously) and put on a 2 gallon pail feeder with 2:1 syrup. Within the hive, I'm seeing about half their stores capped now and between the 2 lower boxes there is roughly 70-90 lbs. Comb building has slowed, but brood rearing has not- I'm seeing this hive's orientation flights at their largest point all year. Other things I have noticed in this hive is no drones or drone comb; they love their pollen (the pollen stores in this hive seem a bit nicer than what I previously saw in the other 3 hives), and I'm not getting as nice of a brood pattern as I was earlier in the year.

I have no clue how old this queen is and with what I'm starting to see now, I have to put some thought into the best way to replace her. I'm thinking that if they make it through the winter, I'll split this queen off into a nuc and replace her with a new one in spring. Perhaps I will use the old queen to help give me some experience with queen rearing and nuc making, and hopefully her daughters will exhibit better qualities. On the other hand, if they die out, I'll start fresh in the spring with a nuc from a well known supplier- possibly trying out Carniolans.


----------



## GaryG74

Thought swarm season was over! About 530PM I was looking at my hives when I noticed bees flying around. They kept getting thicker and I thought, "They're acting just like a swarm." I started checking the front of each hive but saw no bees pouring out of a hive. They flew around about 15 minutes, got to be less and less so I started looking for a cluster in a tree. No cluster. Then I started seeing more bees flying around again and they were centered around two hives but were landing on the ground. I put a nuc with five empty frames on the ground in the middle of several wads of bees and they started marching into the nuc. There were still a few bees flying right at dark but most were in the nuc. Tomorrow I'll check and see if they stayed. It was 46F last night here and supposed to be around 50F tonight. Strange weather and the bees are acting strange too. I'll decide what to do with them based on whether they have a queen or not. I may try to winter them in the nuc.


----------



## GaryG74

The swarm I caught on 09/14/15 left the next day.
Today I finally got the time to cut comb and rubber band into deep frames a hive from a swarm trap. It was three months after putting up the swarm trap before I could contact the landowner and was told the trap "was full of bees." They had built on the bottoms of the six deep frames and the comb was almost as deep as a deep frame. It wasn't as difficult doing it by myself, even though the comb was very soft. Sliced it off the bottom of the frame while leaning the frame on one corner (after checking for the queen and brushing the bees off) and trying to balance the comb I was cutting off. Didn't mess up much of the comb or kill very many bees and got all six frames done in about 20 minutes. I also saw the queen, she was a nice golden yellow. My other queens are a darker amber color so she is a nice change of color. I'll give them a couple of days to settle down then put a feeder on so they can attach the comb and finish drawing the frames.


----------



## Phoebee

We were not in the apiary, we were at a beach. My wife called me over to see something she was looking at right at the margin of the surf. It was a honeybee, on its back, frantically trying to right itself, covered in sand. I grabbed a shell and tried to pick it up, but it tried to fly and the wind caught it. I picked it up several more times before I managed to get it to a sheltered spot.

Beekeepers on vacation ... hopeless.


----------



## DanielD

I checked a split from late July that started with 1 1/2 medium 8 frame boxes, foundationless, and the queen. They are a few frames shy of 4 mediums but still drawing comb and still packing it in well. The brood nest has diminished to less than half the bottom box and looks to be holding there. New eggs and larva is there to identify the queen is present and no swarm cells. All the other brood frames are being back filled as fast as the brood emerges. With the bee numbers diminishing on target and no swarm cells, I am fairly confident there's no swarm prep going on, just winter prep, but I am watchful. A very good fall flow is going on with very intense bee work happening. If there's another 2 weeks of flow, it should be a fully packed hive going into October. Seems to be doing well for winter prep. I haven't done this too long, but this fall flow is very fun to watch.


----------



## RayMarler

A couple of days ago, on Wednesday the 16th, I reduced/combined the 8 single nucs down into 4 two story nucs. One queen had failed, one queen got balled from me trying to cage her, and sent two queens off to a friend.


----------



## VickyLynn

I have three hives, each 2 deeps and one medium super, that I stopped feeding yesterday. They are chock full of honey, 80% capped. I have one two story nuc (they made their own queen at the beginning of August and she's laying beautifully). I was so afraid they were going to swarm that I added another nuc deep and seeded it with two full frames of honey from the second deep, adding drawn frames. I strapped the three deeps to the stand - I don't want them to fall over. when the cold weather comes, I think I'll have to get them back to two deeps somehow. We are still in a slight flow, ending soon however.


----------



## GaryG74

Had another hive cast a small swarm today. It's about the size of a grapefruit but is 35-40 feet off the ground on the limb of an oak tree. They were headed in the direction of a trap hive so I may get lucky and they'll go into it. At sundown they were still on the tree limb. I'll check them tomorrow and see what they did. I had fall swarms last year but they were in August instead of September.
Also bottled up about 100 pounds of fall honey. Part was medium amber and the rest was a dark red amber. I'm thinking yellow poplar for the red color.


----------



## Terry C

I must admit to being a bit slack with my bees the last couple of weeks , been busy getting construction of our kitchen underway ... have even slacked on feeding them . So I was very pleasantly surprised to find that they've all gained some weight - varying from 14 to 22 pounds gained in the last 2 weeks . They're not doing that on a quart of syrup every/every other day , there's gotta be at least a small flow going on here . Highly unusual , I've been told not to expect anything in the fall here .


----------



## AHudd

Today it rained. We had some timely rains in late August making for a flow starting slowly in the beginning of September. It has been strong for the past week or so. I hope it continues. It must be Goldenrod, because I smell that smell everyone is talking about.

Alex


----------



## bevy's honeybees

This was Saturday in the Apiary. I couldn't post then because computer giving me problems.

I have this deep box that last fall was empty and sitting out in the bee yard when a swarm moved in. Meaning, no frames. I didn't want to move them when the comb was soft, as that was during Brazilian Pepper flow and so new comb filled with new nectar. I then didn''t get to it in spring because I was starting a new yard and expanding, no time. I moved the hive to that yard, and put a medium of drawn frames under the deep. Brazilian is starting again so I had to get to it. 

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/6x4vtqaqeeryo5a/AABgP0gDKRJnoOWMgr04sbOWa

I learned something that was a great relief to me. I thought that they would have connected the bottom of the deep comb to the top of the frames on the medium. I had a wire with me and to start I ran the wire between the deep and the medium. No resistance. I picked up the top deep box, with lid on, and it easily came off with no comb breaking. I took it a few feet away and turned it upside down. They had attached comb to the sides of the box so I cut all that and lifted off the deep box. That leaves the hive still attached to the lid and upside down. I had all my frames ready with rubber bands so I could work quickly. I put the nectar and empty comb into a pail, and framed up the rest into 8 deep frames. At 3 frames I put the new deep on top of the medium and held the lid over the hive and gave it a good jolt to shake bees down into the reframed hive. Every new framed comb, much of it full of brood, I put in the new box as I finished. Because I had everything ready before I began the cut out, it took only 30 minutes to do this job. 

No I understand how Warre hives work. They don't attach upper box to the next lower box frames when it's added.


----------



## gnor

Added syrup and weighed hives today. They haven't gained much in 5 days, so I'm going to go to heavy syrup and pail feeders right on the top bars. I would like to add another 40 lb or so before Winter. Goldenrod and knotweed are done - there's some Tickseed and Fall Dandelions, and I still see a lot of pollen coming in, but if I hadn't been feeding, they would have lost weight. Other than that, bees are fat and healthy, no crawlers, and no dead bees.


----------



## 1102009

Checked my queenless hive again and found some eggs on three middle frames.
Looks good, only one egg in cell, united area , middle of cell ground.
Closed up all quite and gentle not to disturb the new queen, which must be 3-4 weeks old.

I`m a little sad today, we have AFB in our area, I´m spared but a friend of mine had his hives killed. There is no treatment with antibiotics here.

My other beekeeper friend has treated with formic acid and lost two queens and new brood. Has to buy queens now.


----------



## michkel

Refilled sugar water in both hives. Spent some time just sitting there watching them bring in pollen.


----------



## GaryG74

I found a third grapefruit sized swarm on the concrete block and going up the leg of one of my hive stands yesterday at dusk. I put a nuc with one drawn, empty frame and four frames with starter strips on the ground next to them and they started going in. I'm thinking older queen that probably couldn't fly well is the reason they weren't on a limb high in a tree like the last small swarm. This morning about half of the bees were in the nuc and about half on the front. I had put a quart of 1:1 syrup on them last night also. They started acting like they were going to swarm again so I put another nuc under them, brushed the ones off the front into it and put the original nuc box and feeder on top of the second box. That must have made up their mind because they were still in the nuc at dusk today. I put my ear to the side and they were making a contented sounding buzzing. I'll give them a week then check for a queen and eggs/larva. I'll also check the original hive for queen cells or a new queen.


----------



## Phoebee

This weekend was cool and rainy, until this afternoon when the rain stopped and a few rays of sun showed on and off.

Our property was dotted with desperate foragers. They were checking everything ... spent flower stalks, our cabin, our garage, our car, us, fence posts, you name it. Most of their forage sources have folded up shop. The few remaining blossoms, a small patch of New England Asters and some squash and bean blossoms in the garden, had a waiting line. The flowers were undoubtedly washed out by the rain, but that didn't stop the foragers from trying.

Not to panic ... they all have top feeders full of 5:3.


----------



## fntsyfan

Today in wisconsin it starte out foggy and cool. Sun started to shine around 10 AM. Checked the weight of a few hives and des 2:1 on the light ones. Bees were all clustering under the lid. Later I walked out to take a casual peek from about 15 yards and got nailed on the upper lip. Ouch ouch ouch !


----------



## michkel

Added 2:1 sugar water to my hives and watched them bringing in pollen. Checked mite boards also.


----------



## GaryG74

Golden rod is started to go full bore with boneset in full swing. Also aggeratum is blooming like crazy. Swamp sunflowers (thin leaf sunflower) and asters just getting started. The apiary has that sweet scent of curing honey that you can smell from a good distance away. This should get the hives set up good for winter. The bees are flying like crazy!


----------



## Terry C

Another pleasant surprise today , my 4 hives gained 27 , 17 , 7 , and 10 pounds ion the last week . The first 2 have 1 deep and 2 mediums and may need another medium if they keep this up . The last 2 had a deep and a medium - I added another medium to #3 since theirs was almost fully capped even though it was the lightest . Number 4 still has 3 undrawn frames , I'll be watching them closely and will maybe add another next Sunday when I weigh them . . This is apparently very unusual , I've been told by several local beekeepers that we have no fall flow . After the dismal spring and summer flows this is very welcome indeed !


----------



## squarepeg

GaryG74 said:


> Golden rod is started to go full bore with boneset in full swing. Also aggeratum is blooming like crazy. Swamp sunflowers (thin leaf sunflower) and asters just getting started. The apiary has that sweet scent of curing honey that you can smell from a good distance away. This should get the hives set up good for winter. The bees are flying like crazy!


nice! seeing the same here gary. the hives are putting on noticable weight from one week to the next. the whole yard went into orientation flying at the same time today and it was really something to behold. i'm guessing those bees represent the first big round of fall brood they started back at the end of august.


----------



## GaryG74

I was watching the hive entrances about 430-5 PM. It looked like someone was pouring bees down through a clear funnel into each hive. They were going into the hives so fast I couldn't count the number of foragers returning. Most were flying right into the entrance, not stopping to land and then walk into the hive!


----------



## squarepeg

i like it. i record that in my journal as 'multiple bees per second'.


----------



## 1102009

Feeded my "new queen" hive.

The bees are bringing in so much pollen they lose some landing at the entrance, which gives much joy to the ants.
We have echinacea and impatiens , the bees are almost white when coming back to the hive.
This year they ignore goldenrod, they prefer mint and knotweed so the hives smell just wonderful.

I love to watch them! They are so small and agile!
We had a storm today. To visit my bees at the wildlife park I have to go through a small forest and it was very dangerous, branches coming down....
It doesn`t matter to those small cell bees! 

Yesterday I visited my other Apiary.
Clover for nectar, reed for pollen.
Wrote my scorecard because I´m interested what is the influence of different plants on health and how much they bring in.


----------



## GaryG74

Got some much needed rain today. The bees were flying in the light showers, bringing in nectar and pollen. Refilled the feeder on my new swarm, they are bringing in pollen, about every fifth bee has a load. Asters and sunflowers are opening fast, golden rod continues to open also. I can walk around in a patch near the apiary and hear the bees working the golden rod.


----------



## Cyan

I decided to let the girls go 2 weeks without my prying eyes and I left them finish off the 2:1 syrup. I became concerned that they may have been backfilling parts of the brood nest and wanted to lean them up a bit. A quick peek revealed that they were working to expand comb in the 3rd super and as before, they are bringing in a lot of resources. The weather here won't allow for a whole hive inspection anytime soon, but I'm guessing that when I can, it will be the last one I do for the year. When the average temperature get's closer to the mid 40's, I'll be winterizing.


----------



## Cub Creek Bees

9th day of crappy weather here, third day of cold (low 50°s at night). All 8 of my boxes have had a scattering of dead brood pulled out on the landing boards. There was one evening several days ago before the cold front came that there was a break in the rain and clouds - the bees were flying in the moonlight. I've only seen that one other time. #sendmesomesun


----------



## skidmld

My grandsons and I extracted 1 Med. super of goldenrod honey yesterday. We got 18 pints off 9 capped frames. The last frame was full, but read 22% moisture so we left it and put the super back on the hive. Golden rod is in full bloom here, and we hope to have a couple more weeks for the bees to work it. We are having a few days of rain here and I don't know if it will help or hurt the golden rod flow. Aster are blooming also. I was very pleased with the honey we extracted. It looked and tasted great, as good or better than any we extracted so far.


----------



## squarepeg

gary, sorry if i missed it but did you have a chance to check that queen in the caught swarm to see if she came from the hive you suspected?


----------



## GaryG74

The queen in the swarm looked a lot like the queen I had seen in the hive the swarm was under, but not as many dark stripes. She has a large abdomen so I'm thinking mated queen, supercedure swarm like you had suggested previously. I also caught a fourth small swarm this week. I put them in a nuc with two frames of drawn, empty comb and put a feeder jar on top. When this weather system gets by, highs around 56-60F daily with clouds and 10-15 MPH winds, I'll check that swarm for a queen also. I'd like to put a frame or two of brood in each nuc but with the swarms being so small, how long do you think I should wait before adding frames of brood? I'm thinking at least a week from hiving the swarm.
Also, I checked the hive and did not see the queen but there was uncapped brood. It was eight days since I had caught the swarm. I'm going to check the hive again this next week if the weather cooperates. I checked every frame and saw no queen cells, new or torn down ones.


----------



## squarepeg

interesting gary. i agree that you'll want to ensure that the caught swarms have queens laying good patterns before utilizing resources from your other hives. a week or so would usually be long enough but if there is no pollen in the nucs and they haven't been able to forage due to weather it may hold them back on brooding so you might not be getting a true read.

as for adding brood, when i had a couple of tiny colonies this past spring that needed some i found a frame of capped brood, made sure the queen wasn't on it, placed a board level with the entrance, shook the nurse bees from the brood frame onto that board and let them walk one by one into the reduced entrance. the frame of brood minus the bees was placed into center the hive.

some advocate just giving the brood frame with adhering bees a light shake to dislodge the foragers and putting it in bees and all which would probably work just fine. i was just be extra cautious i guess since it was before drones were flying, just as now would be too late for them to make a new queen.

some protein patties might not be a bad idea given your scenario, it will be very cool if you are able to get them through winter.


----------



## 1102009

Today I did my last hive inspection before winter.
6 of my hives have 2 deep boxes, the top box filled with honey, 2-3 frames with honey at both sides (dadant 11 frames, follower board).
The other 2 are 1 deep. Estimated the honey at -40 pounds.
Many bees still present.
They will bring in more nectar and pollen, we have a good fall flow and weather will be warm for 1 week.

The hive which re-queened has capped brood on 4 frames now, but not many foragers, so i will feed them as long as possible.

I`ve seen no varroa mites and no defect bees, they still have healthy drones.
At the entrances of every hive except the re-queened one orientation flights are done.


----------



## Phoebee

Like Cub Creek Bees, weather has been lousy here for a while. It is more like early December than early October. Rainy, temps in the mid 40s, for well over a week. We can feed syrup in the top feeders, and weight, but inspections are right out. We've got extra supers on the strong hives hoping they'll draw and store syrup, but they've refused, maybe because they've figured out we want to steal some for the nucs and the weaker hive.

Meanwhile, they're hovering by the entrance reducers hoping the forecast for warmer temps and a few rays of sunshine materialize tomorrow. Every now and then one dashes out for a bathroom break, and right back in again.


----------



## GaryG74

The temperature finally got into the 60s today and the winds stopped long enough to refill the syrup jars on my two fall swarms that are in nucs. I also added a piece of pollen patty about 2"X2" to each nuc on the top bars. Most of the hives, and both nucs, were flying some but nothing like early last week. Warmer weather is forecast for this week, back into the 70s. There's still lots of nectar and pollen for the bees to harvest.


----------



## Colobee

Got done processing the bow hunting elk harvest. The larder is full. Now to pull the honey. Put the tri-escape boards on Friday. 'Got nailed once in the upper eyelid, despite the full suit - worst ever! All hives are packed full. 27 mediums from 5 producers & a couple spring (Buckfast) swarms. The Fergie Buckfast's are doing fabulous.


----------



## biggraham610

Congrats all the way around Colobee. G:thumbsup:


----------



## GaryG74

Temps got into low 80s today after 4-5 days of upper 50s for highs, being windy and cloudy. Looked like swarm city in the bee yard with all the foraging and orienting. Lots of pollen and nectar coming in after the reduced activity. We're supposed to have nice weather the rest of the week. The bees will be making up for lost time!


----------



## Cub Creek Bees

Loads of pollen coming back today, asters and buckwheat positively humming. They were still hammering the buckwheat at 3pm - that was new for me... They don't come off the asters til the sun goes down.


----------



## Phoebee

I am so itching to get back to our bees later this week, before it gets snotty again. I expect to find the same thing Cub Creek Bees is seeing, and it will be a relief after all this cold rain.


----------



## biggraham610

Saw the sun today for the first time in 10 days.............. hives looked like cannons at 5pm when I got home. Orange and yellow pollen by the basket-ful. Sure they were glad to get out. Imagine the Farm yard was rocking as well, will check them and add feed as needed tomorrow evening. G


----------



## Arnie

Excellent, Colobee! Fantastic. 27 medium supers off 5 hives; nice work!
We had a pretty good year here in Boulder county, just wish we had had more resources to start the year.


----------



## Colobee

It was actually only ~22 off of the 5 dedicated producers, although from the looks of things they could have each filled another if I'd given them (had) the space. 5 supers were from a couple of spring swarms.

All the same, thanks - ( Mother Nature  ), it was a very good year. There is a decent fall flow continuing into this beautiful Indian Summer. My wife just noticed that the bees are all over the bolting broccoli blooms in the garden.


----------



## biggraham610

Just did a lift test, was happy with what I felt. Will still avail some offerings, but, believe I am very close to weight, and there is a bonus small flow of something, unusual around here this time of year. G


----------



## Colobee

Spinning out bucket after bucket of honey, I'm seeing something I've seen in years past: wet years (like this one) = exceptionally light colored honey, around here. Very hot & dry years seem to yield medium to slightly dark honey. Obviously, the weather affects which bee forage plants flourish & when. The resulting honey blend appears to be a reflection of that.

'Just an observation over the decades...


----------



## Scotty P's Bees

As everyone else in the US gets ready to shut down, we are in a pepper flow now here in S Florida. Lots of golden neon yellow comb.
Transferred a swarm catch into a hive and did a swarm prevention split today.


----------



## Pooh Bear

Stood out in the garden as the sun settled and could see silhouetted against the fading sky, masses of bees coming to and from my hives (x2). It was incredible; a continuous conveyor belt of bees coming and going over the horizon. All seemingly heading in a single direction with real purpose. I stood in awe at what I was witnessing and then wondered... "I hope they are not robbing somebody" 

I'll never know.


----------



## RayMarler

Put pollen patty and Apivar in the four latest nucs. Checked through a couple others here. Everyone surviving on stores, feeding needed, so got syrup on them all.


----------



## beestudent

Ugh... Swarms...had a swarm from mid august, large enough to build out a double deep, get halfway through the second one, and SWARM... That made me mad😯... Today checked em, they got a laying queen again, and hopefully can make it. I probably will put em in a triple nuc to hold heat.


----------



## squarepeg

beestudent said:


> hopefully can make it.


it will depend on how many long-lived wintering bees the new queen can make before it gets too cold. most of the older ones in there won't live through winter. good luck beestudent.


----------



## beestudent

By the queen calendar, she should have been mated 1 1/2 weeks ago, (I just didn't want to mess anything up...) So, she should be able to make enough winter bees.


----------



## Phoebee

This weekend we finally got warm, dry weather and could get into the hives.

The weak hive that has not been taking syrup is broodless. The queen (installed in July) still looks OK but is not doing her job. They've been treated for mites, have no obvious disease symptoms. The hive has not lost weight, despite some bug-tussles on the landing board that suggest robbing attempts, so they're in good spirits in spite of their predicament. I wish them well, but they're not going to make it. I'll probably tag and bag a sample and see if Beltsville can make some sense of it.

Everybody else is going great guns, sucking down 2:1 and devouring pollen substitute. Pollen is coming in again. One hive and two nucs have been drawing comb on winter supers. I pulled two outer frames each of drawn comb and syrup from the two strong hives to bolster the stores in the nucs. My main worry is if they can all get good stores above their broodnests for winter.


----------



## Cub Creek Bees

Local (Louisa) keeper lost a hive and colony to a black bear this week -got my electric up on the second yard, thank goodness. Bees are still strollin' in the asters. Got down to 36° this morning...


----------



## Phoebee

Mmmm, forgot to mention we had a bear on the game camera this weekend, 6 ft from the back of the cabin, 100 ft from the apiary. Thus justifying the overbuilt bear fence with 3 joule charger driving tapes on the outside.

Might get us, but the bees will be OK.

The bees have decided they like Boltonia Asters after all.


----------



## biggraham610

all Seams and tops of frames are covered in bees. Had to get the Buckfasts to draw comb for me to fill in blanks. I honestly believe they would draw more if I asked. That's a new one on me, and a new one I LIKE. Will feed until they are topped off, and batten the hatches. Going in with 15 this year in several different configurations. Overall, the yard looks stronger/healthier than it has in my past winters. G


----------



## biggraham610

Yeah, saw today the bears are back in my sawtooth oaks, tearing off limbs instead of eating low hanging fruit:no:. Well, we planted a thousand of them for the game, I guess the bears are game as well. Just stay away from my hives! G


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Well my wife took all my veils with the truck today. (all my eggs in one basket right?)

got thru about 30 hives without a veil. Then a bee decided my eyelid needed to get pierced! Yes sir fun day. I still made it thru the rest of the yard and now have 5 veils and will not be doing that.....until next year.


----------



## 1102009

Cold weather coming.
The bees are still flying, aster and ivy are blooming.

Seems like it will be a longer winter for our region. More frost.
My neighbors organic breeded cattle is without shelter the whole year through and grow thick fur.
Starlings are flying to the south, last year they stayed in winter.

I have finished feeding.


----------



## biggraham610

Good Luck to you SiWolke. G


----------



## 1102009

Thanks, G.

Keep going!
Best luck to you, too!
Sibylle


----------



## 1102009

Cold morning.
decided to take measurement of entrance to make my mice excluders, since I`m able to visit the AMMF1 now without protection.

It was an eerie atmosphere in our wildlife park. Fog was rising and the sky was very pink.
It`s rutting season and our red deer stag was roaring his challenge.

Time stood still. United myself with nature and prayed that my bees will survive.


----------



## Cloverdale

This AM here I heard turkeys and my grandson found a turkey feather. Bees were quiet, too early. &#55357;&#56842;


----------



## beenerds

Bear blew through my electric fence and destroyed 27 hives and about 65 brood boxes, frames etc. I am officially out of business until the spring. I have rebuilt the fence and am on watch for the bear and will dispatch it if I get a safe shot.

I will be building boxes and frames this winter.


----------



## LynnY

I love this thread for its amazing contrasts, beauty and heartbreak. Hearing the turkeys and red stag, being with grandchild so beautiful. So sorry to read about the bear rampage @beenerds


----------



## Cloverdale

beenerds said:


> Bear blew through my electric fence and destroyed 27 hives and about 65 brood boxes, frames etc. I am officially out of business until the spring. I have rebuilt the fence and am on watch for the bear and will dispatch it if I get a safe shot.
> 
> I will be building boxes and frames this winter.


Oh no, what a loss. You will be busy this winter. I hope you can up the ampage (?) on your fence; but a nice bearskin rug sounds good too. ;-)


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Was working the bees and trying to go thru a whole yard and then I got a phone call from my wife saying its time!

Long story short a 7lb 5 oz new beekeeper has been born. Jimmy Reynolds


----------



## michkel

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Was working the bees and trying to go thru a whole yard and then I got a phone call from my wife saying its time!
> 
> Long story short a 7lb 5 oz new beekeeper has been born. Jimmy Reynolds


Congrats!


----------



## michkel

beenerds said:


> Bear blew through my electric fence and destroyed 27 hives and about 65 brood boxes, frames etc. I am officially out of business until the spring. I have rebuilt the fence and am on watch for the bear and will dispatch it if I get a safe shot.
> 
> I will be building boxes and frames this winter.


I'm so sorry.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

michkel said:


> Congrats!


Thanks!


----------



## Cloverdale

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Was working the bees and trying to go thru a whole yard and then I got a phone call from my wife saying its time!
> 
> Long story short a 7lb 5 oz new beekeeper has been born. Jimmy Reynolds


Hooray for baby beeks! Congrats to you and your wife.


----------



## Bienenstock

Glad to hear you had a great Scoutmaster. I was a Scoutmaster for about 6 years....loved every minute of it....and still keep up with a lot of my boys. Wish I had been into the bees while I was there...that would have been fun.


----------



## Phoebee

My wife and I took a "busman's holiday" today in DC. With a little time on our hands this afternoon, we stopped by the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Honeybees were out working the asters in their garden, of which there were several varieties. The Natural History Museum has an indoor observation hive, and I've been curious what they do with it in the winter. The answer is, they move it elsewhere and shut down the display. 

Yech, what a wretched hive! Although it is set in a fake tree, it is a pretty standard 5 or 6-frame vertical observation hive. I saw no brood, no nectar, no honey, and no pollen stores. Nothing but empty comb with a handful of chewed-upon capped cells which look pretty dead. There were enough bees to cover maybe 2 frames. The bees outside in the garden were from elsewhere. Possibly some from the White House, and there are rooftop hives elsewhere in the city as well. My wife says the Department of Agriculture has some nearby. I know American University has hives but they're a bit far away.

I couldn't resist playing bee docent for a few minutes, sharing the joy and using the spiel I normally use at the county fair.


----------



## 1102009

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Was working the bees and trying to go thru a whole yard and then I got a phone call from my wife saying its time!
> 
> Long story short a 7lb 5 oz new beekeeper has been born. Jimmy Reynolds


Congrats, too!



> Bear blew through my electric fence and destroyed 27 hives and about 65 brood boxes, frames etc. I am officially out of business until the spring. I have rebuilt the fence and am on watch for the bear and will dispatch it if I get a safe shot.


I`m sorry! Keep going!


----------



## Cloverdale

Phoebee said:


> My wife and I took a "busman's holiday" today in DC. With a little time on our hands this afternoon, we stopped by the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Honeybees were out working the asters in their garden, of which there were several varieties. The Natural History Museum has an indoor observation hive, and I've been curious what they do with it in the winter. The answer is, they move it elsewhere and shut down the display.
> 
> Yech, what a wretched hive! Although it is set in a fake tree, it is a pretty standard 5 or 6-frame vertical observation hive. I saw no brood, no nectar, no honey, and no pollen stores. Nothing but empty comb with a handful of chewed-upon capped cells which look pretty dead. There were enough bees to cover maybe 2 frames. The bees outside in the garden were from elsewhere. Possibly some from the White House, and there are rooftop hives elsewhere in the city as well. My wife says the Department of Agriculture has some nearby. I know American University has hives but they're a bit far away.
> 
> I couldn't resist playing bee docent for a few minutes, sharing the joy and using the spiel I normally use at the county fair.


To have an observation hive in that condition in the Smithsonian that represents our natural history of our Country, and have honeybees at the Whitehouse which are apparently thriving, is somewhat of an oxymoron. Shame on the caretakers of the OB hive!


----------



## RayMarler

Removed Apivar strips in ten older hives, and gave them pollen patty.
Put syrup on 15 hives.

For the most part, the hives are low on bees: I've not kept attention to Pollen flows and stores for the last six weeks, they had no pollen stored. Pollen sub and syrup for the rest of the month.


----------



## maudbid

SPent yesterday trying to salvage the remains of one hive which a bear found. This was a deep which was full of honey and some brood in which there was a virgin queen when I looked last weekend. The bear only ate out the brood area, leaving about half the honey and four frames untouched. It is now down to a five frame nuc, full of honey, with unknown queen status. 

This was a hive which was not behind the electric fence in the Apiary since it was a split which decided to supercede before I could get it back to the yard. The bear didn't touch the August nuc sitting right next to it. This new hive and the nuc are now protected from bears.

The main apiary wasn't touched, but I added a few more strips of bacon to the top electric strand just in case the bear finds this yard just a couple hundred feet away.

While pondering the destruction centered on the protein filled brood area, I considered the fact that bears are omnivores. Well, so am I. Shoot on sight orders have been issued to the hunters around here.


----------



## xarhs

*HIVE INSPECTION IN THE WILD MOUNTAINS OF GREECE. FIR FOREST*


----------



## Joel

Maudbid - We sure have our share of bears in the area...sorry to hear you lost one. It sounds like your bear is educated to the fence and we have found it is better to "keep" and educated bear as if he is removed the void will be quickly filled with one that may walk through a fence. Depending on whether it is a Sow or Boar or a Sow with cubs (in season) will also impact their efforts and who is showing up. Sounds like you've done everything necessary - bacon, hot fence, to protect your bees. As an FYI there were several bears relocated to our area in the 1980's and of course no one told them they aren't supposed to cross the PA border into NY. Be sure and keep that fence hot as we see as many issues in mid Feb. as we do Oct.


----------



## maudbid

Joel said:


> Maudbid - We sure have our share of bears in the area...sorry to hear you lost one. It sounds like your bear is educated to the fence and we have found it is better to "keep" and educated bear as if he is removed the void will be quickly filled with one that may walk through a fence. Depending on whether it is a Sow or Boar or a Sow with cubs (in season) will also impact their efforts and who is showing up. Sounds like you've done everything necessary - bacon, hot fence, to protect your bees. As an FYI there were several bears relocated to our area in the 1980's and of course no one told them they aren't supposed to cross the PA border into NY. Be sure and keep that fence hot as we see as many issues in mid Feb. as we do Oct.


I caught the bear on a game camera covered in bees. This is the first bear I've caught on camera, although I've seen bears and their signs many times over the years. It looks to be a lone mid-sized boar, probably just ejected from his mama's care. **** teenagers. 

Yeah, I keep the fence powered year round.


----------



## Pooh Bear

First hard frost today (October 19th) in Westchester County, New York


----------



## Colobee

Made up what may be the last batch of 3:5 syrup for a while. The forecast is for several days of cool & rain (& snow in the high country).


----------



## Colobee

mmmmm... elk burger for lunch.


----------



## GaryG74

Moved some frames of honey around to fill supers and removed some supers with undrawn/partially filled frames. The fall flow is winding down due to no rain. I can barely get a super off and covered before it gets covered with bees trying to rob the super. I only remove two or three supers at a time and carry them to my garage as I remove them. Things are definitely winding down for the year.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Cleaned out part of barn and started setting up shop in there. 45 degree afternoon transferring nucs into real boxes (currently in osb boxes I made in a rush in the spring in NC. Not good for NH winter) Popped outside honey frame and then moved other 4 frames as one unit so didn't even expose brood to outside temp. The long story short. Beautiful, cold sunny afternoon, and the clusters look better than I thought.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

checked a yard of hives still crankin out brood due to late warm spells! Oh ya!


----------



## Colobee

It's a beautiful day, and it appears we are in for a couple more. I'll be putting warmed syrup (~80*F) back on the hives in a bit. Most of the "fed" hives have been taking almost a quart of 5:3 a day.

The local forecast is for a possible first overnight freeze, later next week.


----------



## GaryG74

Checked a hive I thought was queen less, had not seen her for about three or four weeks. Looked at each frame twice (didn't use any smoke) and found her the second time. I was prepared to combine a nuc with this hive.
Moved another hive from 8 frame Deep and two mediums into a 5 frame deep with a medium nuc super on top. This one was a supercedure in September and they evidently haven't been able to build back up to fill the 8 frame equipment. I'll winter them in the nuc, the bees covered the frames in the deep.
Still moving frames and supers to equalize stores for winter. About two thirds of the hives are ready for winter.


----------



## biggraham610

About half of the hives have quit taking feed. Fed the rest. Populations are looking good. Cool nights are here to stay. G


----------



## Phoebee

Nuc #2 understands what I want them to do. We gave them a super back in August, and two weeks ago we swapped out two frames for frames of stores from a larger hive. They've finally gotten serious about drawing comb. I was not sure they could be persuaded to this late in the season, but they're doing it in earnest and stashing away 2:1 syrup in it.

Nuc #1 and the largest hive, not so much. They've poked at the foundation a little but probably won't draw much more unless a miracle happens. And that's about what I expected. The nuc may regret this come mid-winter, when they run short on top stores. I have a couple of frames of sugar brick for them if they don't complete drawing and filling. The big hive probably has enough, but I was hoping they'd put away more that I could donate to the nucs.

The weak hive that I thought was done for is showing signs of enthusiasm again. They're taking syrup again and are defending their entrance. So maybe, maybe.


----------



## GaryG74

One of my small fall swarms with a laying queen got robbed out in spite of a robbing screen. Everybody dead in the nuc.
Second fall swarm is missing their queen but has five emergency queen cells. This should be interesting, probably a goner too.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

built 100 double nuc bottom boards going to be nice to have for increase this coming year


----------



## biggraham610

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> built 100 double nuc bottom boards going to be nice to have for increase this coming year


Nothing like increase . I think I have 20 on hand. G


----------



## 1102009

Went to my carni bee yard yesterday after the cold spell we had (light frost at nights, cold days), they quit feeding, so we cleaned the small feeders. 
Warm weather again and there were clouds of young winter bees doing their orientation and cleansing flights.
The older bees are still foraging bringing dark blue pollen from phacelia and orange pollen from mustard which are used as fertilizers. Nectar brought, too.
Everything looked fine.
Met my mentor to do some bee talk.


----------



## Cyan

Two weeks ago I cut 1" aluminized foam insulation for the hive. I don't like tar paper, but I have some breathable house wrap I could use as an added moisture/wind barrier. I probably got ahead of myself by adding the candy board and I utilized a quilt box- the bees really don't seem to care though. Could have added another 10 lbs (roughly) of fondant to the board, but it was designed so that a second board could be added later.

The temperatures here are still in the mid 60's, low 40's although this morning we had a heavy frost. I purchased an entrance feeder because I'd like to feed some more 2:1 with HBH. I also purchased some Dadant AP23 pollen substitute to help fortify their pollen stores. Yes, believe it or not the girls are still bringing in pollen but much less of it than compared to late summer/early fall. No idea what it's from, possibly goldenrod as it is a bright orange. 

All I can say other than this, is that I'm trying. Compared to the hive I inherited last fall with no experience at all, I'd say these ladies might have a 70% chance of making it.


----------



## Terry C

It was around 60° here today and mostly sunny , so I decided to go ahead and reconfigure the hives for winter . They all have a deep and a medium now , with a minimum of 6 frames of stores in the deeps and 9 or 10 frames in the mediums . Weights vary from 102 to 120 lbs , even the lightest has much more honey than my one hive last year had at this time . I now have 10 medium frames with varying amounts of honey/syrup in the freezer to feed back to them if/when they need it .


----------



## biggraham610

Nuc orientation flights this afternoon. At 50 degrees. I think I am starting to like the Buckfasts more and more......... G


----------



## gnor

Days are getting short, with temps in the high 40s. Not much left out there but the little wild Asters. I still see some pollen coming in on the better days, but mostly, it looks as if just the scouts are going out. Brood pattern is way down, although I did see some orienting the other day.
I've been feeding 2:1 syrup the past few weeks - 4 mason jars inverted on the top bars. Hive 1 has added 20 lb., and Hive 2, 25 lb. We are getting up to where I need them for the Winter.
I'm proud of my girls. We started with 2 4-frame nucs on July 11, but they didn't like their first queens. Since then, though, they have drawn out two 10 frame deeps, and they look to be in good shape for the Winter.


----------



## Colobee

"Buckfast bees rock!"

x3...:thumbsup:


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Colobee,

I hope that I can agree with you and biggraham610 in a year from now.

Steve


----------



## gnor

Bear Creek Steve said:


> Colobee,
> 
> I hope that I can agree with you and biggraham610 in a year from now.
> 
> Steve


First year for me, too, but I like what I've seen so far. Each colony has drawn out and filled two 10 frame deeps in about 3 months, and we didn't get started until after the Spring flow was well over. One complaint might be that they don't seem to get going very early in the day, but you can't argue with success. Our climate here is very similar to The UK, so I guess I have to trust Brother Adam to get it right.


----------



## gnor

First frost last night.


----------



## Brianaurum

Did a full hive inspection without gloves for the first time, it was a very slow and steady job and only a couple of stings. Also a tiny swarm I caught and boxed yesterday vanished, there would have been only a thousand bees or so, so I didn't expect much from them.


----------



## Cub Creek Bees

Last inspection for me this year... did the final round of OAV (thanks snl) mite counts are looking good. Still some drones hanging around - interesting. Stores are looking good. 70°, deadnettle is coming on after that nice rain from Patricia. Bees working it an pulling that bright red pollen. Three other shades of yellow, too - frost didn't get everything.

8-1/2 weeks to the solstice... deep even breaths, boy. Steady.


----------



## Gypsi

Today in the apiary it was rainy so I checked the sticky boards for results of my one and only OAV treatment. Got a lot of mites. Then got rain, a toddler for company, work stuff and more rain. That 6 day gap is gonna be more like 14 days, but I was sure happy to see hundreds of dead mites. (sorry I had that many though)


----------



## biggraham610

finishing the breakdown of my last 50lbs of sugar. Will give to hives that want, between morning stand and evening stand. Black Powder starts tomorrow. Three of the shooter bucks on my place. Hope I can get my Pop on one tomorrow. G


----------



## biggraham610

I will keep you posted TB. Good Luck. G


----------



## Terry C

biggraham610 said:


> finishing the breakdown of my last 50lbs of sugar. Will give to hives that want, between morning stand and evening stand. Black Powder starts tomorrow. Three of the shooter bucks on my place. Hope I can get my Pop on one tomorrow. G


 Nice bucks ! We've already had our early BP hunt , I missed a perfect shot on a nice doe because of a cap failure . I shoulda knowed that cap from last year needed to be replaced ...


----------



## Cyan

I just took a quick look at the hive this afternoon and the girls are busy as ever. They are still bringing in an orange colored pollen and sucking down the 2:1 syrup like crazy. 

I briefly lifted the jar on the entrance feeder yesterday and revealed what I think are new workers- they were very nicely colored as compared to the workers I've seen in months past. I also introduced a sample of a pollen patty to see how they would take to that specific recipe. Judging by the extended forecast, SW PA looks to be having another week of 60's & 70's that I can use to beef their stores up. Feeling very positive.


----------



## sqkcrk

Today in my apiaries I finished bringing the last of the hives into the home yard where they will be loaded onto a semi in about 10 days to take them to SC for the Winter.

I also brought the last of th honey home from the extractor. Made 311 more buckets of honey this year than last year. Total 679 buckets of honey.


----------



## rookie2531

Mark, what is the reason for taking them south? Is it to make more splits earlier, so they can be sold up north at the peak time?


----------



## sqkcrk

A milder Winter, an earlier Spring. So I can make nucs to replace the dead hives and have extras to replace any that may die later in NY.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

sqkcrk said:


> Made 311 more buckets of honey this year than last year. Total 679 buckets of honey.


That's fantastic. Congrats!!


----------



## biggraham610

Mike Gillmore said:


> That's fantastic. Congrats!!


X2. G


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

checking hive weights, combining a few that were too small, and cleaning up the yards for the winter. 
Hours of bee work and not a bee sting. Then I grabbed my hive tool and a yellow jacket lit me up. He is dead. 

THE END


----------



## Phoebee

Nuc 2 continues to make the others look lazy. This little powerhouse continues to put away all their syrup, and is still drawing comb in which to store it. I watched them dispatch a yellowjacket while feeding them, and killed four more for them while I was at it.

Nuc 1 acted like they had shut down for the winter until this afternoon, when they held a proper "Happy Hour" orientation party. They took little syrup this week, but were interested again today, and next week's expected warm temperatures ought to revive interest.

Hive I also held Happy Hour. When I lifted the lid from the top feeder, the gallery was again packed with bees. They had not drained it, but had taken most of it and were stumbling over each other getting the last of it. I've seen this from them before ... enthusiastic feeding that packs the passageway, and they can drain a gallon in 12 hours when in this mode. Their 3-mediums plus feeder should be good for winter at 138 pounds.

Hive Z, the weakling, continues to show some spark. I'd like to peek inside, but at this late date I'm inclined to cross my fingers and hope. If they fail, nuc 2 is there to replace them next spring, if they continue to do as well as they have this fall. They're holding steady at about 70 pounds, so they're not being robbed out.


----------



## michkel

No hive checks as we are having a wonderful rain storm. It's so nice to finally have some rain!

I did see several semi trucks loaded with bees coming down the summit last night. I guess they are overwintering here.


----------



## gnor

Beautiful sunny day here, 54 degrees and no wind. Orientation flights going on, November 2, so I guess the girls aren't about to pack it in anytime soon. I installed the new hive top feeders yesterday, and the bee ladders were packed with bees today. Each colony has drawn down almost a litre of 2:1, which is great. Better than fruit jars, for sure. Yesterday was cool and rainy, and the girls weren't doing much, but they made up for it today.
I see more pollen coming in now than in the past, so I'm hoping they are putting some away for Spring. They didn't store much during the Summer, so I guess they just brought in fresh as needed.


----------



## Jim Brewster

Warm (60's) and cloudy around here with dribs and drabs of rain over the weekend. The bees have been working the asters--which have been going strong since September--pretty heavily, bringing in yellow pollen and I assume nectar as well.

I put in the entrance reducers, and after seeing the resulting traffic jam wondered if it was a mistake. But they seem to be settling into the new traffic pattern so I think I'll leave them.


----------



## Colobee

3rd beautiful day in a row. Snow forecast for late tomorrow/Thursday. Lost the smallest queen unit to robbing/queen failure (late supercedure set them back). Installed smallest lower entrance reducers on all hives. Put sugar bricks on the July Canadian Buckfast queen units - they are looking ready for winter. 

'Still 6 hives up on the expansion plan.


----------



## Mike Gillmore

Can't believe how warm it is here in Ohio for early November. Three days of sunny 70's weather, hard to imagine. Went to 2 of my yards after work to remove a few feeders and add feeder rims to the hives. It was just beautiful out, like an early summer day, and I was so tempted to dig into the hives a little bit and look around. But, I was able to maintain my composure and refrain from disturbing the girls. I know this will turn around quickly and in a few short weeks we could be looking at snow on the ground. They seem to be ready to go. All is well.


----------



## justin

i moved 32 hives from 2 outyards to my home yard. my suit was moldy when i found it, so i was not well protected. the weather said 40 for a high so i figured i was alright. at the first yard i saw bees flying, and then a grasshopper hopping around and thought " i guess they are not clustered". i only took one sting (right in the nostril). the hives look good overall, one had several yjs coming and going so i'll check it out. they are calling for snow tonight. if it doesn't i'll bring home the last 32 after work tomorrow.


----------



## biggraham610

Like Mike, the weather is crazy warm. Just glanced at the yard as I was passing by in the EZ-GO heading for the evening hunt. Bees flying to and from all hives, some more than others. All winter numbers look good from last inspection. Cruised by. Watched a Sow Black Bear seem a little bored with watching her two cubs wrestle in a bog...... instead of following the intent path of Mom. Later had a doe and button come to the grocery store under my feet(Alfalfa/Sanofoin/Clover/Chickory) followed closely by a young 6 pointer. Watched them till dark- 45 min. at 20-50 yds. I love fresh air. G


----------



## Riverderwent

In the last five days, I've done two cutouts from fallen trees and today I collected a swarm on a limb near the front door of a middle school. Strange for this time of year. I plan to add frames of capped honey and drawn comb to nurse these three colonies through winter.


----------



## Terry C

Today I put some feed back on the hives because it was such a nice day . Weighed first and they all lost a couple of pounds in the last 10 days . I apparently wasted my time and sugar , only one hive took any , and them not much .


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Wife and I painted 125 more deeps, 55 double nuc bottom boards and 45 regular solid bottom boards. 3 year old daughter loves painting bee houses! She is bee lover and a good painter. The 3 week old was in a crib with a mosquito net around it. We start them early!


----------



## RayMarler

Removed all the feeder jars, and swapped out the feeder lids for solid lids. 3 or 4 seemed a little light on bees, and 2 or 3 might be a little light in stores. They make it or they don't. I'll be putting in pollen sub the end of this month, then they won't get opened again until sometime in mid January to first February. Then is when I'll put more pollen sub on, then check for needed space added by end of February.


----------



## GaryG74

I checked my last fall swarm nuc that looked to have been robbed out. It was light and only a few bees were going in and out, I thought it was dead. It had five emergency queen cells in it a week ago. When I opened it up there were bees on three plus frames and I saw a virgin in the middle of one of them! There are still drones here, so if we can get some warm, sunny days for mating flights the little hive may have a chance. I put a small chunk of pollen patty, a frame of capped honey (replaced an empty frame), and parts of a sugar block in the nuc since they were so light. The bees started on the sugar brick before I got the cover back on the hive. I have the robbing screen closed down so they're using the "secret" entrance already. I'll keep my fingers crossed and watch it closely for robbing or other issues.


----------



## biggraham610

Bees flying like nuts. Buzzing me 3/4 mile from the yard 20' in a tree. Hes still around...... weathers supposed to break this weekend, maybe get him on his feet just a little earlier............. G


----------



## jwcarlson

biggraham610 said:


> Bees flying like nuts. Buzzing me 3/4 mile from the yard 20' in a tree. Hes still around...... weathers supposed to break this weekend, maybe get him on his feet just a little earlier............. G


Come on, G. Gotta give him another year!  Pretty good body on him too, by the looks of it.


----------



## biggraham610

This ain't Iowa. That's a brute in these parts. If I could tie him up, I would be happy to. I just hope my Pop gets a shot at him. I have many a hunt left. G


----------



## GaryG74

It's a nice buck here in AL also. Good luck!


----------



## jwcarlson

biggraham610 said:


> I just hope my Pop gets a shot at him. I have many a hunt left. G


Send good luck vibes for your dad, hope you get to help him drag a big one this year.


----------



## Jim Brewster

It hit 84 at BWI today, a new record for this date. Bees were fanning their reduced entrances.


----------



## Terry C

Had our first frost last night , the wife got in her SUV to go to work and there was ice on the windows ... she was irritated that I hadn't anticipated and had them scraped for her . Yesterday I pulled the feeders off because they just weren't taking much - the hive that's lightest actually took the least . I think I'm in pretty good shape though , the lightest is just under 100 lbs which is a lot more than they had last year at this time . Time to just leave 'em bee until about February when they should be starting to brood up for spring . I will be monitoring hive weights of course ... and taking appropriate action if necessary . .


----------



## biggraham610

Terry C said:


> she was irritated that I hadn't anticipated and had them scraped for her . .


:scratch: What? An irritated wife? Never heard of that one before....................:lpf:


----------



## Jim Brewster

November 8th, temps in the upper 50's. I'm seeing orientation flights, yellow and orange pollen coming in, and today drones coming and going. Should I be worried about swarming?


----------



## Phoebee

The bees were out today, but about all that is left to forage is a few marigolds and a stray late-season sunflower. But they got lucky and a lot of 2:1 suddenly materialized in their attics.

One of the Cossack's took offense at me brushing her out of the top feeder and nailed me on the scalp. The stinger didn't embed, so I didn't end up with a swelled head. My fault for feeding without a veil. I usually get away with it.


----------



## 1102009

Lovely weather, the bees are flying, some bringing pollen but most of them doing orientation flights. Drones to be seen too!
Clouds of dancing bees, I love the sound!
My husband and me planted 2 trees and 6 bushes for the carnis to have fall flow. I ordered some more.

One hive had high activity and many drones, queen is 2 years old. Im not opening up any more, so what will be the surprise? Superseding? Queen not prolific any more?
Well I will trust them to know what to do.

See you all in the spring and good luck to you! Time to do new foundations and meet friends. Thanks for all the info.


----------



## michkel

Lots of rain and cold, so nothing in the apiary today.


----------



## gnor

Beautiful day here. Sunny, calm, 55 degrees.
I got the girls really mad at me. Did what should be my final inspection this year, but did a frame by frame, looking for brood, trimming burr comb and so on. Got my ankles hemstitched for my trouble. Hive one, I can cover all the brood with my hand, and hive 2 has maybe 8 capped cells left. Everything else is being backfilled. 138 lb for hive 1, and I forgot to weigh hive 2 before I took it apart. I would guess at 125 or so. All in all, I'm pretty happy.


----------



## Colobee

A beautiful day - almost 70*F - bees out for the last flight for a few days. 3-5" of snow forecast for overnight. 2 of the Fergie hives have taken half of their first sugar bricks.

'Not a "big" snow, but the cold is on the way. 'Blizzard warnings for NE Colorado, & it's all headed north & east from here...


----------



## GaryG74

Had sunny, warm day here today after a few days of cloudy, cooler weather. Lots of orienting today. Supposed to get our first 32F night this Friday night.


----------



## Terry C

A very nice sunny day here after 2 nights in a row of below freezing lows . My bee-phobic part-time neighbor from Texas noted a lot of activity around my #1 hive while we were looking at my construction project (cellar , soon to have a kitchen above it). I had to reassure him they were just learning what "home" looks like from outside and weren't going to come over and sting him . I haven't checked brood since I buttoned them up for winter , but that might well be the last orientation flight of this season .


----------



## Colobee

They are reporting 5" of snow in Castle Rock (looks about right). 

It's still falling, but they are also saying it is "moving out"... racing into Nebraska (heads up!)


----------



## Colobee

In typical front range fashion, the storm is gone, the sun is out, there's hardly a cloud in sight, and the temp is pushing 50*F. All in a matter of a few hours. 'Walked that long 300 inches (  ) out the shop door, to see ONE curious bee at one lower entrance. They'll probably be flying "en mass" this afternoon.


----------



## Colobee

We're having another beautiful "Day before the storm" - round 2. It was near 70 yesterday and today will be much the same. They've dropped the snow forecast for tomorrow nights' storm from 3 feet to 1, here in Castle Rock. 

The bees are all set.


----------



## Pooh Bear

In the suburbs north of New York, some fine sunny weather in low 50's. Opened up both hives for the last time in 2015; both are doing well with a nice population of bees. Removed Apivar strips and noticed thousands of dead mites down where the entrance reducer was, even saw a drone in the hive that I left an extra honey supper on. Wrapped both with tar paper and called it a day


----------



## Cyan

Just a quick look-over revealed the bees still bringing in that orange colored pollen. Interesting.


----------



## Fishmaster50

Hey Cyan mine was bringing the orange pollen and seen some yellow and some that looked gray to me. Had orientation flight early afternoon. It was neat to see them drinking this morning from their frozen water bowl! Also seen a drone at the entrance did walk back in.


----------



## Cyan

Yes, they are bringing in an off white pollen from something- mostly that orange/yellow pollen though.


----------



## Terry C

Today just for S&G I decided to weigh the hives to see how quickly they're going through their stores . Imagine my surprise when every single one had not only not lost any wright , but they're all a pound or two heavier than they were on the 11th when I last weighed .


----------



## David LaFerney

That's a bit surprising, but I guess when you consider that brood rearing is low, temps (and thus energy needs) are moderate - a good bit of what they are able to bring in might be stored away. Probably a lot of it is pollen though - wouldn't you think?


----------



## Terry C

Hard to say , and I'm just into my 2nd winter ... so I'm still learning . It pleases me mightily that they're doing well , and I have high hopes for next spring . If all works out I'll make enough from honey - and maybe selling a nuc or two - to fund the next stage of expansion .


----------



## Sky

In Pacific North Wet today it is off-and-on raining sideways - 50 Degrees and winds to 60+ MPH - 
I see 1 or 2 brave foragers bringing in dark red/black pollen (i have no idea what its from or how they managing in the wind). Mostly, all the bees are hanging at home today away from the rain and wind.

Sky


----------



## Arnie

It's 45 degrees right now. My Italians are still bringing in a little bright orange pollen, even after a snowfall and night temps in the low 20's. I don't know where they are finding that pollen.


----------



## Phoebee

For the first time all season, none of the hives took all the 2:1 syrup offered last week, although all did take some. In the 50-60 F temps yesterday and today, foragers were out (not finding much), and were happy to find two harvested honey frames I put out for cleanup. We saw no bees carrying pollen. The last few chicories may be past making it, and all that is left is one tired-looking late sunflower and a handful of marigolds. Inspecting stores on the tops of the hives, we saw no SHB or moths.

The hive that was broodless a month ago, Z, was active the last three days, with a classic orientation session every afternoon. They've been taking syrup about as well as the other hives and maintained their weight, so I'm confident it was not robbing activity. Best guess: they know what they're doing and I don't. Things were a bit cool for a broodnest inspection. I did put my syrup warmer in their top feeder for two nights, and it seemed to stimulate interest.

Hive O never did draw their second winter syrup super significantly. I had it below the full one, but pulled it off today as that's a bad spot for an empty. I donated some of it partly drawn comb to Nuc 1, which hopefully will use it.

Hive I, suspected Russians, have a jam-packed super and look eager for winter.

Nuc 2 will be moved from a neighbor's place next weekend, ready to overwinter. They may be the fittest of the bunch. They've drawn and filled a 5-frame medium super over the last couple of months.

We have our fingers crossed for winter.


----------



## michkel

We had a warm day yesterday, and will for the next 5 days or so, so I popped in to check on feed in my hives. Both still had patties, so they are good there, but they were out of syrup. I refilled for them and closed them back up.

We are getting a cold spell next Wed, so they should be good to go for that.


----------



## BeeBop

The weather was REALLY nice here today. Low 70's which is the warmest it's been for a couple of weeks and none of that crazy gusty wind we've had all this week. I figured it was a good time to do a quick late year inspection.

I found the queens in both hives and there were lots of bees but almost no brood, capped or otherwise in either hive which surprised me a little. I guess the queens have given it up already for this year.

Hive #1 had quite a lot of capped honey. MUCH more than they had when I inspected last month. But not very much stored pollen. I suppose I should acquire some pollen patties to supplement them.
Hive #2 didn't have nearly as much honey but it did have more drawn comb than last time I looked. I put a top feeder on it with some 2:1. It'll want some patties also.

Both hives had quite a lot of mites on the bottom boards so I OAV'd hive #1 this evening and I'll do #2 tomorrow. Since there's almost no brood it seems like a good time for it.

No signs of moths or SHB's. 

I guess that for hives that didn't get started until late May and early July this year they are doing OK. They ain't dead yet.  I'm hoping I can still say that when next spring rolls around.

Tomorrow will make it officially 6 months since I picked up my nuc and started my first hive. It swarmed on me a month later which I wasn't clever enough to prevent, but I managed to get a second hive up and running from the queen cells left behind so it wasn't all bad. I don't feel like much of a beekeeper yet but the bees have survived me so far, I've got 2 hives from 1 purchased nuc, and I'm enjoying the experience so I guess I'm not doing too bad so far. I hope we all survive winter...


----------



## odfrank

45 years experienced beekeeper, when do I graduate from the school of hard knocks?:


----------



## Phoebee

odfrank, I did not think it was possible to have worse frames than the ones I pulled out of our swarm trap this fall, but I bow to you, sir. That's the most disgusting wax moth mess I have ever seen or hope to see. What the heck happened there?


----------



## odfrank

I think that was a bait hive I gave to an associate and didn't retrieve it fast enough. The moth problem has been increasing the last few years. I decided not to save that one and just chucked it, Only a few years old comb.


----------



## BeeBop

Wow. The bees were so disgusted they even left their suitcase behind when they left.


----------



## blackdogsfo

Second-year beek here. First year, my hive overwintered fine, grew crazy-fast, and then swarmed this spring due mainly to my inexperience at prevention. New queen installed in April. Treatment-free both years. 

Yesterday I did a belated "fall" check on my single hive. My setup was three mediums for the hive body, plus one medium full of capped and uncapped honey on top. I was able to remove the lowest box, as it was empty of brood and stores. The next lowest had some pollen in it but not much else, so I left that box on. The next one is where the brood nest is, however small. The hive looks basically the same as it did this time last year when I was worried it wouldn't last the winter-- bees concentrated in one medium, and mostly on the center 4-6 frames. Lots of uncapped and capped honey on the outer frames of that box. One honey super on top with capped and uncapped honey in say 8 of the 10 frames. Left them the three boxes, reduced entrance to smallest opening, and said goodnight for the winter! Fingers crossed they come out the other side. Will be putting together a 2nd setup for spring so I can do a split and hopefully prevent another swarm.


----------



## Terry C

Well , actually yesterday , but I was too busy laying cement blocks to post then . It was a VERY nice day yesterday and I noticed some bees flying so I wandered over to see what was going on . There were some bees orienting , didn't see any pollen coming in so that might have been all they were doing . BUT , much to my surprise there were drones flying too ! I wasn't surprised that they were leaving , but they were being allowed back into the hive . I figured the drones had been booted by now since we've already had several nights below freezing , one night down into the teens .


----------



## westtnbeekeeper

Nice warm day today. Thanksgiving day!!! A little breezy but temps in the mid 60's. I don't know where they find it but my bees were bringing pollen into the hives today. Best I could tell all 5 were gathering which I think is a good sign. Even the two weaker hives. I have been a little worried about the number of bees and their age in the weaker hives so I hope some brood rearing is going on.


----------



## rookie2531

Up north of you westtn, seeing same. I have a few smaller 5 frame nucs that I inspected the smallest a week or so ago, still had brood in 2 frames the size of my fist. These nucs, never got my oa treatment either. Maybe tomorrow, I'll give them one. But all my strong hives this year had small drops after treatments.


----------



## Cyan

Exeriencing the warmer air here in SW Pennsylvania as well. Got to hand it to them; they are still bringing in the pollen I mentioned before. I definately have plans to requeen this hive in the spring, but I'm starting to think that I may want to take the time and see what potential a few of her daughters would have. If nothing else, I could use the grafting experience.


----------



## Jim Brewster

Same here in central MD: busy entrances on both hives with pollen, drones, and orientation.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Ahhh....

Finally finished. Bees are all wrapped for winter. Apiaries are picked up. 5 loads of metal recyclables and 1 of trash off to the proper places. Autumn speaking engagements finished last weekend. Time for some R and R. Feet up and another log on the fire.


----------



## Mountain Man

70 degrees, Bees were flying feverishly here in Eastern Ky today, raised the lids on the singles im wintering and still had some ap-23 patties left.


----------



## BeeBop

No bees flying here today. Todays high temp was 47F with a low of 30F last night and probably going to be in the upper 20's tonight. Current temp at 3:15PM is 43.6F.

I stuck my ear against the hives and pretty sure I could here the sound of cards being shuffled in one hive and Oprah (or maybe judge Judy?) from the other hive.
Hopefully they're doing OK in there. It's supposed to be cold all week.


----------



## Norcalkyle

Very quiet around my hives over the weekend. It got to 19 degrees on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Treated with OAV on Saturday afternoon when it got to 45 degrees, and the rumble in the hive set my mind at ease that they were just holed up. Looking forward to the cold spell being over soon.


----------



## Phoebee

Cold and wet this weekend, but good weather for buttoning up a nuc we had at a neighbor's place and moving it home for the winter. When we opened it up two days later, about fifty bees were waiting at the door, including one patient undertaker with a body to dispose of. The bees oriented for a couple of minutes and decided that inside was better than outside.

Driving home today, we passed the assembly area near Romney, WV, where we assume the local commercial beeks are gathering hives for a trip to the almonds. With the temperature hovering at 37 F in a misty drizzle, there was a lone person in a bee jacket doing _something_ with the hives. The WV inspector maybe? Nasty conditions to have to inspect. I can't imagine the bees would have exactly poured out to greet the beekeeper. I have not met the local inspector yet, but we've been told they usually use little protection, maybe just a veil.


----------



## Terry C

I weighed the hives today (and will around the first of every month) to see how stores are holding up , once again 3 of 4 hives have actually gained a couple of pounds . Since temps were in the upper 40's I popped the lids and shined my flashlight into all hives through the hole in the inner cover , all were clustered at the top of the bottom box except # 2 , there were some bees working on the comb in the medium box . That hive gets more direct sun this time of year .


----------



## sqkcrk

Not "Today in the Apiary", but yesterday I loaded all of my hives on a semi and left home for South Carolina.


----------



## Terry C

Today it was in the mid-60's and for a while this afternoon I had quite a few bees flying . It looked like a few were foraging but most were just flying around close to the hive . I'm not sure if these were orienting bees or pooping bees ... one thing that did surprise me was to still be seeing drones flying . Several returned while I was watching and the girls let them in . I figgered they'd all be gone by now .


----------



## B Steve B

We just got through an early cold spell with temps going day/night 24/12f for a couple weeks. Yesterday's balmy 46f had our bees out flying around the hive in significant numbers. Being a first year beek, I have no idea if they were healthy numbers - but they looked like healthy bees.


----------



## gnor

We have had some beautiful weather her for a few days, and Monday I wrapped up the girls for the season. Beautiful sunny day here in high 40s with no wind. The girls were flying; some just pooping, but others taking off for parts unknown. Did an OAV treatment - 2g with my little homemade vaporizer, and did a count today. Forty eight hour count – hive 1 = 23; hive 2 = 42 Assuming I got a good kill, they should be good til Spring, IMO. I made a vaporizer from a 12 volt beverage heater and some plumbing parts. Don't know how long it will last, but if OAV works well, I will get a better one.
Of course, nothing goes perfectly, and I found out right away that the entrance was just a hair low for the vaporizer. By the time I had walked down and back for a hive tool, they were all awake and when I lifted the box, bees came boiling out like WW III. After I installed the vaporizer, I got to do my favorite thing, which was grab a chair and watch from a distance until things settled down. I got hive 2 by surprise and there wasn't much kerfuffle at all.
The boxes are all wrapped with roofing felt, top and bottom entrances, mouse guards, 3/4 inch foam on top of the inner cover and under the SBB, and lots of stores. See you in the spring, girls.


----------



## 1102009

Crazy winter again, only light frost and the agriculture fields still blooming.
Left my floors open to help the bees reducing their brood and doing a brood pause after Christmas.
If winter comes end of january or in february I will close up to keep them warm until march.Bees die end of february here , freezing on too much new brood.


----------



## minz

We had 63 degree record high temps, record lowest temps for the day and inches of rain in a single day (broke the all-time record single, and two day records). Looks like all the snow is gone off the mountain. I am hoping winter will show up here so I can do an OA drip by the end of the month. I have not been into them in a while so I figured they had it sealed up pretty tight for the high wind. Just building frames.


----------



## Honeypeach

"a new swarm that moved into some empty boxes I had stacked about 5 days ago."

A new swarm? Now? In Illinois?? My bees are pulling up their quilts and barring the doors. It's DECEMBER, for cats' sake.


----------



## Cub Creek Bees

12/12/15, 71° and partly sunny in Central VA.
Foragers bringing back dandelion and deadnettle pollen.
Dropped 10lb cane into each of my 8 hives... the optimist in me says '16 is going to be a great year.


----------



## squarepeg

weird. we're having a pre-winter 'flow' here with moderately strong foraging of pollen and nectar. both red and yellow pollen are coming in, and i just returned from the yard and hearing the bees drying nectar in the supers. i planned to weigh my hives again about the 1st of the year, it'll be a hoot if i find they've gained weight.


----------



## BeeBop

There were a few bees flying this afternoon before the rain started again and they were bringing in some pale yellowish pollen. I can't imagine where they're getting it. There's not much blooming around here. :scratch:


----------



## Arnie

Snowed last night. Today sunny and 38 degrees. Bees taking cleansing flights.


----------



## Blamo

Yup...I second what Terry C said about the drones. I went out on the 11th and put down some candy boards, up popped up a drone wondering what I was doing. Figgured they would have been evicted some time ago.


----------



## RayMarler

Popped lids on the Hives today, and what I saw was surprisingly depressing. One hive looks great, lots of bees. Two hives looked so-so OK, they'll probably make it. The rest are either dead out or close to it, this is out of 14 hives. All had stores, pollen and honey. Clusters dwindled down to almost nothing. Treated with Apivar August and September, seems it didn't work so well this year. It worked great last year so I was surprised at what I saw today. There was a commercial over winter yard that moved in 1.5 - 2 miles up the road here, in mid to late October, or maybe it was first of November, don't remember for sure. So, they moved in after I had treated, so maybe that has some bearing on what I saw today. I put Apivar back on 5 of them today, put sugar cap on top of seven of them. Now it's just wait until end of January and see how the remaining hives look.


----------



## Colobee

Another foot of snow today, for a total of over three feet this fall. Rather unusual for prior to Christmas. 

Bee flying weather is forecast for the coming weekend (50's).


----------



## Michael Palmer

Colobee said:


> Another foot of snow today, for a total of over three feet this fall. Rather unusual for prior to Christmas.



0.2" of snow in Burlington this season (29" last year) and only 1" at the snow gauge on Mount Mansfield. Over 50˚ again today and no winter in sight. 

Rather unusual for prior to Christmas.


----------



## Terry C

I still have drones ... hive #1 seems to be active at cooler temps than the other 3 , they had a lot of bees in the air this afternoon when the others had just a scattering of bees out . This is the hive I had so much trouble getting re-queened last summer and it has a grand daughter of my original (VHS ?) dark russian queen . Is this cool-weather behavior perhaps an expression of local genetics ? I dunno , but next summer is going to be interesting ! All 4 colonies are still pretty heavy with stores , all have decent populations - apparently , I can always see bees down there but have no idea just how many - and all have traffic on warm days . I've been fortunate , I haven't had any robbing problems - all 4 hives are close in strength and all have reduced openings .


----------



## Phoebee

When the temps hit 50 F this afternoon we popped the covers and pulled the feeders off the three full sized hives, replacing them with quilt boxes for the winter. The two stronger hives showed activity consistent with a cool day, but the weak one may have finally bit the dust. We expected this outcome two months ago, but two weeks ago they showed a burst of activity that made us wonder if they were healthier than we thought.

We also pulled the feeder and installed a quilt box on the friskier of our two nucs. One busy guard bee was chasing flies when we got out to it, but as soon as we lifted it to weigh it, about twenty bees boiled out the entrance. Removing the feeder, there was a huge amount of activity in the honey super. They'll either starve due to excess consumption or wind up ruling the apiary.

Several foragers came out in late afternoon to check out all sorts of unlikely objects, including our two vehicles. One found the bag of apples in the bed of my truck and needed rescue from the plastic bag.


----------



## Cyan

Bees are as busy as ever, and there is still dandelion pollen coming in. As a matter of fact, there are now several dandelions out in the yard blooming. I sure hope this warm spell isn't broken by 3 months of off & on arctic cold snaps. I don't see the 'way' above average temperatures as necessarily being a great thing in terms of breaking the brood cycle or in having winter bees foraging. 

In any event, Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!!!!


----------



## 1102009

Same here, Cyan.

I hope the bees will adapt to the late winter, this being the third time, they need to have a brood break.
I saw some foraging there are still fields blooming.
Temperature is -2-0°C in the night and 7-14°C middle of the day.

Wish you all happy holidays and good luck, many thanks for the informations.


----------



## biggraham610

Christmas Eve Orientation flights after the storm passed on 14 of 15 hives. Lost the 1 package in Nov. was expected. The open mated daughters and new Buckfast genes are all looking strong. G


----------



## Smokin' Joe

I am also seeing orientation flights today in my yard. My neighbors Quince has flowered and the bees were working it pretty hard. Lots of full pollen sacs returning to the hive. I also noticed a guard bee chasing some flies off of the front porch. 70 degrees and overcast when I made these observations.


----------



## bevy's honeybees

I went to 2 of my yards today and into 29 hives. I don't go beyond the top box unless that one looks sparse, then I go deeper. I also have one small yard with 5 hives that I didn't have time to stop and look, and the balance of my other yard will have to wait. All hives have good entrance activity and are doing well, and I learned something new. I make home made robber screens--#8 hardware cloth with square 1/2" dowels at each end, 6" high. Open top, bottom of screen carefully snug to bottom board and attached to hive. I do this at extracting time and for returning wet supers to protect the hive. I finished extracting late this year, just 2 weeks ago. So since I put the screens on there is one area of bee hives that for some reason, there were 6 or 7 hive just in this area that had a pile of pollen in front of the hive. Why this time, and why not the other section of bees with the same robber screens is a mystery to me. I took off the robber screens only on the hives that had pollen on the ground. 

I am pleased because I have noticed in other years I lose a few hives after harvest, even when I leave plenty behind which I always do. I lost one hive this fall, one of my back yard hives. I believe queenless because no capped brood. Just a guess. Out of 50 some hives of all different stages, I am very pleased.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Bees flying well today, on Christmas Eve. 65˚ Breezy.


----------



## Cloverdale

Orientation on one hive today, the rest are busy with water and cleaning; haven't wrapped yet except one outyard hive. The temps looks though they will drop this week to average cold so we will get them wrapped next week too. Have a great Christmas with family and friends.


----------



## MelanieWoosley

Was sunny and in the 60s today. Bees seen bringing in red and dark yellow pollen. Strange Christmas weather in Kentucky, we have dandelions blooming. Put a sugar brick on my two smallest hives. Merry Christmas everyone!


----------



## rkereid

Michael Palmer said:


> Bees flying well today, on Christmas Eve. 65˚ Breezy.


Wow! I can almost understand it for the mid Atlantic (nah, maybe not) but it's pretty crazy for your location in the Frozen North.


----------



## Cloverdale

biggraham610 said:


> Christmas Eve Orientation flights after the storm passed on 14 of 15 hives. Lost the 1 package in Nov. was expected. The open mated daughters and new Buckfast genes are all looking strong. G


Graham, where do you get your Buckfast from? Deb


----------



## gnor

*The Girls say Bee Very Merry This Christmas!*







Christmas day, and 13C/55F here in sunny Nova Scotia. Beautiful sunny calm day. The girls were out flying around, but no urgency, and nobody was going too far. 
No snow yet. We have a cool day coming up next week, but other than that, the next 2 weeks look like above seasonal temps. I should actually have a peek at my snow blower, but the urgency just isn't there right now.
To all the Beesourcers, have a fine holiday and a happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year.


----------



## fntsyfan

I had 3 Nuc's in my back yard. Today I went out to see how they are doing; temps are in the mid 30's. Outlook is not good, Looks like 2 of the 3 did not have enough bees to get through the cooler temps we have here in Wisconsin. Lesson learned for next year if I attempt to winter nuc's is to have a bigger population going into winter. 3rd NUC is looking good lots of bees looking out of the top entrance.


----------



## AAIndigo

Pollen coming in today in MA. I put some patties on Tuesday. Will check again in a few weeks if weather permits.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Daffodils up 2". Guess I'll start my tomato plants next week and have March tomatoes.


----------



## rookie2531

Michael Palmer said:


> Daffodils up 2". Guess I'll start my tomato plants next week and have March tomatoes.


Guess your (winter rest) turned out to be just a weekend. Hope you rested up ☺.

But seriously, I saw what looked like my pear and apple trees sprouting leaf buds yesterday. If that happens, are they done for the year, when it does freeze. I'm sure it will in late Jan. Through March?


----------



## BeeBop

It's been kind of cold here with a low of 30F last night and a high of 44F this afternoon, but bees from both hives were out gathering pollen this afternoon. The loquat tree seems to have a second burst of blossoms on it now and it was humming with bees today.


----------



## julieandwadeshelton

I'm not sure what is coming in besides dandelion. I don't see many, but the ladies were working like crazy today with some huge golden pollen nuggets. Eggs, larva and brood pretty good in one hive, very small brood in upper chamber of 3rd hive. Happy with what my noob eyes saw


----------



## deantn

With the crazy weather we have had in Dec. I was able to go retrieve a super with two frames from my hive, had put it on to let the bees clean them and weather turned for the worst but yesterday was up in the 70's so when and took it off and put an entrance reducer on it. Lost a hive because of not putting a reducer on and a mouse got in and ruin the inside of the hive and bees starved because of the mouse eating everything. Am going to try and split thsi hive when spring arrives in 2016.


----------



## Bee Bliss

We had a brownish green Christmas and mild temps until now. Today, we are getting blasted with wind and lots of snow. Drifting snow gets plenty deep in some places. There is about 12" of snow on top of each hive cover. Of course, it is deeper in the driveway.


----------



## Phoebee

We got up to the apiary on the 27th, with temperatures in the low 70's, to find all three hives and both nucs out and about. There was orienting on all three hives, but no signs of any forage coming in.

The real surprise here is that a couple of weeks back we wrote off hive Z as being dead already. No buzz when knocked, no activity seen at all when we put on their quilt box. We also put on a clean IPM board at that time. But this inspection showed a 2 pound drop in weight, a strip of cappings under the frame 2-3 space, and orientation flights. They do not seem to have been robbed, and dropped no mites. They are light but they never really put on abundant stores this fall so we offered a mountain camp feeding.

This little hard luck colony continues to surprise us. Who knows, they might be our only survivors.


----------



## DanielD

My 4 nucs are in an old unused house we have and I peeked in on 2 of them. The house is at 38 ° and the bees are looking fine what I saw. They're hanging out at the sugar bricks and slowly consuming them.
I have 2 hives outside, 4 high 8 frame mediums that were filled with the nice fall flow, and I put some Styrofoam on top, and plywood scrap for some windbreak. It's in the 20s outside today but I peaked into a jar feeder hole on top and saw the cluster of one hive at the top with the sugar brick. They have stores below but started the winter on top so I gave them a brick last month. It looks like so far all 6 hives are doing well enough.


----------



## 1102009

First snow this winter!
All hives alive so far.
Now comes the hardest time for them.


----------



## michkel

It was 57 yesterday and we are getting another storm that is supposed to last all week. So I popped the tops to make sure they still had some patty, which both hives did. They both look great. Closed them back up and caught my dog eating a pollen patty while my back was turned.


----------



## minz

We also had first snow of the year followed by a nice soft rain (at about 30 degrees) to make the place a nice shinny mess. 
I have to come clean on my backing abilities: I stacked up a bunch of dead out equipment behind the truck on a pallet (had to go to Costco) and when I got back in the dark forgot it and backed into it. The stack fell over into a line of hives and I did not find one of the lids was half off for two days!


----------



## Cyan

With this latest cold wave and our first 1/2" of snow, the realization that winter is here finally sets in. By the end of the week however, it looks like we will be in the upper 40's possibly lower 50's- with yet another batch of rain. :waiting: 

I can't complain though. Going into my second year this will be yet another experience to add to the book, as we do on occasion have warmer than normal winters. What I learn here could prove very valuable in the future. Regardless, I recently purchased a compressor and some air tools. I think I'll spend one of those rainy days in my shed, assembling the left over woodenware I have laying around.


----------



## TWall

I visited my outyard yesterday. I made sure each hive had a sugar brick and that entrances were reduced. It is supposed to be in the teens Tuesday morning. I have one 5-frame nuc I added a deep super with combs that were partially filled with honey.

Tom


----------



## rookie2531

We too are getting the cold spell. So I went out and wrapped my 5 frame nucs with tarps and then foam board. Already had the quilts and sugar bricks on them. I wrapped them up past the rim feeders too, so they better have enough food to last them until queen rearing time.


----------



## Colobee

Temps in the low 50's today. That's good as it's been ~3 weeks since the last warm spell. Shoveled away ~15-20" deep path of snow to check. There were poop stains in the snow. The small hives & nucs were all flying. Checked & replenished sugar bricks on all but one that hadn't taken much. Even the 5 over 5 medium nucs were OK. 

The production hives are still heavy - all alive but only 3 were flying today. I suspect the others have a lot of cold/frozen honey keeping them subdued. Tomorrow is supposed to be a few degrees warmer, then back downhill to cold & maybe snow again by Friday.


----------



## Cyan

Temperatures climbing to low 50's today. My hive seems strong with bees taking orientation flights. It's a strange thing to see in the middle of january.

In any event, I'm pulling the cover to swap out the wood shavings in the quilt box and to check stores and cluster size. Judging by the fresh young bees outside the hive flying in all their glory, the bigger issue may be stores.

Update: changing the wood shavings wasn't necessary- no mold, nice and dry. Just enough moisture to be absorbed by the fondant, which they are slowly working. I didn't feel that it was warm enough to break into the top box, but there are plenty of bees in there, removing the dead and doing there thing. Inspected 10 dead bees for any sign of troubles- mites, deformities, none found. Just keeping an eye on them best I can.


----------



## RayMarler

A clear and sunny day with no breeze, every hive had activity at some time during the warmest parts of the afternoon. I think that 3 or 4 must have been robbing activity, but could not tell that from watching, but I can't imagine that all hives are still viable from what I saw at my last "look inside" inspection. To tell the truth, a few dead outs would help with getting some early honey harvest, as it would give me unused drawn combs to give to the stronger hives in a month from now.


----------



## Phoebee

We had a brief window of temps at 46 F before a gusty cold front moved in. The bees in stronger hives were out orienting and visiting the loo. As I readied our new OAV vaporizer for its first use, it started to drizzle. We had one hive that was starting to show some mite drop, and with recent weather we guessed they are probably broodless right now, so we ordered the system and went ahead and used it today.

Can't say they liked it very much. Hopefully the mites liked it a lot less.

The one hive that we predicted would not make it thru the winter back in October, and that we thought was already dead in early December, but which seemed to be active and orienting on Dec 27, now appears to be really dead. Must have just been some robbing going on last time up. No big surprise there, and the nuc we hope to replace them with seems to be in fine shape.


----------



## michkel

It was in the 50's today, so I made a visit to my hives. I didn't open them, but I saw foragers bringing in 2 colors of pollen. The manzanita and my fruit trees are getting buds on them, so we will be in bloom soon. No dandelions here yet either.


----------



## jadebees

A warm afternoon today, after 3 storm fronts blew through last week. Peeked under sugar feeders, and all the girls are still alive, seem to be ok. They are finally mellowing out from autumn "hotness". The night temps are 10 to 25, usually 15. 1 hive was/is flying today at 40 deg. Some of the local bees will fly at 35 in autumn. Dont have any of those any more.


----------



## Colobee

'Poop stains in the snow, after 2 days of flying weather! This time of year that probably means we're over the first hump around here. There's not much more chance of a_ prolonged_ period of confinement ( & dysentery). We often see some 60's & a few 70's in February & beyond. Sure, we'll likely have more cold & snow, but there are usually at least a few warm days in between each storm. No apparent losses to date.


----------



## Terry C

It was in the mid-60's here today , and we had a lot of bees in the air this afternoon .






I was wondering if it might be robbing at first , but there were no bees tussling , just a lot of activity at the entrances . Three of my four hives had a major flight today , number 3 is kinda puny ... they were queenright at the end of September , but this was always my weakest hive . I'm not gonna open it up , there are still bees there and there's nothing I could do now to make any difference . They have honey , and I did see some pollen coming in today so who knows . If they make it , great . But if they don't it won't be a disaster because now I have resources ... last year this time I was wondering what I'd do if my only colony died .


----------



## DanielD

Mid 50s today but windy. All 6 hives have life in them. 2 full size hives were flying well and 4 nucs inside the old abandoned house were well too. Set them out to cleanse this afternoon. I checked food and everything looks good. I am looking forward this coming season.


----------



## Arnie

Hey Colobee,
I was thinking the same thing myself. Get them to February and we're golden. I've had very few losses from starvation over the years, but I still like to get them through strong not just alive. Good on you no losses yet, same here.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Colobee & Arnie,

Did a series of 4 OAV treatments on 5 day intervals in late October and finished a single treatment on all today. All the girls were alive and up high in their homes. Looking for a near zero V-mite count at the start of the '16 season. We'll see.
Steve


----------



## 1102009

Winter finally started.
Stormy weather arrived and freezing temperature is announced.
I closed the floors with the mite boards to keep them out of the draft. 
Multiplying the hives (!) is my hope so I ordered more equipment and painted the boxes. 
Did a survey of my scorecards too. 
I hope I will have my new 4.9 press this month to do my own foundations, having bought wax (my own bee`s wax) from my mentor. I`m looking forward to learn this.


----------



## gnor

Six inches of snow yesterday, so I went up and cleared the entrances. I changed the entrance reducers from the mouse guards to the wider openings to make it easier for them to clear the dead bees. I lifted both hives the other day and they are still good and heavy, but I'm getting some sugar boards ready anyway. I've noticed that my better producer of the 2 colonies also seems to be cutting down the quickest, at least in terms of body count. They tend to be a bit more aggressive than the other colony too, but this is the one I will prefer to split from. I examined some dead bees, and they seemed to be healthy enough (aside from being dead, that is), so I am assuming this is normal Winter activity. No girls to be seen yesterday, but anytime the temp gets above freezing, I will see some heads poking out, and some housekeeping going on.
Our weather here seems to be more seasonal average this year, unlike the past couple of years when we were 8-10 degrees below normal most days, with snow drifts to the tops of the windows.
As Hall of Famer Roger Hornsby said when asked what he did in the Winter: "I stare out the window and wait for Spring."


----------



## Colobee

Another round (3 quick storms) of snow & cold is forecast for this weekend, then flying weather again - forecast for Monday. I love the sound of thousands of bees working the first Maple pollen - usually just after those freaky 70* days in early February. My best 2015 producer (~220 lbs) is still down in the lower 2 mediums, with a full super of honey above.

Good luck to us all, Steve & Arnie. We aren't out of the woods yet, but there's a light from the edge of the meadow...


Buckfast Bees are phenomenal! ( I love your sig line, GNOR!)


----------



## Norcalkyle

Small break between rain storms yesterday and was able to observe and take a quick peak at the hives. Each had a handful doing orientation flights around 2:00 p.m. and inside the clusters were broken up and they were actively feeding. Oil trays had decent amount of capping shreds in them, very few mites, no SHB or pest larvae. 

Some of the peach trees are already showing green tips on their buds, so it sure seems like an early Spring is coming even with our heavy rainfall projected.


----------



## odfrank

Mouse nest under dead hive on top of screened pallet. with lots of chewed wax flakes.


----------



## westtnbeekeeper

Winter finally blew in last night. Temps in the mid teens last night and not above 28 today. Might reach single digits tonight before getting back up to 50 something 4 or 5 days from now. I went out to the hives a few minutes ago and stuck my ear to the upper boxes and heard them in there buzzing away. There were a couple of hives that were too close to get my head in between so I had trouble hearing them. Going to borrow my wife's stethoscope next time I go to listen. I think this might help to hear the ones that are too close together. Also going to construct another hive stand at some point. Found more bees this past year than I expected to.:applause:


----------



## Arnie

Cloudy and about 40 degrees today. Bees haven't been flying when I have been home for a while so I put my ear to the hives to listen for them, and all hives were humming away. 

Hey Steve, how did your beekeeping classes go?


----------



## michkel

A brief break in the rain, and the bees were out. Everything from hauling off the dead, foraging and even a few orientation flights. It's 54* and sunny outside, so they had better enjoy it before the next wave of rain comes.


----------



## Colobee

Recent forecasts are for a week of above freezing temps for highs. The last day/night is 58*/32*F. Colorado...you never know...


----------



## pink bee man

Hi: Colobee that the type I have in O B hive they R work krazy loads of honey loads of brewd ;wish I was there its 8 degres today sub O 2nite! pink bee man Northen KY


----------



## BeeBop

50F and no rain for a few hours here today. A few bees were flying so I popped the lids and had a quick look.
Yep, there's still bees in the boxes and they're working away at those sugar bricks.


----------



## 1102009

Very cold spell and snow piles high.
I took off the entrance boards. Seems to me top entrances like Michael Bush describes are not such a bad idea :scratch:









Still every hive hums it`s song. Deadfall begins but seems to be normal. I`m controlling the entrances so they are not blocked up.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Converting one of my barns completely over to a (downstairs) workshop and (upstairs) house this year. I have been picking up carpentry work in NC since November to pay for it all. Just bought out a guy of all his ladders, and picked up a second 4x4 pickup for the bee yards up north. Psyched.


----------



## McBee7

*Checked an outyard today *

Checked an outyard today, and had to put the truck in 4x4 for the last mile to check if they needed sugar sacks and they did,,,,another week and they would have perished.....This has been an extreamly mild winter this year and there was only about a foot of snow where there would have been 2 ft in a normal year ......

There are only 3 hives and a swarm hive ( went queenless late in the year ) and found that all the hives (3) had eaten their 5 pounds of sugar and needed more


So I added 8 more pounds of sugar sacks per hive and was on my way....



notice the frost that has built up on the inside of the uninsulated feeder ring, this should have been wraped in foam insulation..

 

To my surprise even the electric fencer that is powered by the battery charged by the solar panels, was still shunking out a rythem (the bottom wire is grounded and all the others are powered....

as the old paper from the old sacks was removed and the new sacks were added the bees came to the top to investigate....It was 15f today, but over the last week it was -30 F so I was pleased that I had made it here in time....
It's only 3 hives but thats 300 dollars to replace, so the 10 dollars of sugar that went on the hive was worth it 


which brings me to a couple of pics that I like to look at this time of the year.


AND ME FAVORITE



And these are now part of my apairy 
Moral of the story "Feed your BEES" like they were cattle...

==McBee7==


----------



## biggraham610

Big Storm Coming. Was able to get in in fairly mild temps Wed and ad big blocks to all hives. The mild winter had them a little light. All clusters looking good. Fair to Large, but all about expected for configuration going in. had brutal temps last couple weeks for the first time all year, may have lost some bees stuck on brood I don't know, but not the clusters, they are still strong. Keep buzzin girls, springs around the corner. G


----------



## Vance G

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

Now if I could teach you to wrap! Good job in the frozen northland!


----------



## timgoodin

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

Enjoyed your post, ideas and narrative. Good luck with your bees.


----------



## mgolden

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

If you are concerned about the frost and moisture, try a 3/4 round hole in the feed rim.

Were the bees about to starve, or have they moved the sugar down as syrup in the cells?????? Think some of the latter is going on.

Agree with Vance, think you would be pleasantly surprised at how big the early spring population is if you added an insulated wrap or Styrofoam to sides.


----------



## McBee7

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

You are absolutely right Vance about insulation. This yard was ignored because it was small and remote, I did get some tape on the joints but didn't make it back to finish the job..And mgolden, I am a little concerned about the frost, and do have a quilt box above the feeder ring and it didn't have any frost on the bottom or above the wood chips so "I think its ventilating" sorry I didn't post that pic,,,my only consolation is that the frost is on the cold walls, which is better than above and hopefully the condensation will run down the walls or vaporize and exit through the quilt. The vent hole in the ring might get tried next year...I was experimenting this year with the vent/exit hole in the second brood box and may move it up to tthe feed ring....Im not sure if they are consuming it or moving it down, but the earlier sugar was all but gone and as I was putting in the sacks they came to the top....
And good luck yourself Tim  it looks like you have got a monster storm heading your way. My wife and I were in NC and VA last week visiting family.This storm might be a direct hit for them..Thanks all for the input and info 

==McBee7==


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

I went out yesterday and checked both my out yards. All 28 of those 5/5 and 5/5/5 colonies (clustered in 4 packs and insulated top, ends, and the north facing sides of some) were chugging along. Now on the subject of insulation Earl, scroll down this fellow's set-up. He is a Canadian. I think his set-up would work well for you. I recommend scrolling all the way through 12 months to get the full picture.
https://www.facebook.com/rick.willams


----------



## McBee7

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

It looks like the secret to winter survival/buildup is the heat/insulation,,,,and not being afraid to start early.....Like pollen patties in feb and making queens when there is snow on the ground---YIKES---and of course genetics...I'm going to have to get cracking if im going to make a go at this next month....I've been pondering what I have to do this year to increase production/population....this is wworth a try....thanks for the link!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I think I found buried in the site the "secret" to his great success ----something called "The Caspian Solution" I don't know exactly what it is but it might be a stimulant or maybe an inoculant to fix unbalances at the microbial level...I don't know, I'm just spit-ballin here 
I can do the hive manipulations but this additive is outside of my understanding and Im wide eyed/eared in reguard to it. I've seen some discussion on additives but it all seems very dark and behind the curtain,,,, so I'll just stop there and wait for more info %}

==McBee7==


----------



## gnor

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

-16ºC (3ºF) here this morning. Hopefully the Arctic Outflow will keep the Nor'Easter well offshore. Our forecast looks clear for the weekend, and we're looking for +7ºC (43ºF) on Tuesday, so the girls should be able to do a bit of housekeeping. Any day I don't have to clear snow, it's a good one.
So far, this looks like a more normal Winter, unlike last year, when we were in the grip of a Polar Vortex for almost 3 months.


----------



## Colobee

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

The latest vortex slid east of us and we missed out on all the severe cold & most of the snow. We're headed for the high 50's today. My new Ferguson (Canadian) Buckfast hives were the most active fliers yesterday. It almost looked like spring, except for all the snow on the ground . 'Snow tomorrow, then another gradual warm up.

Buckfast bees overwinter well. GNOR - do you have access to any other European Buckfast lines?


----------



## westtnbeekeeper

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

Spent most of the day building screened bottom boards from some cedar 1x4's that I have had for several years. I used the dimensions from a Brushy mountain screened bottom board and built one to see how it worked then cut up enough material for 9 boards. Hopefully that will see me through the year. Maybe tomorrow I will build as many top covers. 

I plan to purchase my hive bodies and supers from one of the suppliers because I am afraid of what kind of mess might happen if I have too many bee space violations.

I am heading into my second year with 5 hives (I hope). Hope to have all 5 building up in spring and add 5 more from feral swarms. Hive equipment gets cost prohibitive so I am attempting to cut costs as I am able.

Snow on the ground and 15 degrees tonight. Should be back in the 50's for highs in a few days with 60's in the long range forecast.


----------



## BeeBop

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

Nice day today. Mid 50's and not raining. The bees are flying and bringing in at least 2 kinds of pollen.


----------



## Arnie

*Re: Checked an outyard today *

Popped the tops on my backyard hives to check on the sugar bricks. One hasn't touched theirs and the other has almost finished, so I gave them some more. Both appear to have honey stores, so all is good.


----------



## Norcalkyle

65 degrees, sunny and no wind. First good day after a lot of rainy days in a row. Added pollen paties and sugar bricks today. Lots of hive activity and orientation flights.


----------



## biggraham610

The storm is gone. Got 20 inches I expect. Cleared the entrances on the hives I could get to. by afternoon there was evidence they had done some housecleaning. The other yard I think are high enough to be free of snow, but would like to clear the entrances anyway. They should all have adequate ventilation from the top, but still. Perhaps I will be able to get in there in a couple days, daytime temps are forecast to be mild for a week at least. G


----------



## RayMarler

Popped lids today, it is sunny and clear, might get up to 60 today. A week ago or so, I'd seen pollen coming in on all hives, freaked me out, I did not expect to see that kind of activity from ALL hives. So, today I tipped lids and split boxes when needed to see what was up. 

Back December 15 I had put on sugar patties and Apivar strips. I put in all the Apivar I had, which left 2 hives with no strips. Today I saw that those 2 hives probably are not going to make it, they have less than 1 full seam of bees. One is Michael Palmers queen the other is one of mine. My conclusion is that if I don't treat, here in my location, the bees won't make it.

Of the other hives, the ones that had gotten sugar patties in mid December looked better for the most part than the ones that did not get it. Only two hives had not eaten much of the sugar yet, the rest were almost all gone.

I mixed up sugar patties today and put on ALL hives. This is my mix:
5lbs sugar
1/2 cup Mannlake BeePro powdered pollen sub
8oz Apple cider _flavored_ vinegar
Mixed it up in a Large SS Dish-pan with a potato masher, and put on all hives, on top under the lids using a feeder shim.

Most hives had 2 - 4 seams of bees, I'm thinking 4 may not make it. I'm going to work on a method of varroa control this year that will do me better for this location. Apivar does not do well enough, last year was the second year I've used it, so time for a change. I'll check back in on them in a week or two and refresh the top sugar/pollen cakes as needed through the first of March.


----------



## Cyan

For the last 2 days it's been low 40's here- just high enough to prompt the girls to do a bit of house cleaning. 

I'm seeing about the same thing I've seen since winter set in, very small amounts of mostly small or very young bees left out on the landing board or ground. On the extended forecast, it looks like 2 days of low 50's for this weekend, so I'm going check their weight and possibly take a quick peek under the cover on Sunday.


----------



## BeeBop

Beautiful day here in Sonoma county. It made it to 61F, the warmest it's been for many weeks and both hives were really humming.. It's the most bees I've seen in the air since last October.

They're bringing in pollen like crazy. It looks like they're stocking up for quite a party. I dunno where they're getting it but they've got at least 2 flavors and lots of it.
I was going to buy them a couple of pollen patties to help them get started this spring, but it looks like there's probably no need for that.


----------



## 1102009

Temperature is rising to +11°C and the bees seem to have done some cleaning yesterday, they are flying and I found dead bees on the ground in front.
Picked up some and tomorrow I will look at them through my microscope. 
I still hear all hives but since they moved to the bottom box I fear they started spring breeding. 
Which is too early.
Or not?


----------



## timgoodin

Got up in the 50's today here in West Kentucky. 11 of the 12 hives looked like Mid Spring with the ladies taking cleansing flights, clean out the hive flights and hauling water. Good to see after some nights in the low teens this past week. One dead out which I expected. Two five frame nucs stuffed full of bees looking great and taking sugar blocks like crazy. Looking good with maple buds swelling and the two week forecast looking promising. Just hoping no more teens this season. Ready for spring and back to beekeeping and being outside!


----------



## mybeeguy

Got up to 63 today in Arkansas and my bees look fat and were bringing in a pale gray and a bright yellow pollen.


----------



## Michael Palmer

SiWolKe said:


> Which is too early. Or not?


When is your first pollen?


----------



## Colobee

60*s today, and a foot of snow from "Winter Storm Kayla" should be here in a day or two. Our typical "Calm before the storm".

Spring is on the way... 'Haven't lost a single hive to the winter of '15-16, YET...

Our first pollen usually arrives in the next few weeks - early February. Multiple cold snaps often turn the natural pollen flow on and off. Here we go again!


----------



## GaryG74

Got up to 70 today, bees flying like crazy, bringing in some pollen (light yellow, gray, and greenish-gray), carrying out the dead that have built up during the last cold spell, and some house cleaning in general. I hope to walk around tomorrow and see how the red maples and elms are progressing. Must be a few blooming nearby, possibly some alders too.


----------



## timgoodin

GaryG74 said:


> Got up to 70 today, bees flying like crazy, bringing in some pollen (light yellow, gray, and greenish-gray), carrying out the dead that have built up during the last cold spell, and some house cleaning in general. I hope to walk around tomorrow and see how the red maples and elms are progressing. Must be a few blooming nearby, possibly some alders too.


Wow I'm 300 miles north of you, we got to 65 today, I expect we will be seeing something coming in within the next week. Sure hope our extreme cold is over. Keep us updated, looking so forward to spring!


----------



## Arnie

At ten o'clock this morning it was 50 degrees. Both back yard hives were flying.
Now the snow has moved in with a vengeance. That's Colorado for you.


----------



## leadchunker

I have all my nuc boxes ready to go for this year. Two days of painting, but all done. We had temps above 55 yesterday and the girls were cleaning house. Today we are forecast to have temps above 65. The Maple buds are swelling so things should start picking up soon. They are bring in light white, light orange, and dark orange pollen. i have sugar water out in the yard, but they have yet to touch it. My other bee yard is the same situation, but they are on the sugar water like crazy.


----------



## scorpionmain

All hives looking good. Zero losses so far. :fingers crossed:
I replenished Winter Patties and observed lots of pollen being brought in.
Maple I suspect.


----------



## Terry C

It's not even 9 am yet , and the temp out there is 60° with a predicted high of near 70° ... Bees are already in the air , and the 2 hives I added robber screens to seem to have figured them out now . Today I'll be doing my monthly weighing of the hives , we'll see how much they've used since the first of Jan - I'm not sure what to expect , there have been lovely days and brutal cold (for this area) both since I last weighed .


----------



## michkel

Fantastic pollen sac picture Scorpionmain!


----------



## julieandwadeshelton

Busy girls today! One hive is evicting drones... not sure what to make of that. Lits of pollen coming in and orientation flights goung on. Another day closer to spring!


----------



## rolftonbees

Went out to see the girls today. Took each hive a ziplock of sugar syrup. Shims were already in place from jan feeding. (I am counting today as feb.). It was nice to see bees buzzing on all hives. About sixty percent were clustering upstairs the rest down stairs. One box still had lots of honey left and were still down.

Two boxes seemed to have quite small clusters, but I did not go to bottom box for a better look.

Things got busy after placing all sugar bags, but not frantic. It was nice to see and hear them after a break. It was over cast when I went out and became clear ans sunnier as time went. 

How awesome to see them waking up more and more as the temp rose. At this time it looks possible all 7 boxes will make it. I think I will get my minimum of three splites this year and go to 10 or more hives.


----------



## Cyan

Temperatures reached the low 60's today- part of a few day stretch of spring-like weather we're having.

Everything looks good so far. Most of the fondant is still in the candy board, but it's slowly being worked. I took the time to make up a batch of sugar bricks (reserve feed) for the last push into spring. I think that being ready for an extended period of 'below average' spring weather would be prudent.


----------



## Arnie

I've been doing mite counts on the hive with SBB.
Did OAV on December 6th. On the 8th I counted 28 mites. January 3rd there were 17. Today there were none. The weather has been warm enough to fly so they are not clustered. Feeling good about mites right now. 
Keeping my eyes on the monthly drop.


----------



## Chris Muncy

I *had* 2 hives in December. Going in to the winter they had more that enough stores and were thriving in 2 deep boxes each. During the holidays when we had 70 degree weather I treated them both with MAQS. Both were doing well.

In the first part of January I pulled my screened bottom board slider out to see what was going on. In one hive I have a lot of chewed up wax cappings. I was concerned but I didn't want to get in to the hive yet as the temp was still too cool.

This past Sunday with a 78 degree day I got in to both of my hives. One was being robbed by the other, hence the chewed cappings. I don't know if they swarmed or if the MAQS killed them off. I did find a lot of dead bees on the screen.

The other hive was packed solid with bees. The top deep was full of honey and the center frames had a small amount of capped brood. As soon as things started warming up for good, I'll split this hive and get back to 2 again.

Not quite sure exactly what happened, the only common thing was the MAQS treatment. Lessons learned as a first year beekeeper.


----------



## Terry C

I got out this morning to weigh the hives , and as expected they've used from 7 to 12 pounds of their honey in the last month . Also as expected the strongest hives used the most . What was a surprise is that the hive I think might be the weakest wasn't the one that used the least though it is still the lightest at 94 lbs . I've been monitoring the closure boards under my SBB's and have seen no signs of robbing - at least no big piles of cappings under any of them .


----------



## RayMarler

Put another round of sugar and light pollen patties on today. Most had eaten what I gave last week.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

First sunburn of the season! Not while beekeeping; putting up siding on a house in Durham, NC. Inspector called during lunch and have an apiary inspection in two weeks. Haven't met this inspector yet, but always enjoy the inspections. I take it as a learning experience.


----------



## Colobee

Another foot of snow.


----------



## michkel

Snowing here right now too.


----------



## snl

Sunny, 73....... absolutely gorgeous!


----------



## Colobee

The snow finally stopped. Looks like about 15" actual, with drifts to ~2'. No "flying weather" for the next week or more.


----------



## Geno

Lost a hive due to starvation. Had sugar bricks on top box, but bees must have relocated and unable to return to food source. Cleaned up boxes, ready for splits.


----------



## GaryG74

Survived the storms, tornadoes and rotating storms to the West, East, directly over us but no damage. Rest of the state and nearby MS not so lucky. Sunny but cooler this morning. Back to seasonal weather this week. Bees have been flying every warm day and bringing in some pollen.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

This is what Colobee is talking about, but in my apiary further south.
Steve


----------



## Arnie

Yup. 7 degrees this morning. That will set the maple bloom back a bit.


----------



## fntsyfan

Saturday Jan 30th weather in Wisconsin was calm and 40. bees were clensing so I added winter patties.


----------



## Muzkrat

50 degrees here at 11 am and bees are flying and bringing in light loads of pollen. Hive sounds like they are drawing wax like crazy. Gonna be warm through tuesday of next week and temps are going to bottom out again.


----------



## Muzkrat

50 degrees today and bees flying. Hive sounds like they are drawing wax like crazy.


----------



## BeeBop

beehunna said:


> Earlier today my bees from my 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 11th hives escaped and got loose in my house.


Are you sure you don't mean the 3rd, *5th,* 7th, and 11th? Those would be your prime hives.

Ummm. What were they doing in the house?


----------



## BeeBop

No rain today and it got to about 60°.
Lots of pollen coming in. I guess I need to remove that entrance reducer, there's a bit of a traffic jam today and the weather is supposed to be even warmer the next few days.

Here's hive #2 bringing in the orange pollen. I have no idea where they're getting it.


----------



## GSkip

It's been very warm here the past few weeks, bee's have been bring in pollen since late Dec. TiTi stared blooming last week and saw much more today. Checked all nine hives earlier this week when it was warm, all are booming with bees, lots of brood and the queens are laying good. They are getting nectar from somewhere. They have stored and capped several frames of honey in each hive. Eight of the nine are double deeps, the one is a late swarm I caught which now has filled a 10 frame deep. Not sure how to compare to last spring as half of them were new hives coming out of their first winter last spring. The rest were splits and caught swarms. Heavy rain yesterday and cold today so now we are back to winter temps. Not sure what's normal!!!!


----------



## michkel

I went out "real quick" to toss some patties in my hives. I was in a hurry, mistake #1. I put on my jacket and veil but had jeans on. I ticked the off enough that I got stung in the leg. Every time I get stung, it's my fault.


----------



## Gypsi

My bees are flying on nice days, mainly hives 1 and 3. Hive 3 is the first out on the coolest morning, just a mutt swarm hive not requeened, but they are some productive gentle bees. I made fondant with pollen sub and put new patties on all hives last weekend, as they were out. Got out there too late to go through the hives but the top box on hive 3 I got a quick glance in and they are drawing comb and filling it with something. I have been putting out a gallon of 1:1 for open feeding once or twice a week, we do have some dandelion bloom and any broccoli I didn't get around to eating is making the girls happy with its yellow flowers but I never considered it a nectar source. Maybe elm? Maybe Oak? or dandelion honey. Who knows, the bees are happy


----------



## RayMarler

All 14 hives/nucs bringing in pollen today. Got up to 60F here and they are flying and working. One of them is so light on bees that I keep expecting them to die out, indeed, I thought they had a few days ago. Maybe three others seem light on bees and may not make it either. It's nice to see the pollen coming in, brooding is getting into gear.


----------



## Kuro

The first winter with two hives. Very heavy traffic at the upper entrance (a 3/4” hole), the bees are bringing in white and yellow pollen. They ignore the bottom entrance. It has been two weeks since the last OAV treatment (5 treatments, 5 day interval. overkill?). Checked the mite boards and found zero and one (per 72hrs). Can’t wait for the first spring inspection!


----------



## Bang

few my hives from few days ago :


----------



## RayMarler

63F here today, partly cloudy but dry. Bees bringing in LOTS of pollen, off-white, pale yellow, dark yellow, and occasionally orange. They are taking some of the sugar bricks out as trash now, so no more feeding is needed.


----------



## GaryG74

A chilly 55F here in west AL today. Breeze cuts like a knife but the bees were flying, several had large orientation flights. Almost every hive bringing in gray pollen. Most of the pollen loads were small but one hive had almost every bee bringing in pollen.


----------



## biggraham610

Chilly here as well. Still all hives looking good less the package hive that I lost and expected to lose. Popped tops today, several had put a serious dent in the blocks I placed a couple weeks ago, the most of them had just eaten a little. I suppose they had adequate stores. Will be placing more blocks tomorrow on the hives that used em, all clusters looking great. Expect to have my hands full very very soon. I am ecstatic where I stand at the moment. 14 strong colonies heading to spring. The bees that have been flying are toting olive drab to gray pollen sources. G


----------



## dixieswife

It was fairly warm today (65F-ish) and sunny. We lost two nucs (one to starvation, obviously we didn't feed them enough/didn't make sure they had enough stores; the other was just dead at the bottom of the hive, plenty of stores, had been quite strong in the fall, everybody was treated for mites, so not sure there), but all of the larger boxes made it through the winter along with a top bar. Everybody has honey left over -- some have a LOT of honey left over -- and in five of the remaining six hives, there's capped brood already. In one hive, the smallest cluster, she's starting to lay. 

We saw lots of yellow pollen coming in already and nectar, even in the hive we hadn't fed yet. One hive took a lot of the syrup we offered, the others hadn't touched it much. I'm curious where the pollen is coming from and the nectar for the top bar. I don't see anything blooming yet except crocuses. No dandelions, nuthin yet.

Anyway, we're pretty happy we only lost the two nucs. This is our third winter and we're getting better and better at this. A couple of those overwintered hives look in really good shape. Our next goal is to do a mite check and treat soon and also build a lot of boxes.


----------



## lucas2223

I think it is tree pollen. Seeing it here also, pale yellow pollen.


----------



## Colobee

It's barely flying weather. The bees are bringing in some rare bright orange & dark blue pollen.... I haven't seen the like in ~17-*18* years!


----------



## Arnie

No pollen in Louisville yet. But they're flying.


----------



## biggraham610

Another coldish snap here. Wont be no flying for a few days, they were stocking up on pollen and got the deceased cleaned out though during our last warm snap. G


----------



## michkel

73 out today. I'm going to go watch my bees fly.


----------



## Colobee

Arnie said:


> No pollen in Louisville yet. But they're flying.


It was a Super Bowl reference, Arnie...:applause: 

I imagine we'll start seeing the first pollen with this next warm spell. Nothing at all down here, yet!


----------



## Arnie

Haha, good one! What a dope I am for not picking up on it.

How 'bout that "D", huh? Like the old Orange Crush days.


----------



## biggraham610

LOL. I missed it too Colobee and Arnie. I was pulling for the Old man, That D was incredible. Congrats Broncs fans. G


----------



## Colobee

No problem - it was a bit "obscured". Yay Broncos!!!

We have at least a week of "false spring" in the forecast. I have often seen our first pollen, from the Maples, at this time of year. Then several swings of "Winter - Spring - Winter" - up into April or May.


----------



## michkel

73 here today, so took a quick peek on my large hive. Saw my queen and LOTS of eggs. Some larva and some capped brood, but she's kicking into gear now. I'm going to have to watch them though, they are storing nectar/syrup in most of the frames in the top deep. Hopefully, as there are more mouths to feed, they'll use some of the uncapped stores. And I'll have to check the bottom box as spring really gets underway to see if I need to reverse the boxes. I wanted to look longer, but the bees decided it was time for me to leave. (and I didn't have my smoker lit) 

My small hive I didn't bother too much, just peered down the frames. Got a feeder on them as they have a lot of growing/drawing foundation to do. (not even a full deep)

Both hives are bringing in pollen like crazy. And I'm seeing some crash landings, so some nectar is coming in too. The manzanita just started blooming.


----------



## Arnie

First pollen!
Just got home. Earlier I looked and there was lots of activity.... orientation flights... but not any pollen; but now at the end of the afternoon a few of my Olivarez Italians are bringing home a little bit of tan pollen.


----------



## biggraham610

Love it!! G


----------



## Colobee

3rd day in the 60's. There's still a lot of snow cover but it's gradually melting. First signs of burnt orange pollen ( 'no joke ) I took a little walk around the neighborhood but couldn't find the source.


----------



## Cloverdale

High of 0 F tomorrow inch:


----------



## Arnie

Hey Colobee,
Could it be willow pollen? The maples here are not blooming but the bees are bringing in pollen. Alder maybe?


----------



## RayMarler

73 and mostly sunny. Tipped all the lids, have not checked deep into any yet. Most the last feed was gone, so made up a new batch of sugar/pollen patty. 

Changed the recipe a little, adding some Karo corn syrup to help keep the patties from drying out so hard, and a splash of Mannlake's pro health EO mix, and a little Canola oil. I'm playing around with the recipe each time, I'll have a pretty good mix later on in the year I think.

5 hives are doing great, growing fast, the rest range from dinks to maybe OK. I'll be checking in more deeply and taking a good look at what all of them look like around the end of the month or first week in March.


----------



## wfarler

Celebrating that my neighbors got a divorce and sold their house. We are each on 8 acres so not that close but they consistently were spraying their whole place with some type of pyrethrin . I could smell it several times a year, I suspect they were treating for mosquitoes or maybe bees! Anyway between 5 years of drought and a year of their spray my hives cratered from 15 to 1. Now i am feeding my 'survivor stock' and planning on a couple of splits and setting swarm traps around my friend's houses.

I sure hope the former neighbors enjoy their new freedom!


----------



## biggraham610

Frigid and windy. Ugg. G


----------



## Colobee

Yikes - it looks pretty awful from out here. Arnie - I'll see if I can find any Willows or Alders. There may be a few in the 'hood. Nearest abundance of willows is a mile or two - down to the creek.


----------



## Arnie

It's maple, Colobee. I found a couple trees blooming.


----------



## biggraham610

Snow and Ice coming. Not as cold today but still cold. Clusters buzzing. Supposed to be mid-upper 50s by Tuesday. They will be flying again. G


----------



## Colobee

Arnie said:


> It's maple, Colobee.


Not here - not yet. Remember our elevation difference - I'm just shy of 7,000' - ~1500' higher than you. It's 2 PM, 50*, & overcast - cool-ish & the bees are barely flying. I have a Silver Maple out on the front drive and there's no action there, yet... Thanks anyway .

I would have stopped down by the creek, but so few are flying I figured I'll wait another day or two - by which time my own Maple will likely be buzzing, with this warm spell.

I'm going to "Rube" up a feeder for some Ultra Bee, as I still have some expansion plans for this year. Otherwise I'd let nature take it's course  .

Did, or will, you post your Maple bloom observation on the "Bloom Dates"?


----------



## Muzkrat

3 inches of snow last night and freezing rain today 26 degrees am temps. gonna be 60 by sat . I hope this is the last snow for the season.


----------



## BeeBop

For all of you folks that are up to your navels in snow, I'll just leave this here. 

We have a bunch of wild plum trees that are probably old rootstock from ancient and long dead apricot trees. They are in full bloom now and the bees are going crazy for them. 










Another beautiful day here, but if we don't get some more rain this year California is going to wither up and die.


----------



## Chris Muncy

Took this yesterday. The girls were enjoying the pollen substitute from the feeder:


----------



## michkel

Sat by my hive and watched for a bit. There is A LOT of pollen coming in. Several plants are in bloom right now: Manzanita, 1 of my pluot trees, my apricot tree, wild plum and quince.


----------



## Arnie

Colobee said:


> Did, or will, you post your Maple bloom observation on the "Bloom Dates"?


Got the bloom date posted.
I didn't realize Castle Rock is at 7000'.

Bees are going nuts today; lots of orientation flights. The hives still feel heavy and still have sugar, but now I have to keep an eye out so they don't eat up all the food before spring. That's a good problem to have.


----------



## Colobee

Actually we're a few hundred feet above down town - uphill to the north. CR is listed as 6,224'. This is kind of similar to what I can see from our neighborhood.








My home elevation is roughly the same as the top of the 'Rock.

Edit:Well, after consulting a couple more recent maps and then checking my GPS, it appears I'm actually more like 6,400'. I'd been going off old memories and a 40-50 year old map.

6,400.., 6,400.., 6,400...


----------



## RayMarler

I have seven 4 over 4 nucs, I changed 5 of them into single 8 frame boxes today. The other 2 still had patty left in the top feeder ring so did not do them today. Will check back on all hives and remove the rest of all the feeder rings in a week. Supposed to get cloudy and rainy starting Wednesday through Friday or Saturday.


----------



## gnor

First Day With The New Wings
10ºC/50ºF here today. Sunny and breezy.
Lots of bees flying today, and lots of house keeping going on. Some of the girls would take off, make it about a foot, and flop on the snow on their backs. They'd scramble back to their feet and take off again. Either noobies or nurse bees not used to the wings I guess.
The snow is melting fast, and soaked with water. I saw the odd one land on the snow, and it looked as if she was tanking up with water. Probably not much condensation inside on a day like this.
Another observation: Winter bees are a lot smaller than the Summer bees. Some of the dead bees are about the same size as a bluebottle fly.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Colobee,

Based on your photo I must drive right past your apiary when I drive on CO 86 to visit our "grandmother" in Elizabeth.

Lost two colonies so far, one NUC and one 10f Lang. The former was my fault, starvation. The latter I am uncertain about so I have sent a sample to Beltsville.

Steve


----------



## Colobee

Steve,

That's a stock photo from the internet - a bit south of here from the looks of it. I can see Pikes Peak from the front yard (we actually have to pay extra taxes for that - a new "premium view tax" ). I have to walk up the hill a bit to see down into town. My hives aren't visible from any roads. I'm about 2 miles north of downtown & the highway to Elizabeth. I have some in-law's out there too - I might be moving some hives out there eventually.

It's supposed to hit the low 70's tomorrow. I might get into my smallest nucs, just to gauge what's going on in the rest. It's cool - upper 40's & overcast, so only a few bees are flying right now. At last check they were all still alive & flying.

'Sorry to hear about your losses. I'm keeping my finger's crossed for mine.


----------



## B Steve B

Overcast today, but sunny and 60f yesterday. Lots of orientation flight at the hive. No sign of pollen yet. Bees gathering water from the birdbath.


----------



## RayMarler

Mostly cloudy, 73F or so. Pinched a queen in a dink hive and joined with another hive.

Moved the last two 4over4's into single 8's


----------



## Kuro

Surprised to find sugar blocks almost gone. Bees are bringing red pollens.


----------



## Arnie

Sorry to hear about the lost hives Steve.


----------



## Colobee

The sun came out this afternoon & all of my hives were flying - still no losses. They are bringing in a fair amount of light brown pollen. I checked the Maple, and to my surprise they were working it - not for pollen but for the sap oozing out in a couple places. "Maple Syrup Honey?"  I saw some action on some evergreens - cedars and pines. I couldn't tell what they were after - propolis or pollen. Only the crocus are sprouting. There are still several "snow-burg" patches here & there, up to 24" deep.


----------



## dixieswife

Was yesterday in the apiary really but: partly cloudly, 60ish. We did sugar rolls to see how we are mite wise. We're about 1.3%. In four of the five Langs, there's multiple frames of open and capped brood already. We did add second boxes on the two single boxes as they were getting pretty busy in there. Lots of bright orange-yellow pollen going in. I've seen crocus in the yard and early daffodils on the way to town. 

Fifth Lang we may have laying worker. The brood pattern is all in one spot with developing larva, not a lot capped and it's in a corner rather than in the middle. I'm seeing the odd bullet caps on worker comb, even though I thought I was only seeing single eggs in bottom of cells. We know this one was queen right going into winter but had been a bit iffy in size. We cannot find a queen despite the fairly small amount in the hive. Next warm day we'll check again and probably shake it out. It's full of comb and honey in there so good for a later split/swarm. 

The Top Bar has 20 built out combs and 16 of those are still honey. Queen is busy laying in the other four. Ran out of time to mite count them, will tackle next new day.

So of the overwintered eight hives, we lost one nuc to obvious starvation (late swarm), another nuc to unknown reasons (was strong, queen right, lots of stores left, was a pile of dead bees at the bottom, should have autopsied better), and now maybe that laying worker hive. That's not great, we're up from two hives overwintered so making slow learning progress. 

Next on the Bee To Do list is to invest in OAV wand, fix that laying worker hive (shake it out), test TBH for mite count, get to building more boxes and nucs, and keep track of mite count going into the rest of the spring.


----------



## Colobee

It's a beautiful day - calm, sunny & 60* plus at noon. The bees are all flying "en-mass". I set up a bottom board, spare super & outer cover & dumped in a couple pounds of UltraBee, and baited it with a few snow covered chunks of "failed" sugar bricks. The moisture made the shards very appetizing.

I also placed the feeder where I had been storing some of my honey wet supers (outside, on an elevated bench - for wax moth control). I discover wax moth on a couple frames, in a couple supers that had been stored inside, in a relatively warm (human temp) environment. I haven't taken the opportunity to mist them with BT Aizawa, yet.

The bees had finally discovered the honey-wet supers, with the recent warm up, so into a cold shed they went. They were on the replacement U-Bee & wetted sugar brick shards, in minutes, and are now going crazy on both. Others are still collecting Maple sap, but nothing appears to be "blooming " just yet. 

I know that winter still has a number of likely shots, and I will probably have to continue supplemental feeding - now that I've started something...

A pair of Golden Eagles soared overhead & off to the north, just as the whole "process" began. I couldn't get the camera out quick enough, but they'll be back...


----------



## biggraham610

Temps up and flying here as well Colobee. The 4 at the house are rocking, I am getting ready to drive to the farm and check on those. Temps look favorable for the foreseeable future. G


----------



## DanielD

Low 40s and one hive has a few bees checking out the weather, calm and sunny. The indoor nice are all alive and will be set out tomorrow. 4 days or more of 60 ish degrees. Wondering when the first pollen will be seen here. Looking forward to buildup time.


----------



## GaryG74

A chill wind blew here most of the day but it finally calmed down around 2 PM. Bees have been flying since mid morning, bringing in lots of large loads of pollen. Some large orientation flights around 2 PM also. Supposed to be in 60s to low 70s next couple of days.


----------



## michkel

Colobee said:


> A pair of Golden Eagles soared overhead & off to the north, just as the whole "process" began. I couldn't get the camera out quick enough, but they'll be back...


Golden Eagles are so beautiful. I've only seen one once, and not in the wild unfortunately. It was an injured Golden Eagle at the Raptor Center in Boise ID. They are massive.


----------



## Colobee

michkel said:


> Golden Eagles are so beautiful. I've only seen one once, and not in the wild unfortunately. It was an injured Golden Eagle at the Raptor Center in Boise ID. They are massive.


With your post, I just realized that they were Bald Eagles - the white heads were prominent, which is what caught my eye. They were a couple miles away in a matter of minutes. We also have a large number of red-tailed hawks but they are nowhere near the same size - difficult to differentiate except for the soaring majesty (and white heads & tails). I'll keep watching for them & maybe get a picture next time. They seem to re-appear for some days in a row.

We have Golden's at times, too - they used to nest on the bluff to the north when we first moved here. They are much harder to distinguish from the hawks. All the same, breath-taking...


----------



## Arnie

Back in the day when things were cheaper we had a cabin in the Buckhorn canyon, if you know where that is, and I saw a golden eagle grab a marmot off a rock and fly away with it. Wow! What a sight that was.


----------



## Colobee

Yup, we've bow-hunted all over the state. Buckhorn canyon is a familiar name. 

Last fall there was a bald eagle roosting in one particular tree down by Williams Creek lake, near Pagosa Springs - in the Weiminuche Wilderness area. We must have seen it a dozen times over the course of a couple weeks. 

We also found a place we nicknamed "Marmot city" - over by Valecito reservoir - hundreds of the curious creatures up around timberline. My son had to "tag" one - not very tasty, but you never know until you try... I'd much rather watch them than eat them.


----------



## DanielD

2 full size hives look good with eggs being laid and a few bees bringing in pollen already, a light rusty red. A quick inspection in one reveals at least an 8 frame medium of honey stores still remaining and a good amount of bees. 4 nucs look fine enough, but one has a smaller cluster. Nice calm day in the mid 60's.


----------



## Cyan

Mid 60's today, with gusty winds. The bees were very active- some were carrying a light, orange/yellow material in their pollen baskets but I'm not sure it is pollen this early in the year. 

As well, the girls look very healthy- big, well developed bees with nice coloring. They are dumping trash (small amounts of wax crumbs) out on the landing board and I've seen some orientation flights. I know that half the battle of over-wintering them is now over, with the hardest part (spring build up) yet to come, but I just can't help but to be excited. I had uncertainties about this queen's health/age due to her laying pattern last fall and because she was obtained from a small June swarm I trapped. All I could do for her was treat for mites, and keep the feed on until November. Apparently, it was a good call- so far.


----------



## timgoodin

Record breaking 73 today, conducted a hive inspection on all eleven hives, all beginning to grow. Average two frames with brood sealed and eggs visible. The workers were very busy today bringing in bright red and yellow pollen, lots of pollen stores and plenty of honey in the hives. I always heard don't count your eggs till they hatch but these look the best I have ever had hives this time of year. Hoping for a booming year. A few maple have started blooming.


----------



## Briarvalleyapiaries

Today I was at the western pa beekeeping seminar. Nice temperatures in the sixtys. Bees flying nicely.


----------



## Bee Nut

The girls are busy. Added a deep of foundation to my 1.5 story hives on Thursday. They started drawing wax last week on a few frames I added as a test. Hope they don't swarm before they draw. This hive has 4 frames of capped brood. 2 up and 2 down and 4 more open brood (2 up 2 down)


----------



## squarepeg

Bee Nut said:


> They started drawing wax last week on a few frames I added as a test.


nice! do you have a feeder on, and are you seeing drones yet?


----------



## Bee Nut

Drones were emerging Thursday, already a good many out. One hive had a full side of just drone as well as 4-5 frames of workers.. I do have a feeder on and have been feeding just enough to keep them going but not so much that all their frames are full.


----------



## squarepeg

understood. it's interesting that even though we are about the same latitude your bees are about a month ahead of mine. i'm guessing that you are about at sea level and the ocean moderates your weather a bit, compared to me being inland and at about 1400' asl.


----------



## Bee Nut

You hit the nail on the head. It's also been milder than normal the entire winter. It was 82 on Christmas Day.


----------



## Levi's Bees

i checked my 6 hives today , all have loads of bees, small brood patches , little patches of eggs and larva , but boy were they bring in the pollen , color light white/yellow witch seams to be maple tree. but 1 hive has like 7 frames in a 10 frame deep box any were from 1/4 to 3/4 full on both sides with pollen . why so much ? should i take some out to save ? or will they use it to ramp up later ? its all ready well populated .


----------



## Bee Nut

First let me start by saying there are much more qualified people on here to answer your question however, I'll give it a shot. If there is so much pollen that the queen doesn't have room to lay, then switch out a frame or two with empty comb. Pollen is used for brood rearing, so it is very important for spring buildup but being pollen bound can be detrimental to the hive. My suggestion is keep a close eye on it and swap out a frame or two if the queen doesn't have any open comb. Also, if you don't have any empty comb and the bees are still bringing in pollen like that, then it may be worth adding a pollen trap to help slow things down until they can draw some comb for you.


----------



## westtnbeekeeper

66 degrees today with very little wind. Went into all 5 hives today... Last time I was in them I (Mountain camped) sugar on top of 4 out of 5 hives. One of them had visibly more stores than the others so no sugar went there. In 3 of the 4 the sugar was gone. I don't know if they ate it or carried it out but I put more down just in case. The last hive I opened had not touched the sugar or the news paper it was poured on.:s Kind of puzzling... There appeared to be good activity in the hive so I didn't pull any frames which would have dropped a lot of the sugar down through the hive.

I found laying queens in 2 of the hives with some brood already emerged and larvae in all stages. I expect to have found the same in the hive that still had the sugar on it from the level of activity noted. In the other two hives the upper brood box was still all capped honey. No room for a queen to lay if she was in the mood to do so. Thinking of swapping a pollen frame from one of the building hives with a honey frame from one of the slackers. Getting really concerned about starvation with them building up this fast in February. I haven't done any thing that I thought would encourage early brood rearing. Hmmm.... Where is that search bar????


----------



## biggraham610

Mad pollen, all clusters looking better than when I put them down.Mild winter. Boy oh boy. I have my hands full.......................


----------



## Phoebee

It was a marginal 47 F at mid-day, enough for some quick checks and feeding. The bees were out, not bringing in any pollen, but working the compost heap with enthusiasm. The favorite garbage seemed to be egg shells, banana peels, and ... this one really has me wondering ... coffee grounds.

Of the three hives, we knew last October that one of them was unlikely to make it. It didn't. I opened it to find about 3 dead workers on the frames, another two dozen on the screened bottom, and the queen, all alone on one frame. There was no cluster. I'm guessing the proper term for this is absconding. Stores were light but I've suspected it was being robbed out for the last couple of months.

The rest seem OK, and one of the nucs really needed some room. We popped them into 8-frame boxes as quickly as we could. The frames were quite stuck together and I was happy to move them in pairs. I suspect there was some brood in one of the pairs. Their numbers, activity, and behavior says they're raring to go. Stores are still quite good. We gave three hives some sugar bricks but doubt they needed it.


----------



## michkel

I sat by my hives yesterday watching the bees come and go. They are bringing in a lot of pollen and nectar right now. I have to get in there today and possibly reverse hive bodies on my large hive. It's supposed to be close to 70* today, so it will be a good day to check. My last peek in the top box, they have too much storage in honey/syrup where brood is supposed to be but a lot of eggs from the queen. Hopefully raising all of the brood used some of the syrup up, giving the queen more room.


----------



## Colobee

We're back on the front range weather roller coaster. A long warm spell melted most of 3 months of accumulated snow. Then we got a fresh blanket overnight - just 2-3" so far. It's supposed to rebound into the 60's again within a few days.


----------



## jlaudiofan

Removed 3 messed up cross combed frames from my hive, cleaned up the cross comb, and managed to get 4 frames back in. Playing hive cleanup from previous absentee beekeeper. Making progress :thumbsup:

Also added some mixed up pollen/honey from a hive removal and put it in an entrance feeder for them.


----------



## Bowfinger

...going today to look to see if walk away split has queen cells or a queen. This is day 14 since the split, haven't been able to go since then. Saw a dead drone and some dead brood being hauled out of the split w/ the queen; I hope its not a problem develping. They seem to be doing well though at last look. Titi beginning to bloom at the southern location. Need to add a deep to the hive I want to make honey with this year. The other 3 hives I think I'll do splits until I get too busy w the crops.


----------



## Bowfinger

Did it. Several queens hatched. Took one frame out that had at least a queen in a cell. I could hear her piping. I put it in a nuc, and pulled a honey frame from another hive then a frame w pollen. Took it to the southern location. The hives at the farm are not doing as well as the ones in the southern location. There's much more blooming there. I think I may bring them all down here. It was a clear, 60s cool day. The hive w/ the hatching queens were mean today. Bet I got stung on the wrist 10 times, once on the ear. Had nitrile gloves on but no cuffs, I'll do better next time. I didn't expect them to be so aggravated and the other hives weren't.


----------



## Colobee

It's a beautiful, calm, sunny afternoon, in the upper 50's. There are bees coming & going from every hive - even the little 5 over 5 nucs. They actually look marvelous. There are few things as pleasant, this time of year, as sitting and watching thousands of bees, coming and going - knowing they all made it through the worst of winter. Come to think of it - I'm heading back out, NOW!


----------



## David LaFerney

Just finished putting on the 3rd round of pollen sub - no winter losses so far. Only a few that look a little weak, but none that look to be in trouble. Fingers crossed.


----------



## squarepeg

David LaFerney said:


> Just finished putting on the 3rd round of pollen sub - no winter losses so far. Only a few that look a little weak, but none that look to be in trouble. Fingers crossed.


that's awesome david, congrats.


----------



## David LaFerney

There's another month of winter yet. Congratulations may be premature - But thanks.


----------



## squarepeg

if you've got them brooding already the cat's (almost) in the bag. 

do you remember how many queens you pinched (if any) with last fall's combines?


----------



## jlaudiofan

I planted a Wright’s Bee Brush (Aloysia wrightii) and a Trailing Indigo Bush (Dalea greggii) near my beehive. Both are supposed to be great for forage. When I see how well they do, I may buy more. I also spread some handfuls of seed around:
Desert Bluebells
Firewheel
Lupine
Californial Poppy
Cosmos
Coreopsis
Purple Coneflower
Scarlet Sage
Desert Marigold
Sweet Alyssum
Four O'Clock
Penstemon

I am hoping to have a boatload of flowers for the bees to enjoy!


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Finally warm enuff for cleansing flites today. Went out to watch and one promptly landed on me and let it go.


----------



## dixieswife

It's overcast and about 60 today, but the bees are out flying. Lots of pollen pants coming back in. The Top Bar is doing really well, she's gone from 4 bars of brood frame to 10 in a couple weeks. Queen is laying where she has room. They have a lot of honey left over still and are storing nectar from somewhere. Pollen too. We gave them a patty just in case and did a sugar shake mite count. Just 2 mites, the best of all the hives and I'd say this is certainly the strongest hive coming out of winter. There's only four bars left in this hive to draw out. We put one near the broodnest to see if they'll be interested, the rest of the "gap" at the end we're using to place feed on the bottom screen. 

Of the four langs, hives 1 and 2 have bees in the bottom box, and 3 and 4 are stronger and have bees in both boxes. They are taking in syrup and interested in the patty mix we gave them. Not super heavy on stores so we're keeping an eye on them. Didn't do a full inspection today, just quick check on feed.

Weather is supposed to be cloudy/rainy, but it changes from day to day here.


----------



## popejohnpaul2

Bridgewater, CT 06752

Temps briefly touched 60 today. All 3 hives are alive with plenty of food. A few bees were bringing in dark orange and pale yellow pollen. Wonder where they are finding it...


----------



## gnor

Sunny today, 7ºC/45ºF, light breeze. Lots of activity today, and I engaged in my favorite activity, which is to sit and watch the bees. They were sending out foragers, but I didn't see anything coming back. There are tons of Sugar Maple and Birch, so there should be a good supply of pollen soon.
Strangely enough, the weaker hive was the most active, with bees all over the warm tar paper, and several hundred orienting. The other hive was just going about its business, but this is the hive that threw out the most bodies over the Winter, and has always been the most active (and the most proddy).
Normal daily highs now are 32-35ºF, with some warmer and some cooler. Lots of stores left, so nice to see.


----------



## jlaudiofan

Tucson, AZ 85743
84 Degrees and Sunny today.

Checked the hive. Wanted to remove the feeder bottle that was empty, so I went ahead and did that and opened the hive to see if they have started moving into the empty deep I put on last week. They hadn't touched anything, and the frames from the brood box on the outside I cleaned hadn't been touched either. I removed the empty super so they have less area to heat / cool / defend.

There was some capped honey, and 2 frames had uncapped honey. Attempted to remove all frames, but that middle one is a mess and I didn't want to make it worse.

I think I will probably put some more sugar syrup in a feeder, or try making some honey / sugar patties to feed them. The first round of blooming flowers is really near, and I would hate for them to be too weak to forage much.


----------



## RayMarler

Partly to mostly cloudy here today, but no breeze or winds and is upper 60's in temp. Checked through a few hives today, pulled frames in 6 or 8 of the 13 hives I have here. Things are looking good, 6 hives need another box this week, they have 5-6 frames sealed brood in 8 frame boxes. All hives have stores enough of nectar and pollen, the good early spring flows are happening. The season has started, winter woes are behind me now in this location. The work of swarm preventions and adding space for honey has begun!


----------



## Kuro

got stung by an yellow jacket hiding in my glove. It hurt like hell but probably worth it because it must be a queen who could produce thousands of workers...


----------



## fntsyfan

Warm enough in Wisconsin to peek in on the bees today. Added some pollen and winter patties just to be sure they have enough. Another month of winter yet but hoping for less.


----------



## Phoebee

Temps near 60 today and the girls were flying. The bursting nuc we moved to 8-frame last week seems to be stronger than either full-sized hive or the other nuc. They're gonna be fun to watch this year.

All hives were active (a lot of orienting was going on), but nobody was bringing back any pollen yet. We fed them all a pollen substitute. My wife insisted on giving them all some sugar bricks but they really didn't need it. 

Once again they were working the compost pile like crazy, and the main target seems to be old coffee grounds. 

There's been a discussion here about bees working cracked corn. We put out whole corn for the deer, and the bees were soon working it over. There was little in it they could gather, so I crushed some on a nearby rock. Soon several were gathering the grains and putting it in their pollen baskets.


----------



## michkel

No hive checks for me, except seeing the White House beehive yesterday. (Through the fence)


----------



## Mark FrontYardHoney

Collingwood On
9c
8" snow on the ground
Almost had a hive beard. Crazy thing...


----------



## David LaFerney

squarepeg said:


> if you've got them brooding already the cat's (almost) in the bag.
> 
> do you remember how many queens you pinched (if any) with last fall's combines?



I don't bother finding queens for that - I just paper combine the dinks and let them sort it out. I think it was 4-5 combines, so 8-10 under performing hives - which are all doing fine at this point btw. If I had not combined them most likely some of them would be dead, and the rest would be struggling. That's the true secret to overwintering success - decide which ones won't make it and combine them in September. 

No kidding.

I would just like to point out that if you want to be able to take advantage of this management tool in the fall you have to make increase in the spring even if you don't want more hives. So get your splittin' outfits on - it's just about go time!

Check this out - February has had 14 days when the temps got above 60, and only 3 that didn't get above freezing in Cookeville. 62 today. Crazy.


----------



## Colobee

David LaFerney said:


> get your splittin' outfits on - it's just about go time!


:thumbsup:









24 more nuc boxes. Check.


----------



## Arnie

Colobee,

You've been at this awhile; what's the earliest swarm you can remember? The earliest for me was mid April one year. 
I'm a little worried the bees are building up so fast they will get out of hand before I am ready to split them. Or catch me by surprise.


----------



## Colobee

Arnie,

I don't really recall. Probably mid to late April, but that's just a guess. Buckfast aren't very inclined to swarm - maybe every third year if poorly managed. I usually split them in late April, every other year (rotating, 1/2 at a time). 2nd year queens can be amazing. 

If you're running Carni's, that's another story from what I read - swarming is "in the blood". 'Can't help you there...

C


----------



## RayMarler

72F with sun, cloudy near the late afternoon.
I got 6 boxes and frames all cleaned up and ready to go on the 6 strongest single box hives in the yard. Three boxes of wood framed plastic foundation, which I re-wax-coated the foundations. 6 frames of drawn comb, the rest of the frames are foundationless. I'll try to get these all on tomorrow. This year I'm running 8 frame deeps.


----------



## DanielD

67 today, sunny and a bit of wind. The bees are hard at work on pollen shipments. It's over a month earlier than last year to see the first pollen on Feb 20th. It's an enjoyable thing to see the bees at work. There's open brood in the top box spanning maybe 4 frames or so on one I opened briefly today. All 6 hives, 2 strong and 4 nucs, survived the winter to this point. The strong hives have an abundance of capped stores and the nucs will be watched and fed well during buildup. Looking forward to the season.


----------



## RayMarler

Pinched a queen, she was scrawny and had a lot of drone brood. The box was out of room so maybe she just was off laying, waiting for room, but I'm weeding out any that aren't excellent now as I've got more hives than I need. I'm feeling the pain from trying to work them. I did put another hive on top of the one I pinched, the queen in that one was scrawny also, but her box was so full of honey they only had three frames of brood and bees. I think there's a good flow on here now. I'll be pinching her as well in the future, so that two story hive is now good in a holding pattern, bringing in honey.

Added the 6 second boxes I'd gotten ready on six other hives, and checked through the rest. These bees are all exploding! I need at least three, and ideally 5 more boxes gotten ready to add to what's left. Maybe I'll use the resources out of the one I'm planning on offing the queen to add to the rest of the hives in the yard, drawn comb you know with brood and honey stores. That way I only need to get three more boxes ready. I think that's what I'll do and try to get everything left into two stories by end of day tomorrow.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Gave away all the #8 hardware cloth I brought south this year. Stopped into a local, private hardware store in Hillsborough, NC. I bought just two feet to make some push in cages, and figured I'd get had...$3.74!


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...These bees are all exploding! I need at least three, and ideally 5 more boxes gotten ready to add to what's left. Maybe I'll use the resources out of the one I'm planning on offing the queen to add to the rest of the hives in the yard, drawn comb you know with brood and honey stores. That way I only need to get three more boxes ready. I think that's what I'll do and try to get everything left into two stories by end of day tomorrow.


Yep, that's what I did, yesterday. Now down to 11 hives, all two story 8 frame deeps, needing 5-6 combs drawn. That gives them all room to expand, and work to do, so should keep them from swarming. Plans to sell 4 queens this month, that'll get me down to 7 hives and then I'll have resources to set up 16 mating nucs right away. I've got drones, so will start some queen rearing soon.


----------



## rkereid

Sunday Farmer said:


> Gave away all the #8 hardware cloth I brought south this year. Stopped into a local, private hardware store in Hillsborough, NC. I bought just two feet to make some push in cages, and figured I'd get had...$3.74!


I've got extra if you need it! ;<)


----------



## Sunday Farmer

rkereid said:


> I've got extra if you need it! ;<)


 all good! 
45 boxes made this evening. Beer in hand. 3 days left working for contractor then just bbZzzzzzzz


----------



## Michael Palmer

Getting excited, eh? Me too. Have apic for to fall in love with Mr. Z. Awsome beekeeper and cute.


----------



## rolftonbees

First day of real work in beeyard today. Dug out flat spots and set blocks for another stand thst will hold 3 hives. Went ahead and opened up a hive I thought might be dead and it was. 

They were week and disorganized from the start. Always made messy combs etc. I had to give them brood and honey along the way and was surprised they made it into winter so their death did not surprise. I think they were down to a few hundred bees at most.

My oldest hives are busy with a cloud of orientation flights. The other boxes to a lesser degree.

Tue will be quite warm and I will check all hives. Tomorrow, will be getting bottom boards and deeps ready for switching out on tuesday. 

Some woodware has mildewed alot on the outside and on landing boards. I will change out then get the dirty stuff cleaned up for splits.


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI

It was the first real day of work for me too. As usual, at the start of the season, I anticipated getting the work done faster than I did. The weather forecasters implied that it was going to feel warmer than it was. I kept my black Carhart jacket on, and bees from the first (and only angry) hive managed to get under the folds, behind my veil, and I took a couple to the head. I was walking in slush and puddles. I weighed, scraped the bottom boards, and peeked at all the colonies. 

I just sat down and collated the data. There was 1 dead colony in the 29 I went through. All of these colonies, except for a couple of mothers, were established last year with a broodbreak for mite control and were overwintered in a 5/5 or 5/5/5 deep format. 

I have calculated that this year the average loss in weight for the 5/5 colonies to this weekend was 19 pounds - compared to 25 for 2015 and 24 for 2014. It looks like we have a mild week coming up, so I removed the 1/2 corks in the top auger holes of the strongest colonies. However, I still have the colonies squeezed together for sister heat as this is still early March, and I am still in Wisconsin.


----------



## McBee7

54F today and no wind....A perfect bee day...cleansing flights all afternoon..My 13 indoor wintered hives have a 65% survival rate revealing the results of my rushed winter preps as I had a knee replacement in october......One out yard has 100% survival rate in an exposed area with no insulation but ALL other winter preps were correct and the results are also obvious,,,,My main out yard has about 50% survival but the survivers are HUGE!!! clouds of bees above double deep 10 frame, surrounded by winters remaining snow "Quite a sight" 
Dispite my feeble efforts, enough bees will survive into 2016 so I wont have to buy bees 
This years goals-----Build up as large a population as possible untill mid july and then SPLIT to increase #s for the winter of 2016/7 (I guess thats everyones goals, but stuff happens)
And I hope we get another video out of your work today Adrian  I'll look forward to it 

==McBee7==


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI

Earl, I didn't make one today as it would be just repeating the one i made in 2014. I will plan on making more videos as the season progresses through splitting season. I am glad you like them, thanks for the compliment.


----------



## David LaFerney

I inspected a sample of hives today to assess the situation - in less than 2 weeks they have gone from 1 frame of brood to more like 6. Almost all of the maple nectar so far has been converted into brood with very little of it stored, although a fair amount of fresh pollen has been socked away. There is no purple eyed drone brood or wax production yet. 

Fortunately, the 10 day forecast is for generally good foraging conditions and no cold temps at all. Clearly hive populations are going to expand rapidly unless something goes really wrong.

Still no winter losses, but I sure do wish I had a lot more drawn comb.


----------



## David LaFerney

Strange double post...


----------



## squarepeg

great report david, and i'm seeing much the same down here. i'm finding a little nectar stored here and there, but i suspect it will get used up for brood food over these next weeks. if the nectar flow is strong enough that they aren't uncapping the checkerboarded honey frames i'll consider extracting some of those frames to make room.


----------



## David LaFerney

I'm more worried that light hives might starve if the weather turns before they store anything back. That's my immediate worry anyway. I don't want to feed syrup at this point unless I have to so I think I'm just going to watch the weather forcast and see what they need when it's predicted to turn cold.

What I should do is rob the rich to feed the poor, but I'm affraid I just won't have time to go through them all like that - this is a very busy time of year.


----------



## rolftonbees

Back out today as planned.

Bad news, two more hives are dead........actually on life support, but dead. Two hives had a lot of dead bees and barely moving bees. Actually they had small numbers of bees that were mostly slow moving and struggling to move and dead bees.

These boxes had a lot more bees just days ago. They have newly gathered nectar and pollen and had a lot of honey left in the winter stores. I am suspecting they found some poison somewhere. 

I am at 4 out of 7 hives for the winter. Came in and called a local club member who goes after packages and put in an order for 3 packages. I was hoping to get to 10 or eleven hives with splits, but am planning on packages and splits instead. 

Oh well. Live and learn. I will be looking at some of the bees under a microscope just for personal interest. I watched a video on checking for tracheal mites and have some freshly dead bees to look at now.


----------



## squarepeg

understood david. from what i can see on the weather outlooks it doesn't look like we are expecting any extended cold spells, but so it goes with weather forecasts.

i've not thought about it this way before, but checkerboarding in late february may have a side benefit of redistributing honey in such a way that those hives with way more than they need end up giving to the lighter ones, making sure that none are too light.


----------



## yukonjack

In Southern New Hampshire, 75F/23C, bees are out and bringing in light-gray or whitish pollen. Looks like we made it though our first winter (if you count what we had in NH a winter)!


----------



## David LaFerney

After inspections 2 days ago I decided that I actually *should* rob the rich to feed the poor - but in the laziest possible way. I just went around and hefted all of the hives and marked the ones that were extra light or extra heavy - then did a bit of wealth redistribution. 

In the process of this I noticed that the nectar has* really* rolled in over the past 2 days and that most of my (8 frame medium) doubles (about 2/3s of my hive count) are in danger of running out of space so I went back home and fetched some of my precious extracted comb to give them each a super. Supering this time wasn't as simple as just plopping a box of comb on top because all of my hives now have frame feeders (which take up the space of 2 frames) - but it actually worked out pretty good I think because I moved the feeders up into the new boxes of comb, and took the oportunity to open the brood nest with frames of comb. So if the good foraging conditions hold up I think I'm good for a few days, and if they don't I can feed syrup if needed without much danger of causing them to backfill.

I also ran across a couple of hives with iffy looking brood patterns - which I paper combined with their next door neighbors. So I'm down 2 for the winter so far. On the other hand I counted all my hives and I had 4 more than I thought, so on net I'm up by 2. 

BTW - 2 days ago there was very little wax being built - today many hives had built a good bit of wild comb in the feed shims - so off they came.


----------



## RBRamsey

We inspected our 7 hives over the last few days, and they are booming. We had a good bit of honey on all hives 3 weeks ago, and now most are empty or near empty. We are starting all on 1:1 syrup. Pollen is in abundance is all hives, and they are actively bringing more in. 8 out of 10 workers are bringing in pollen. All hives have daily orientation flights with some being very large. 


#1 Hive has blown through 8 frames of honey in the 2 weeks, and are now mostly filled with capped brood, and 1/2 of 1 frame full of capped drone. They have 8 deeps and 8 mediums of brood. The rest is mostly filled of pollen with spots of nectar. There is fair amount of drones in the hive and flying. We added a deep of drawn frames above the super.

#2 has 8 frames of capped brood in the deep, and the bottom inch or so of 5 super frames with some capped brood. The rest of the super still has some capped honey. We added another deep of 1 drawn frame and 9 frames of foundation below the super.

#3 has 8 frames of capped brood in the deep, most of the super has brood with less than 1/2 of the super of honey. We added another deep of 1 drawn frame and 9 frames of foundation below the super. They have drones flying.

#4 was a week hive going into winter in a single deep configuration. About 3 weeks ago we gave them a super with 4 frames of honey. It now has 5 frames of brood.

#6 has 1 deep and 2 supers. No honey in the deep, but has 8 frames of brood. Some brood in the first super. We robbed 3 frames of honey out of the second super, and added 1 deep below the supers.

#8 was a week feral colony going into winter that was requeened late fall. They wintered in a single deep. 3 weeks ago we added a super with 8 frames of honey and drawn frame. Now they have 6 frames of brood.

#9 was wintered in a double deeps. They have a total 10 frames of brood, 4 frames of honey, 2 frames of pollen. They have drones flying.


----------



## Phoebee

Two weeks ago there was no pollen coming in and temperatures were too cold for more than a quick peek and feeding. We gave them some sugar and pollen sub at that point.

Not so over the last few days, two of them record high temperatures for their dates. We got up to our Grant County WV mountain apiary and were delighted to see plenty of pollen coming in, in spite of few trees visibly in bloom. Several colors were seen, including a light yellow and a greyish green. We suspect maples are finally blooming a few hundred feet lower on the mountain. The established hives still have so much capped honey that we decided not to feed them. Many cells appear to contain nectar but I expect they've just been diluting honey for ready use. Between this nectar-like fluid and the ton of pollen fermenting in the cells, there was so little space available for brood that we decided not put the syrup feeders on.

The two established hives, one Russian and one VSH, have a few cells of capped brood, all stages of larvae, and eggs. The VSH queen was seen twice, once on the broodnest looking frisky, then a couple of minutes later playing dead on a lower frame. We never saw the Russian queen, and in fact have not since she figured out we wanted to mark her last summer, but her eggs are a dead giveaway. With extra frames available from their recent expansion, we gave them a top feeder and a gallon of 1:1

The other 8-frame hive was transplanted there from its overwintered VSH nuc two weeks back. I was disappointed to see no capped brood, but a closer look showed some larvae and lots of eggs. The other overwintered nuc, with a 2-year-old VSH queen, also had no capped brood but some larvae and a large patch of eggs. This hive had less abundant stores remaining, so we gave them a quart of 1:1 in a Boardman feeder.

We had expected them to be a bit further along. All the hives seem to have decent populations, particularly the nuc that expanded to the 8-frame hive (they actually looked crowded in the nuc). Probably an earlier offer of pollen sub would have kicked off earlier broodrearing, but it seems to be underway now.


----------



## Banemorth

Did a quick inspection of my four hives here in NJ for the first time this year. All of them made it through the winter but one sustained very heavy losses. I gave all four protein patties and filled the top feeders with 1-1 syrup and put in my Apivar strips. Honestly two of them probably didn't need the feed or patties but I figured I may as well. Took one sting to the back of the neck, guess I didn't tuck my veil in enough. My strongest hive was pretty hot. I'm tempted to requeen but also feel like I should probably just suck it up with how well they're doing.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

going thru our hives pulling some frames of honey out making room for the queens to lay. Colonies are filling up frames of fresh pollen and some nectar was falling out of the frames.


----------



## Pooh Bear

Very mild weather here in downstate NY, apparently this February was so warm it smashed all previous records. In any event, first blooms this week (crocuses); still no daffodils or tulips. The girls were spotted bringing in red pollen - from what I cannot say.

2nd oxalic sublimation treatment this week. Finally getting the technique down.

Dying to do a full inspection but I am leaving them alone. A smushed queen now would be a disaster


----------



## Cyan

I'm wishing I could be home during this nice patch of weather- all I think about is getting into hive to check on them. As far as I know, there are no daffodils blooming back home in SW PA, but 2 days ago they started blooming here in Cloverdale Virginia.


----------



## michkel

Absolutely nothing. Too much rain all week. It's supposed to stop tomorrow, so maybe I'll get to see my bees flying again.


----------



## RobinTheBK

Inspected one of my apiaries of 44 hives yesterday. Everyone was alive, you can't be any happier than that. It wasn't warm enough to actually go in and determine the strength. Just checked if they were alive and put some food paste and moved on.


----------



## biggraham610

Added boxes to overwintered nucs, give them something to do queens need space. they are booming. fresh wax, pollen and tons of brood. Fresh wet nectar surprised me. A lot of capped brood will be transferring to full size hives next wknd. They are about to explode. G


----------



## squarepeg

sounds good g!


----------



## RayMarler

9:30am, bright sun, clear and still, with temps of 50F in the shade. 
After almost 2 weeks of bad weather with showers, rain, and some flooding here and there, the bees are ecstatic for the sunshine and are working the Rosemary already on this cool clear morning.


----------



## squarepeg

new blooms are popping so fast here if you blink you'll miss one. the hardwoods are also just starting to green. swarm season is around the corner and i've started placing my traps.


----------



## David LaFerney

Lot's of wax production (burr comb, drone comb) and purple eye drones now. Plenty of nectar and pollen. I REALLY wish I had more drawn comb!


----------



## biggraham610

Had a couple cool and rainy days. I should have mentioned there are capped drones in my hives. Not an abundance, but spring is here in the eyes of the bees. Today it was warmer, and they were again flying like mad. I will deeply address all hives this weekend, it looks like it will be a strong spring. i should have 7-8 production hives this year up from 2 last. The addition of the Buckfasts sure looks like a winner so far. G


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Dropping cells today. 
A friend here in NC went full time with her farm this year, and part of that is keeping two apiaries for honey and nucs. We had a blast making nucs yesterday and I think I made a believer out of her yesterday. A small yard with 10 over wintered nucs produced 33 new nucs, and the parent nucs were left as 5x5 still! Loaded 6 of the new ones in the back of her truck and hope she makes a honey crop. 

Grandad called- only lost 2 out of 24 at my farm so far. *whew*


----------



## leadchunker

Been building wood ware for the last 2 weeks. Early spring has put me behind. Caught 3 swarms this past weekend and they are happy with their new home. Started spring hive inspections and found queen cells in 3 of them. We now have 9 nucs. We will inspect the rest of the hives today. The girls are busy.


----------



## jlaudiofan

I hopefully tripled the size of my apiary in the past 24 hours. Had a guy get ahold of me that had a swarm move into an old wine barrel, and they started building inside. I have it back here at home, have not opened it up yet. I also attempted a removal today of a nother swarm / hive under a conex shipping container. Not easy. Removed all the comb (hardly any there, 3 6" pieces) and vacuumed all the bees out. Left the comb in a bucket right by where their entrance was, and hopefully I can pickup the stragglers tonight...

So that'll put me up to 3 hives total. The swarm I vacuumed are in a hive already (i made an old langstroth box into a vacuum with a shopvac) because they were sucked directly into the hive. Hopefully I got the queen there. The wine barrel was a piece of cake to pickup, slapped a piece of screen over the hole after dark so I know I have that queen. I do have to get that hive into a langstroth though.


----------



## Cloverdale

biggraham610 said:


> Had a couple cool and rainy days. I should have mentioned there are capped drones in my hives. Not an abundance, but spring is here in the eyes of the bees. Today it was warmer, and they were again flying like mad. I will deeply address all hives this weekend, it looks like it will be a strong spring. i should have 7-8 production hives this year up from 2 last. The addition of the Buckfasts sure looks like a winner so far. G


Where did you get your Buckfast bees from? And you added them last year? Deb


----------



## michkel

Full inspection of both of my hives since it was in the low 70's today.

Hive #1 was mostly full in the top box, but empty in the bottom box, so I reversed them. Great brood pattern, eggs and pollen stores. Still some honey stores. LOTS of pollen coming in as we are in full bloom. Refilled feeder and closed them up.

Hive #2 was a split that got a queen late in the year. Honestly, I didn't expect them to make it through winter, but they did. I saw the queen and a lot of fuzzy, young bees. I found 1 spot where there were some wax moth larvae. There were bees around it, but no brood in the frame, so I scraped the area out and squished the wax moth larvae. Brood pattern is great and so are the pollen stores. They are expanding quickly, but haven't started drawing comb yet. They are foraging well and bringing in a lot of pollen. Refilled the feeder and closed them up.


----------



## Arnie

Spring snowstorm. Glad I checked the weather and resisted the urge to reverse brood boxes. I've made the mistake of doing it too early before. Doesn't kill the hive but causes them undue distress.


----------



## 1102009

First opening yesterday after winter showed my colonies are all alive and in very good condition.

The carnis which are located colder and dryer are even better off than the AMM and have much more stores left. They drawed out most of the top deeps and filled them with stores.
The AMM, having a location more warm and humid, used up most of the stores. They left the top deeps alone, no drawing, no filling.
The AMM original queen from the canary island was without stores so I fed with wet sugar. She breeds since January.

We still have not much flow and cold weather, so I left the brooding area alone. A damaged queen this time of year will mean a lost hive.
All hives brought pollen.
The bees were gentle, I did not use smoke.

Condensed water was at the sides not the top, very good. Almost no mildew and not many dead bees inside.
No damaged bees and large numbers of them left.

Thank you, mentor! I`m very happy.


----------



## dixieswife

Checked the top bar hive today, wow. They are busy and booming, have been for a couple months. The queen is going gangbusters. Couple cups but no actual queen cells yet. They are getting nectar from somewhere since we aren't feeding these. A bit of backfilling going on. Rainy week ahead but next weekend outta be good to split before they swarm since we don't have but one more bar for them to build on (and they are starting on that).

Checked the Langs a couple days ago, they are building up, no new wax yet. A couple hives have moved into top boxes on their own. 

We almost accidentally killed one hive due to a mistake a couple weeks ago (sealed the bottom box closed without any exit!). I think the brood got chilled when I cracked the boxes apart to fix the mistake, and they'd lost a good portion of freshly hatched workers, so we put in a couple donated frames of capped and open to help them recoup their losses. Hopefully the queen is still up to laying in there and didn't get too cold. Crossing fingers!


----------



## Cyan

Been traveling for work, and I finally got a chance to open the hive today. They appear to be doing rather well, but 3/4 of the fondant I placed in there back in December is still stuck to the top of the frames. :doh: Which may be a sign that they more stores than I originally thought, but still a mess none the less. I also noticed foragers bringing in pollen, but not surprising as how the maples & willows are blooming.


----------



## Kuro

Saw the first drone flying around the hive. Zone 8.


----------



## RayMarler

So, back on March 3rd I had gotten all hives to 2 stories with room to grow, needing some wax drawn in the upper boxes, that was 3 weeks ago. Within a day or two the rains started, lasted for two weeks, a couple days nice, then rain again, today is second day of nice weather.

All 3 of Michael Palmer's queens are doing very well, no queen cells, building up nicely. I lose count, but most of mine are either superseding or in swarm mode with queen cells. I think my bees here have too much Russian genetics in them for my needs here. One hive had queen cells and two had emerged, and some had been torn down and others were capped. I destroyed all cells and added a frame of eggs from one of Michael's hives. I'll check it in 10 days and see if they drew cells or if I have eggs from a mated queen of mine.

Another hive had no eggs or younger brood, and had sealed queen cells. I destroyed all cells and split the hive down to two 4 frame nucs with a frame of eggs from Michael's hives. These are now 2 cell builders with a frame of eggs in each from Michael's queens hives. The leftover combs that were drawn in good shape went into Michael's queen's hives, removing foundation frames.

I have removed two frames of all drones on foundation-less frames. I'm going to weed out all foundation-less combs and replace with plastic foundation throughout this year, or at least the great majority of them, particularly the ones that have drone cells on them. I'm also going to change all my hives over to queens that are daughters from Michael Palmer's queens, or most of them, any that have queen cells in them now. 

OK, break time is over, I have a few more hives to go through this afternoon, I better get at it.


----------



## RayMarler

OK, I've gone through the rest of the hives, I had started this yesterday. It's not so bad as what I had thought. I now have the 2 cell builder nucs, and one 2 box 8 frame deep that has a frame of Michael's eggs. I have the three hives with Michael's queens, and I have six hives of my last years queens. The six of mine vary slightly in size from two boxes booming, down to a box plus two frames booming. All hives have great brood patterns, with stores stored and stores coming in. So 2 hives were all I had with active queen cells, and those have been taken care of. The remaining 9 hives all look great, a couple are ahead of others as far as population goes, but the smaller ones are going to catch up fast with all the sealed brood combs they have inside. All in all a very nice looking beeyard for me, as I like to keep the numbers of hives small for easier management for me. The way things look now, I may have some honey to rob this year, as well as be able to get 16 four frame mating nucs going by the end of April.


----------



## Cyan

Took advantage of this latest warm spell and inspected my hive.

There are a large amount of stores left in there- capped and uncapped. Between the 3 medium boxes I'd guess 60- 80 lbs. Some of the frames are not fully drawn, and a few are irregular. I did however see freshly drawn drone comb and what I believe is 3-5 day old larvae. I did my best looking look at the undersides of each box- no noticeable queen cells, but a few areas that might serve for them in the near future. 

I also pulled the fondant. They have some room, just not a lot of good laying space, so I figured that this would help prevent the back filling I've been seeing. I will check on them again next week, pulling every single frame to get a better picture of where the may be at with swarming.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

RayMarler said:


> OK, I've gone through the rest of the hives, I had started this yesterday. It's not so bad as what I had thought. I now have the 2 cell builder nucs, and one 2 box 8 frame deep that has a frame of Michael's eggs. I have the three hives with Michael's queens, and I have six hives of my last years queens. The six of mine vary slightly in size from two boxes booming, down to a box plus two frames booming. All hives have great brood patterns, with stores stored and stores coming in. So 2 hives were all I had with active queen cells, and those have been taken care of. The remaining 9 hives all look great, a couple are ahead of others as far as population goes, but the smaller ones are going to catch up fast with all the sealed brood combs they have inside. All in all a very nice looking beeyard for me, as I like to keep the numbers of hives small for easier management for me. The way things look now, I may have some honey to rob this year, as well as be able to get 16 four frame mating nucs going by the end of April.


Nice!


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

wife and I painted 200 deep supers. Bees are buzzing and thank goodness we are done building equipment till October! 700 deep boxes from scratch. Also painted 75 shallows. my 4 year old loves that the shallows are pink..... she says girls like pink best. I said, good they better fill them all up then!


----------



## VickyLynn

I had given my girls (four hives, all survived the winter) pollen patties ten days ago. I went in today to see how they are doing. There are tons of bees in there, so many more than ten days ago. I gave them all another patty each. It is still winter here, or a cold spring is more accurate. I am waiting until income tax day to unwrap their winter duds. I'm dying to know what's inside.


----------



## AAIndigo

Replaced my dead out today. Broke up the drawn out frames and started 2 new hives with packages. Left each hive with 2 frames of honey. Added a pollen patty to each and will have to play the weather for feeding.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...One hive had queen cells and two had emerged, and some had been torn down and others were capped. I destroyed all cells and added a frame of eggs from one of Michael's hives. I'll check it in 10 days and see if they drew cells or if I have eggs from a mated queen of mine...


Walked through the beeyard today, looking at front landing boards. This one is now actively foraging and bringing in pollen, so I'd say a queen has mated and is laying, so they were just superceding the queen. I think that is a good thing, when hives will supercede the queen without swarming, whenever they feel the queen is not right for the hive. I'll know for sure a week from today when I check through them and my two cell builder nucs.

A nice smell of honey and wax drawing in the beeyard this afternoon.


----------



## Geno

Yesterday, split hives that were booming. Made up five nucs. Installed queens in each nuc. Hung two bait hives, hoping for some feral bees. Weather was beautiful, 75° and little wind. Thunderstorms later in the afternoon.


----------



## dixieswife

We split our booming top bar hive -- they've gone through all their stores finally and every comb had turned into brood. Lots of pollen in the hive, but not a lot of nectar yet though they were bringing in some from somewhere. 

We took the queen and six other frames covered in bees, put them in the 2nd hive, gave both hives sugar syrup. Was pleasantly surprised that while the top bar lengths are different between hives, we didn't have to cut much comb to make them fit.


----------



## Kuro

Lots of bees are collecting water. I rescued one bee from our duck pool then one of our pet ducks stepped on it and got stung. inch: I caught the duck and removed the stinger from her foot, but she is limping.......


----------



## Michael Palmer

RayMarler said:


> All 3 of Michael Palmer's queens are doing very well, no queen cells, building up nicely. I lose count, but most of mine are either superseding or in swarm mode with queen cells.


Pshew!


----------



## Richard Clausen

Bee keeping 29 March 2016

Went to Chennai for 24 hours and while I was away my hive swarmed. 

Did i learn anything today…a TON!

History: Mr Mock opened his bee farm in 1962. He has years of experience and loves to share his knowledge.

Mr Mock & Eddie today took Savanna, Hunter and me by the hands and showed us how much there is to bee keeping if done correctly. 
We drove to Mr Mocks farm and he showed us how the bees make queen cells. He showed us where the cells are and just the vertical / horizontal orientation can determine the type of bee. We were shown drones and where they are on the frame, normally lower section. They look like yellow bubbles of wax that pop out. The workers are next to the drones and have a similar looking appearance except the cells are flatter and a little less yellow. The Honey is at the top of the frame and the top edges and its almost a white thin wax covering.

He showed us how the swarm capture boxes work and how to divide the hive into sections to isolate the bees and prevent swarming. We were showed how he made bee hives, the ventilation, how he cleans the frames and hives with fire to disinfect from wax moths, veroa & other pests including parasites in the wood.

Something he does differently is he makes holes in the hive the diameter of a pencil. This prevents bull frogs from eating the bees as they enter the hives in the summer and provides better defence from yellow tails (Hornets).

We learnt how to split the hive with old brood wax by tying it up & with new wax by compressing it to the frames.

The most interesting point was the brown section below the queen cell. This says the queen will emerge in 3 days and swarm. This gives me a good head start in preventing my bees from swarming.

After a few hours of teaching it was time for hands on experience. We dove over to our bee farm and set up for a split as my hive was full to the brim the day i left for VOMM.

Timing is everything…..I was 24 hrs if not less too late! The lights were on but no-one was home. 

Our bees had swarmed.

When I departed for india the queen cells were there. The tips were darkening but I had no clue what this meant and I had no urgency to manually split the hive. Well we would have done it then but unfortunately Mr Mock was busy & we made an appointment for today…ouch.

These things happen and its taught me a lesson I will not forget. My bees had swarmed mainly due to my ignorance. I had taken a new frame with foundation and placed it in the centre of my hive. By doing this I had taken a full hive and basically divided it in two and made the hive seem even fuller. The bees thought they wanted better more roomy accommodation and when the new queens arrived, both of them left each taking 1/3rd of the hive, leaving me with 1/3rd and no visible queen!

WHAT TO DO?

As the frames were rather full but the bee numbers were down we deliberated as tom split or not to split. In the end we split the hive in two. Two of the frames still had queen cells that were brown at the lower section meaning they were mature and ready to come out any day. We cut out one and attached her to one of the other brood frames. We put this into the new hive with another brood frame and honey frame. As the bees were eating the honey at a really fast rate out of the new hive Mr Mock cut out large sections of drone cells…Remember the yellow round puffy ones that look like popcorn and put them in the old hive. This he said will stop them hatching and eating more honey causing a weak hive to swarm again and not have food.

We inserted syrup feeders and Ill go tomorrow between 17:00 & 18:00 when you feed bees.

Why this time? The hornets are not around to cause issues.

What is the syrup made of? 

I wet to the shop and bought 2kg white sugar, 400g brown sugar bars, 2 teaspoons salt, 1 Ltr water & 1/4 orange juice (Fresh).
You heat up the 2:1 ratio mixture and when it is dissolved you add the salt. When its cool you bottle it into a 2 Ltr coke bottle. When you feed the bees and pour in the mixture, only then do you pour in the orange juice.

Ill add in a few pictures of today showing what I have written about above. For those interested in Italian bees, yes they can be cross mated & Ill put a picture in showing what they look like. Asian bees are the darker black bees & the Italians are the lighter fluffier bees & lazy….go figure 

Asher & I would like to go wild bee swarm hunting in the mountains of Hong Kong with Mr Mock. If anyone is interested let me know and we will ask Mr Mock how many he is comfortable taking…Thats if he even allows me as its a trade secret.

Remember - If this thread is NOT for you and you find it disturbing please delete yourself or better still let me know & Ill remove you. If you don’t mind listening to banter back and forth about these beautiful insects … jump in and enjoy.

Happy buzzing

Rich, Tash, Savanna & Hunter


----------



## leadchunker

Split three hives yesterday and made one nuc. Spotted a swarm about eight feet off the ground in the swamp next to one of my bee yards. Made a pallet bridge over the bottomless more to displace my weight. It worked like a dream. I used my ten foot PVC pipe and 5 gallon bucket rig to get them out of the tree. The girls have a nice wooden ranch style home now. Lol


----------



## garusher

flipped the bottom box to the top on a couple of hives, found one capped and several almost capped cells so i pulled the queen and placed her in a nuc, first for the year. yippy.
Most everything is building up good and strong, seeing improvements in my own stock. this being the 3 year.

G.


----------



## Richard P

Checked on a swarm Ihaved 2 days ago to check and see if it was queen rite. YES! She looked good, not fat though. I think she may be a virgin. I will leave alone for 7-10 days now then check for brood....... ,


----------



## dixieswife

Really nice spring day, 60s with warmer weather to come. 

Checked all my Langs today (four of them, two doubles and two singles). The doubles are doing really really well. Using the "opening the sides of the broodnest" has got them drawing fresh wax. They have ripped through all of the winter stores and are packing in pollen and eating sugar syrup. I added a medium super to both doubles to see if I can get them to fill out some frames ahead of the flow since they seem in a wax drawing mood.

Taking the advice of folks in the forum who have said keep the the strong hives strong for honey later, and split the smaller ones, I took the two singles and split them, two nucs for each single, four frames in each plus an extra to make up the fifth. Made sure everybody has brood and stores and eggs for the queenless half of the splits. Gave everyone a pollen patty and sugar syrup since nobody has any winter stores left. 

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the hives that made it through the winter. The queens are all 2nd year queens and most of them seem to be really solid layers. I'm seeing a smattering of cups, but no cells yet, so I hope we're staying ahead of the swarming urge, esp. with the two big hives. 

Moving the singles into nucs means we can do some repairs on our home made boxes they were in. I did set one empty eight frame up as a bait hive just in case the other bees I know are around somewhere wanna move in sometime.


----------



## David LaFerney

I've been getting ready to make up my spring nucs in a few days...










30 nice new setups on stands (yes, the stands are made out of ladders - they're temporary) ready for bees. This year I wasn't too lazy to build stands to get them up to a good working height. As I age that gets to be more worth the effort every year.

I'm going to go through all of my overwintered hives on Saturday to plunder them for brood and bees, but today I just wanted to open a few to get an idea of what to expect as far as swarminess and whatnot, and also to unload some new supers in the apiary so that they would be ready to deploy. My sample hives looked really good - strong, but not looking swarmy - enough stores to be safe, but not so much nectar so as to be a problem - a few cups but no obvious swarminess. All good. Except just as I was getting ready to leave I spot this...










Awe man! So of course I caught it. No telling how many hit the trees when I'm not looking.


----------



## McBee7

They look great David.
Are those 8 frame mediums? And do you have queens in the soup for the 30? I know, too many questions  We just had the bees bring in pollen here by the bus loads, the seasons change quickly here Good friday we had another 2 inches of snow and 2 days latter pollen had broken loose even though there was still ice and snow on the ground....Fire and Ice , Swarms will happen here mid June...Good Luck..

==McBee7==


----------



## David LaFerney

They are 8 frame mediums - so technically not exactly nucs. The queens are coming from Florida later this week. I want my customers to be able to get their bees by early May at least, and I can't raise them early enough to do that. But I've pretty much decided to go ahead and split out next year's nucs as soon as these are gone in May and over winter them. Queens have become so expensive that I think it will be worth it. Customers will like getting their bees earlier too.


----------



## Jason A

Went out to do a quick check on the hives. They are all doing strong with all queens being second year queens - egg laying machines. One of my hives had a couple supersede cells. We removed them. Not sure why they built it, she's laying strong and thehives are full of bees, brood, pollen and honey around the edges of frames. We placed suppers on two hives with queen excluders a week ago. They are just starting to draw out some cone. Our only single body hive was full of bees with only the outside frames 1 and 10 not being utilized and no comb. We put another deep box on it to give them more room. It had been about two weeks since we gave them syrup so I filled up their bucket feeder. They weren't starving since they all had honey but it looked like we might get rain. Last year we lost three new hives to starvation when it poured here for several days.


----------



## michkel

Added sugar water to my hives yesterday. Gotta get my swarm trap out today or tomorrow at my MIL's house. She has 80+ hives within a mile of her for the upcoming mandarin bloom.


----------



## phopkinsiii

First inspection of the spring, sort of. It was really more of a quick look through the upper deep. I mostly wanted to get them some sugar water as our honey flow isn't in full swing yet. I gave my one hive 1 gallon of 1:1 sugar water with 3 tablespoons of Honey-B-Healthy. The frames in the upper chamber looked good with the center frames about 50% full of brood that was about 80% worker brood. Quite a few drones around, but I understand that's normal this time of year. I didn't open the lower brood chamber nor try to find the queen, but there were larvae on many of the frames. The hive is a captured swarm and the sole survivor of my move from Florida to Tennessee last summer in which the other 4 died shortly after arrival here (heart breaker? YES). 
I have 4 package from a local breeder due to be ready in 10 days.


----------



## Gilli_in_TN

Got all four packages installed, guess I'll check in on the Queen on Tuesday. How long will it take a three pound package of bees to go through a gallon of syrup? I don't want to mess with them too much at this point, but then again I don't want them to slow down for lack of stores, either. If I'm way out in left field on this, please give me a heads up.


----------



## Phoebee

Saturday we had our mentees up for their first hive inspection, although a severely limited one due to temperature and wind. We let them pull and check a couple of honey frames from the top of the Cossacks (the brood is two boxes down). At least they got to pull the top off a hive and try out hive tools. The Cossacks found it all amusing.

This morning we woke up to temps in the 20's and this:


----------



## snl

PB,
That pic looks like a Super Max prison for bees!!!


----------



## Arnie

Dang! That is one secure apiary, Phoebee. Let me guess, the bears get ya? They do make a mess of a bee yard, those bears.


----------



## Phoebee

snl said:


> PB,
> That pic looks like a Super Max prison for bees!!!


That pic is an anti-Super-Max prison for bears. It is also a warning to all prospective beekeepers with too much time on their hands while waiting for their bees.


----------



## Phoebee

Arnie said:


> Dang! That is one secure apiary, Phoebee. Let me guess, the bears get ya? They do make a mess of a bee yard, those bears.


They won't with this one. Or skunks or raccoons. (The remesh is backed with 2x4 wire fence at the bottom and they'd have to pass several tapes with 7.5 kV on them to climb it.)

The beam across the top is the lifting lever for weighing the hives. The stand is a variant of the Charlie B. ant-resistant design.

We have never had the hives raided by bears, but they have raided the bird feeder, a bear resistant design now surrounded by electric fence. Since the local black bears are known pests, we decided to install defences right off the bat.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Phoebee,

I remember seeing your beam for lifting/weighing hives design some years ago on BS and thought it was a great idea, and still do. I also have to have an electric bear fence, but of a somewhat different design. 

Steve


----------



## Phoebee

Bear Creek Steve said:


> Phoebee,
> 
> I remember seeing your beam for lifting/weighing hives design some years ago on BS and thought it was a great idea, and still do. I also have to have an electric bear fence, but of a somewhat different design.
> 
> Steve


For Gadget Night at the bee club next month, I need to build a version that does not require a 7-foot fence on an undersized apiary (we expanded it over the winter but really it is still pretty small). I expect a skinny 2x4 A-frame to hold the lever. This works with a $50 electronic game scale, and we're finding it pretty informative. The bees are still burning stores. Cappings suggest brood is starting to emerge by the handful but we're having trouble getting warm inspection days.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Another hive had no eggs or younger brood, and had sealed queen cells. I destroyed all cells and split the hive down to two 4 frame nucs with a frame of eggs from Michael's hives. These are now 2 cell builders with a frame of eggs in each from Michael's queens hives. The leftover combs that were drawn in good shape went into Michael's queen's hives, removing foundation frames...


That was 10 days ago. Today went and cut out queen cells and made up 5 mating nucs with them. Cut out another and put in top of weaker hive to see if it supercedes that hives queen, kind of an experiment. Moved the two four frame nuc cell builders into a single eight frame box as the cell builder now, and recharged it with 2 frames of eggs from Michael Palmers best queen here.

I caged two queens to ship out early tomorrow morning to another Beesource member. The frames from those two hives were used to make up the 5 mating nucs. Extra frames beyond what was needed went to other hives to give them a little boost as I pulled out frames of foundation in those to give these full frames of brood or stores.

I put medium supers of drawn comb on two hives over excluders, and put a box of jars on one hive to have bees make comb honey in them for me. It didn't work out last year, maybe it'll work this year as I'm setting it up a little differently this time.

So, now I have 8 main hives that are full and working, not much comb to draw in them, two of them has honey supers over excluders, one of them has jars for bees to fill as a super. I have 5 mating nucs, and an ongoing cell builder in place too. And I have 2 queens on the bookshelf to be shipped out in the morning.

I run all 8 frame equipment, and 4 frame nucs. Might get busy making up some mini mating nucs later this week or next week, I'll see how time goes. It was 80F here, clear and bright, good day in the beeyard.


----------



## Arnie

RayMarler said:


> good day in the beeyard.


Sounds like a really good day! Nice work.
I had a friend who would sometimes do the jar thing and get comb honey inside the glass. He said he needed a really strong flow to get them in there. I've never tried it. Good luck.


----------



## RayMarler

Yea, my strongest flows are over, I'll see how it goes. I've set up an ongoing cell builder, so will have this kind of work being done in the beeyard every ten days.


----------



## michkel

I got my bait hive set to try to catch a swarm. My MIL is in mandarin country and there are 90 hives sitting 200 feet or so down the road from her waiting for the mandarin bloom. Hoping to get lucky and catch one.


----------



## Chris Muncy

Took my 4 week old walk-away split in a 5 frame nuc and transferred it to a 10 frame deep. The girls are going like gangbusters and the queen must be doing well. Good egg and larvae signs.


----------



## dixieswife

Went out to feed Lang hives. One of the larger hives was kinda pissy about me doing a quick inspection of the top brood chamber and I didn't have my veil on quite right. Suddenly bee seems to be IN my nose. Got stung on the thingie dividing the nostrils. Ow. Made eyes leak, had to do a quick retreat to get bees out of my bonnet. Got right back on the horse that threw me, so to speak, and went back to finish what I was doing. Got about four or five stings today all told, guard bees buzzed around me while I fed everyone else. 

The splits I made have capped cells now, one nuc has two, the other had seven or so. I knocked those down to three big ones. One of the queen-right nucs is still kinda puttering along, brood wise, the other was ready to be put back into an 8 frame box. So I did. They are eating their pollen patties and sucking down 1:1 syrup, and making new wax. Spring has definitely sprung.


----------



## michkel

dixieswife said:


> Went out to feed Lang hives. One of the larger hives was kinda pissy about me doing a quick inspection of the top brood chamber and I didn't have my veil on quite right. Suddenly bee seems to be IN my nose. Got stung on the thingie dividing the nostrils. Ow. Made eyes leak, had to do a quick retreat to get bees out of my bonnet. Got right back on the horse that threw me, so to speak, and went back to finish what I was doing. Got about four or five stings today all told, guard bees buzzed around me while I fed everyone else.
> 
> The splits I made have capped cells now, one nuc has two, the other had seven or so. I knocked those down to three big ones. One of the queen-right nucs is still kinda puttering along, brood wise, the other was ready to be put back into an 8 frame box. So I did. They are eating their pollen patties and sucking down 1:1 syrup, and making new wax. Spring has definitely sprung.


I was similar, opened my smaller hive to take a peek (veil on thankfully) and they were not happy with me. I had to run and light my smoker to calm them down. The population is increasing rapidly and I needed to change their entrance reducer to the next largest size. Got it done and was lucky to be sting free.

I did take one to the eyelid last year, so I feel your pain.


----------



## Arnie

So I pulled off the insulation and quilt boxes on the 2 backyard hives. 
Took a look in the top 2 of the mediums in each and they have lots of honey left and pretty good amount of brood. 

They are bringing in nectar from somewhere and have some stored.
Moved a couple frames next to the brood to give them motivation to draw the remaining frames of foundation.

Lots of drones but it's still too early, no queen cells. 

Gave the stronger hive a medium box with frames of foundation because the fruit bloom is just around the corner and they have lots of capped brood and bees. Maybe I can get them to draw some comb.

The weaker hive is Carni Mutts and this is the first spring I've had them, so I am waiting to see if they are late bloomers or if I should split my stronger hive for a couple queens. we shall see. 

Had a friend with me who is interested in getting some bees. It's always a lot of fun to show someone how the bees arrange their stores and the brood and so forth. 

A good day.


----------



## RayMarler

Installed 3 hive stands that have 8 foot rails. 

Tipped lids in mating nucs I set up Sunday and see bees in there, didn't go poking around yet. I may check through the mating nucs in the morning to see if I can see the virgin queens. They should be emerged last night, so should be in there today. 

Mixed up a quart feeder for the cell builder.


----------



## Cyan

The extended forecast of cooler weather, rain, and snow forced my hand today. 

I split my garden hive into 2- 2 story nucs in preparation for the queens that are now on their way. In the process, I pulled the last 4 frames that had wonky comb and added 3 frames of wax foundation to each stack. I'll use those messed up frames for swarm traps. I made sure that I moved the brood frames to the center of the lowest boxes, followed by pollen, and capped honey/syrup. The top boxes got the wax foundation, followed by capped stores. Surprisingly, the bees were already drawing comb in the new frames I placed last week. Everything went as well as expected, and the bees weren't too cross with me in the process.

I'll agree that my timing was probably off, but creating more laying space and giving them smaller homes should get them through. I'll be treating for mites tomorrow, and will continue building traps as long as it isn't raining.


----------



## RayMarler

Today is Thursday. 
partly cloudy 80F slight breeze.

Checked the hive I had put a cell in the top this past Sunday to see if it would supercede the existing queen. The bees have torn down the cell, the hive has lots of good looking brood and enough stores, so this queen is a keeper so far.

Checked the 5 mating nucs I had made up this past Sunday. Three have torn down the cells that were given and have made cells of their own. Hoping to get out tomorrow morning to destroy their cells and give cells from my cell builder that will be one day away from being capped, or will just be capped. The other two mating nucs the cells emerged and virgin was spotted in one, but not the other, but she should be in there.

Checked a few other hives, one is quite mean, going to shake it all through a queen shaker box and kill the queen and all drones, and use the frames that don't have any eggs to make up nucs using cells from cell builder, hopefully tomorrow morning.

The cell builder is not scheduled to have cells cut out and distributed until Wednesday of next week, but the weather is not forecast to be good then, so will try to get out tomorrow morning to do the work I mentioned above. Forecast is cooler with possible light showers and drizzles starting tomorrow afternoon through Thursday morning next week. I've just been starting a little early so far using frames with eggs in the cell builder and cutting out cells. As weather gets better a little later, I plan on starting grafting for the cell builder, and I'm sure the hives will all be doing better once the long periods of cooler wet weather is over.


----------



## tunedin5ths

Hived 2 packages today, restarting from a couple of failed attempts several years ago. One package Italians, one carniolans. Winds were gusting to 45 mph today so I didn't thump and dump. Instead I put the open package in an empty deep on the bottom of the stack, a box of frames on top of that with the queen direct released (no candy in the cage and I didn't have a marshmallow). Let's hope the bees like her. Inner cover next, then a bucket feeder inside another deep and then the outer cover. Heavy concrete block on top and then strapped everything down to the stand for extra insurance. I'll remove the empty package and empty bottom deep tomorrow. 

A few brave souls were orienting as I packed up and left.


----------



## Cyan

Temperatures in the high 40's weren't welcome, but I queened my splits. In the process, I created a third split using the old queen. First time I have ever seen her, and other than not being marked, I now know why. She blends is so well with her offspring- black & dark yellow striped.

As well, I added pollen patties, treated for mites, and worked on swarm traps.


----------



## Bowfinger

went to the bee yard. Last week at the turn in, someone threw out some large salt water fish remains. Stink. Well I went over to put an excluder in my best hive. I pulled the top super and was greeted with the smell of rotting flesh. AWFUL. I though this is bad I got Foul Brood. How'd that happen. There's not much AFB around here. I put things back together. I kept getting whiffs of that smell. I looked up wind about 30 yards away to see someone had dumped a large amount of rotten shrimp out. UGH!!! Serious stink. It was blowing straight at the hives. I got a shovel and began to burry it. It's a bad job. Still smells powerful bad. The bees were flying all the way over there after me so I had to wear a veil. So, I guess I don't have foul brood. But I hope that stink doesn't stay in my hive. Late today the wind had changed, at least it wasn't blowing toward them . Coastal living at it's best.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Today is Thursday.
> partly cloudy 80F slight breeze.
> 
> Checked the hive I had put a cell in the top this past Sunday to see if it would supercede the existing queen. The bees have torn down the cell, the hive has lots of good looking brood and enough stores, so this queen is a keeper so far.
> 
> Checked the 5 mating nucs I had made up this past Sunday. Three have torn down the cells that were given and have made cells of their own. Hoping to get out tomorrow morning to destroy their cells and give cells from my cell builder that will be one day away from being capped, or will just be capped. The other two mating nucs the cells emerged and virgin was spotted in one, but not the other, but she should be in there.
> 
> Checked a few other hives, one is quite mean, going to shake it all through a queen shaker box and kill the queen and all drones, and use the frames that don't have any eggs to make up nucs using cells from cell builder, hopefully tomorrow morning.
> 
> The cell builder is not scheduled to have cells cut out and distributed until Wednesday of next week, but the weather is not forecast to be good then, so will try to get out tomorrow morning to do the work I mentioned above. Forecast is cooler with possible light showers and drizzles starting tomorrow afternoon through Thursday morning next week. I've just been starting a little early so far using frames with eggs in the cell builder and cutting out cells. As weather gets better a little later, I plan on starting grafting for the cell builder, and I'm sure the hives will all be doing better once the long periods of cooler wet weather is over.


I got out there this morning and re-celled the 3 mating nucs. 

The mean hive, the queen had had three frames of eggs/young larva in the bottom box, so today I just smoked heavy in the top under the lid and that with the light coming down from removing the lid should make sure the queen was in bottom box. I moved bottom box to new stand on other side of yard and set top box down. Added two frames of sealed brood to it with three cut out queen cells. This should take care of that box, and deal with the mean queen in her box that I moved sometime in the future on a nice day weather-wise. 

I destroyed the remaining cells in the cell builder and put in a fresh frame of eggs from Michael Palmer's best queen here. I put on pollen patty and syrup for them. This cell builder box is starting to get nice and crowded, as sealed brood keeps emerging, and I leave frame in place when cutting out cells so more brood keeps emerging over time. Things looking good again in the beeyard.


----------



## Arnie

Ray, question: Why do you suppose 3 out of 5 mating nucs destroyed the cells? Is that normal?


----------



## RayMarler

Arnie,
The nucs were made up with frames containing eggs and young larva. I don't have any remote yards, so I make splits up in this yard here at home, and having a frame of young larva helps to hold the bees in the nucs better when they are first made up. Some of these bees I have here really do resist being re-queened and even tear down queen cells if they have any young enough larva or eggs of their own to make a queen from. That's what happened to the three mating nucs that I made up this past Sunday. 

I suspect I have a large percentage of Russian genes in the bees I have here. I'm trying to clean up the genetics in my yard this year. Last couple of years it was all about expansion to get up enough hive numbers to then start paying attention to genetic traits to weed out or keep. This year, that's what I've started doing as I now have enough hive numbers, and have started to follow a plan of getting an ongoing queen rearing system going that will give me a few queens every ten days.


----------



## JoshuaW

Snow.


----------



## Phoebee

JoshuaW, yeah. That's why we're getting sleeted on in Virginia instead of inspecting the hives up north of you in Mineral County.

The bees want to know who they need to speak to about this weather.


----------



## Arnie

Thanks, Ray.
This year we will be raising a few queens( one the queens I want to get daughters from is Russian...go figure) and I was worried about 40% acceptance rate for cells.


----------



## Ronnie Elliott

Last week I did a walk away split, didn't do so well, most went back to original hive. 4/7/16; Split again and added new queen from B.Weaver. A friend went to pick his queens up, and found a guy telling his friend he had extra queen to sell. Glad I sent friend down with $35.00


----------



## JoshuaW

Last Friday I made up two splits with three frames of brood each and added a mated queen from my local Dadant branch (Gardner's queens from GA). They're sitting on top of a double-screen over main production colonies. When the weather breaks I'll check release/acceptance.

Sorry, that didn't have much to do with "Today". Spring fever sets in no matter how much Vitamin D I take!!

Even though the snow is a blow to the early spring blossoms, maybe it'll be a good Tulip Poplar year...


----------



## GaryG74

Made a nuc from a hive that swarmed two days ago. Put a frame with brood and two capped cells, three frames about half full of capped brood and half honey and one frame with foundation. Shook another frame worth of bees in and closed it up. 
Yellow (tulip) poplar starting to bloom here also. Been looking for open blooms, saw the first ones yesterday at the tops of the trees.


----------



## squarepeg

GaryG74 said:


> Yellow (tulip) poplar starting to bloom here also. Been looking for open blooms, saw the first ones yesterday at the tops of the trees.


----------



## gnor

Still crummy weather here. It's either sunny and cold, or warm and wet. The bees are foraging when they can, but on days like today, I will see the odd one stick their nose out and go back inside where it's warm. The other day, though, they were orienting like crazy, so it looks like they are building up. They have lots of stores left, so this year I'm just going to leave them to it and see what they do by themselves. Right now, they are big, fat, and happy.I am going to leave the Winter wraps on for another couple of weeks, though. I figure when I can go out in a tee shirt, then it will be warm enough.
Nice to see both colonies came through in good shape. Last Fall, I made sure they had enough stores, and a low Varroa count. AND I worried a lot. I'm sure that helped.
I still have to finish assembling frames, and I need to make another hive stand so I'm ready to make a couple of splits when the time comes.


----------



## jlaudiofan

Fixed the offset comb in a new hive that I had removed from under a shipping container. They had offset comb to the point where one comb was attached to two frames. 

I used "rescue frame" idea with the fence wire on the frame and it worked great, much better than rubber banding comb.


----------



## GSkip

Caught my first swarm of the season from a swarm trap. Never tried before. Baited a five frame deep NUC with a little lemon grass oil, one drawn frame the rest plastic foundation and two weeks later I have nice new hive. With NUC's locally going for $135 this year I plan to keep traps out all summer. Last weekend I attended a Honey Bee trade show locally, one of the state inspectors conducting training session made the statement that lemon grass oil would not work, but I followed the wisdom of those at The BeeSource and it worked. Thanks to those who have shared the knowledge!!

Greg


----------



## MicandTessa

My 10 year old daughter and I joined the world of beekeeping this weekend. We hived two nucs on Saturday. She was even brave enough to transfer the five frames of the second nuc to our 8 frame deeps along with spotting both of the queens. This old man is thankful for a young set of eyes to help out. Next goal is to capture a swarm this year.


----------



## JoshuaW

Checked for queen release of the new splits I made last week; 3 for 3. The mistake I made was trying to walk a queen out of the cage before the aggressive behavior was over: they balled her. But I had bought an extra just for such a newbee learning experience. Then I found and followed Harry's technique. Thank you Harry Vanderpool for the great Queen Introduction method on the Queen Rearing forum! (It's a "Sticky", so I'm not providing a link.) 

The other three hives are looking really good. The plan is to keep harvesting one frame of brood from each hive/nuc every ten to fourteen days to make up nucs, thus establishing a nuc yard this year. 

Four hives and two nucs so far...


----------



## Clay

I did a walk away split last week, and this afternoon I checked on them. The weather was upper 50s, 10mph winds. All the surrounding days were too chancy. 

The 1st hive had eggs, so I knew it had the queen. I closed it back up and worked on the 2nd hive. I found about 10 emergency queen cells in the 2nd hive, about 2 to a frame. I took those frames and made 5 nucs. There wasn't a lot of brood to give to the nucs though, so I ended up shaking bees into the nucs.

As I was about to finish up, I thought it would be good to shake a few more bees. Instead of an individual frame though, I shook an entire medium over a double nuc. Instead of falling DOWN, they flew UP. I had a cloud of bees around me! And they were not happy. I had a veil and some gloves, not a full suit. I got at least 10 stings through my clothes. What a rush! I learned my lesson. Shake one frame at a time.

They finally calmed down and I put everything back together. Went from 2 hives to 7 in that particular yard. Total of 12 hives.


----------



## Hops Brewster

4/9, I went with a friend to pick up 22 packages of bees. Got my first sting of the season loading them in the truck. Was working bare-handed. we got to my house and hived 2 packages to replace my 2 winter deadouts. Simply placed the queen cage in the frames and the package on top inside an empty box, with a baggie of syrup and a piece of pollen patty. Then I had to dash 3 hours out of town to assist my friend install his 20 packages. I had his packages in my pickup.
We hived his packages in the same manner. Of his 20, only one had a dead queen. One queen escaped the instant we pulled the cork to insert the candy plug, so we left that hive open until sunset with the hopes she would find her way back. I got 4 more stings that day, working in torn nitrile gloves. The stings are not bothering me as much this year, and my arthritis is worse. The stings seem to ease the pain of the arthritis, but it's a trade off .

Next afternoon, 4/10 all his new installs looked well. The lost queen had indeed found her way to the hive intended for her, and all the other installs looked to be working with purpose in their new hives. When I got home last evening, I looked at mine and they seemed to be comfortable in their new digs, as well. I will be going in to pull the queen cages and package cage after work today.

All in all, a great weekend!


----------



## Norcalkyle

4/10, dreary day but hadn't been in the hives in 3 weeks and needed to check on space. Lots of pollen and each is about 75% done filling their second medium (on top of 2 deeps) with nectar. Hives are 2D+2M and are full of bees. Put 3rd medium on with hopes that the Blackberry flow will get me 3 mediums off each for extraction in June.

Apple trees are all done blooming and Blackberry's are just starting to open up. Wild flowers are really taking their time, but seem to be coming in thick.


----------



## Pooh Bear

Weather warmed up enough here tonight in downstate NY for me to move my 4x4x4 Italian over wintered nuc into a deep. Boy was I not expecting to find the hive absolutely jam packed with bees, drones and about 6 or 7 queen cells. All with Royal jelly including 2 recently capped ones. Looks like my inspection was in the nick of time. Any longer and they would've surely swarmed on me. Considering the amount of bees indontnthink they did. Ended up removing the cells - a little risky considering I didn't see the queen but there was tons of brood in development so I think she's in there somewhere. If not I can always raid my other hive for resources.

Amazing buildup to be sure


----------



## michkel

Norcalkyle said:


> 4/10, dreary day but hadn't been in the hives in 3 weeks and needed to check on space. Lots of pollen and each is about 75% done filling their second medium (on top of 2 deeps) with nectar. Hives are 2D+2M and are full of bees. Put 3rd medium on with hopes that the Blackberry flow will get me 3 mediums off each for extraction in June.
> 
> Apple trees are all done blooming and Blackberry's are just starting to open up. Wild flowers are really taking their time, but seem to be coming in thick.


I too am hoping for a strong blackberry flow this year. With all of that rain we've had, it should be good!


----------



## Norcalkyle

michkel said:


> I too am hoping for a strong blackberry flow this year. With all of that rain we've had, it should be good!


Whhen is your blackberry flow typically where you are?


----------



## Swarmhunter

Hived 8 pkgs yesterday. 45 degrees. Not much flying here yet. Old hives are making some brood. Going to check that Queens got released and frames and feed is ready for the warm spell that's coming this week. Finally!!!!!!!!!!!


----------



## michkel

Norcalkyle said:


> Whhen is your blackberry flow typically where you are?


Late May to early June is when it starts. No buds on the plants yet.


----------



## Norcalkyle

michkel said:


> Late May to early June is when it starts. No buds on the plants yet.


We are normally a little earlier than that, but this year seems to be coming even earlier. Apple trees are completely done and have been for a few weeks, so it wouldn't surprise me if Blackberry was around the first of May. Hoping for a few more inches of rain before summer to keep everything blooming and green.


----------



## michkel

My apples are just finishing their bloom now. So we are 3-4 weeks behind you.


----------



## gnor

Had a nice visit with the girls yesterday. Coolish, overcast and breezy, but they were soldiering on. No orienting, but foragers were busy, and I saw pollen going in for the first time this year. They still have stores so they are now on their own. Big, fat, and happy. Went back to the salt mine and finished assembling frames without stapling my fingers, so I'm almost ready for Summer.
Rainy today, but the forecast has changed and there is a stretch of warm weather ahead. First nice day I'm going to unwrap them and have a peek inside, probably reverse the brood boxes if they are up top. I have a few plastic frames I want to cycle out, too, because the girls will not stop building comb on top of them. I need a swarm trap anyway.


----------



## gnor

Warm and rainy here today, with blustery winds. Took a break between showers to see what the girls were doing. They were busy, but challenged by the wind. A bunch would get lined up for a landing, and a gust of wind would blow them away, so they would have to do another circuit. No sooner did I sit down in my chair than my forehead got stapled. I guess the weather's getting to them too.
Anyway, i learned what kind of weather NOT to bug them in.


----------



## BeeBop

Norcalkyle said:


> We are normally a little earlier than that, but this year seems to be coming even earlier. Apple trees are completely done and have been for a few weeks, so it wouldn't surprise me if Blackberry was around the first of May. Hoping for a few more inches of rain before summer to keep everything blooming and green.


Lots of fat buds on the blackberries here and the first 1% blossoms have been open for a few days. Apples are done.


----------



## Norcalkyle

BeeBop said:


> Lots of fat buds on the blackberries here and the first 1% blossoms have been open for a few days. Apples are done.


Nice spring so far. Each hive has filled up a medium since mid February. Not sure what to expect from the blackberry flow... guessing with the amount of moisture in the ground there could be a need for a few more mediums in the next 6 weeks.


----------



## Tim KS

Yesterday I found a two queen cells on different frames in a robust hive. We looked for a queen to split off, but couldn't find her, so I started a nuc with on of the cells and another frame of brood.

Today the hive swarmed anyway as expected. I had placed an empty brood box close by, and luckily they chose it to move into.

Moving day......


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> The mean hive, the queen had had three frames of eggs/young larva in the bottom box, so today I just smoked heavy in the top under the lid and that with the light coming down from removing the lid should make sure the queen was in bottom box. I moved bottom box to new stand on other side of yard and set top box down. Added two frames of sealed brood to it with three cut out queen cells. This should take care of that box, and deal with the mean queen in her box that I moved sometime in the future on a nice day weather-wise.


Nice afternoon today, 70F partly sunny, very still.
The box with queen cells left in place, I split it into 2 four frame mating nucs with a cell in one and two cells in the other. Left them in place where the 8 frame box had been so they won't lose any bees. They are sitting a couple inches apart from each other.

The mean queen portion that I had moved, I smoked them then sprayed all bees down with sugar water to keep them from flying and found the queen. She was a very nice looking queen, large enough and black with orange, ring striped. Too bad for her, I pinched her as I don't want that aggressive of a hive in the yard.

On Monday the 18th (in 5 days from now) I'll be going through it and destroying queen cells and splitting them into 2 four frame mating nucs and giving each a cell.


----------



## snl

Tim KS said:


> Today the hive swarmed anyway as expected. I had placed an empty brood box close by, and luckily they chose it to move into.


It does not get much sweeter (or easier) than that! Congrats....


----------



## michkel

Inspected my hives. 

My small hive is growing in population rapidly. I needed to smoke them, as they weren't very happy with me bothering them. Lots of brood and eggs, but not enough to add another box. Great pollen stores. Took a sting to my pinky finger. Added syrup and closed them back up.

My large hive is still as calm as can be. No smoke needed on them. My queen has moved up into the upper box since my box reversal a few weeks ago. Great pattern of eggs and brood. Also has some good pollen stores. I didn't inspect the bottom box. Added syrup to them and closed it back up.


----------



## GaryG74

Split a hive today, between rain showers, that went into winter in a single deep. Added a medium of honey since they were a late split last year. Today, before the split, they were two deeps and two mediums. Lots of new wax, lots of bees, and lots of nectar. Brood in all four boxes. Had to go through each box twice before I found the marked queen, just too many bees to hide in and under. Rain this week has kept me out of the hives but from the looks of this one, I'd better get into the rest tomorrow or I'll be chasing swarms the first sunny, warm day.


----------



## Jason A

Did inspection of my hives. Everyone is looking great, we are in a flow here in my part of Texas. However, I had a hive that swarmed. It's weak now but they have created swarm cells that have hatched. I couldn't find any queen so to help them out I took a few frames of brood from one of my very strong hives, shook of the bees, and placed them in the hive. That should give them some help until a virgin queen has mated and starts to lay eggs, or my queens arrive in early May.


----------



## JoshuaW

Checked the broodnest this afternoon; there is a little tiny bit of pollen here and there and a lot of nectar which I expect to be moved up tonight...I hope.

I added an upper entrance and removed feeders; put comb honey supers on the strongest hive. 

Also took a sample of drone brood the size of a cappings scratcher. No mites. Nothing. Nada. Yay.


----------



## popejohnpaul2

Successfully moved a couple of hives about an hour south of me in the back of my minivan. I have been anxious about the move for the past couple of weeks. Glad it is done and went smoothly.


----------



## Cyan

Checked to see if the new queens were released. I found one of them dead, still in the cage with a few of the attendants also dead. I believe they froze out because I underestimated the amount of drift that would occur between the splits. And I was probably wrong for not waiting a few days until it was warmer, but I was on call to travel this week although the trip was canceled right after I re-queened. :waiting:

Regardless, one queen was released and to my surprise, this was the split where the greater majority of workers drifted to. By the looks of it, half of them left the old queen as well. I cannot attribute this to re-using any equipment that could 'smell' like the old queen, so I'll assume that they really like the new one. But I sit here hoping, just hoping that the new queen is ok. The bees in that split are noisy and becoming rather defensive, but shouldn't I wait another week before I disturb that new queen??

Other than this, I painted & sealed ware as well as prepared several swarm traps to be placed out tomorrow morning.

Edit: Ok, some of the frames smell like the old queen. :doh:


----------



## leadchunker

Requeened 2 hives today combined 2 nucs and put a queen in 2 nucs. I have 1 caged queen left and she will go in a nuc tomorrow.


----------



## Gilli_in_TN

Got a swarm out of a tree this a.m.! It was 150 yds from my hives and weighed about 5lbs. Checked one hive and had capped brood and larva in it. Have to check the second one later today.

EDIT: Added second brood box to other package this afternoon. After dark, I moved the swarm that I captured to hive stand and placed thick cedar boughs in front of hive entrance. Hopefully, this will cause then to re-orient to new location. So, at the end of the day, I went from two single deep hives to two double deep hives and one new hive from a swarm. Pretty good day, IMHO.


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Beekeeping in Colorado.... Two days ago, yehaa! Today? Alright everyone... back in the cluster!


----------



## RayMarler

87F sunny and still today.
Blackberries are just starting to pop here and there, just the earliest blooms. Wild roses and poppies and vetch and yellow burr clover blooming, I'm sure other things here and there as well. The flows are slow so far though.

Made up some OA sugar water and sprayed the seams today in the hives. I'd been seeing a few crawlers and mites on bees. Then moved the two weakest hives to a new stand, their foragers will boost the three hives left in place. Plans are to make up mating nucs tomorrow and place cut out cells, will use the two dinks for resources. Going to be even warmer day tomorrow, hope to get an early start.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Gave the final bits of pollen sub last week, and finished unwrapping hives Saturday. Took 664 production colonies into winter. 5 died...4 queen issues, 1 starved. Most clusters are very strong this spring. Took 460 nucleus colonies into winter. 22 died...queen issues or late season swarming. Again, large clusters.

Very encouraging wintering results. Now I just have to keep them in their hives.


----------



## rkereid

Michael Palmer said:


> Gave the final bits of pollen sub last week, and finished unwrapping hives Saturday. Took 664 production colonies into winter. 5 died...4 queen issues, 1 starved. Most clusters are very strong this spring. Took 460 nucleus colonies into winter. 22 died...queen issues or late season swarming. Again, large clusters.
> 
> Very encouraging wintering results. Now I just have to keep them in their hives.


Great numbers Mike. We saw early build up here and they're bustin at the seams now. A good 2 to 3 weeks early than last year.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

MP,

Impressively small losses. Congratulations. That's my goal.

Steve


----------



## Phoebee

We finally got a warm weekend, great for a deep inspection of all the hives. Our mentees needed a chance to see all the particulars before they get their nucs next month. This is at our NE Panhandle WV apiary, a few weeks behind our home location.

All the hives are down in weight 5 pounds or more since the last check several weeks ago. The two full hives still have plenty of capped syrup honey to get rid of so we are leaving them alone. The nuc and the 8-frame we moved a nuc into some weeks back are short on stores so we're feeding them. However, the Autumn Olive is just starting to bloom and we saw bees working a few of the bushes. Hopefully this marks the beginning of a spring flow, and maybe weight will start going up.

I half expected to get up there and find swarms hanging out of the trees like Christmas ornaments, but they were all still at home. We saw our grandmamma queen in her cozy little nuc, still hanging in there, and one of her daughters, fat and sassy. The Czarina was not to be found ... she's been hiding from us since last summer when we announced it was Ambush Makeover day. But all the hives had all stages of brood including eggs, so we're good. We gave the Cossacks a super because they looked like they need the room. A couple of small queen cups were seen but no queen cells.

Our mentees got to see capped honey, nectar, a rainbow of pollen and plenty of it, eggs, larvae small and large, capped brood, a handful of drones, and a queen, so it was a great education.


----------



## Chris Muncy

Sounds like things are going quite well Phoebee


----------



## Phoebee

Chris Muncy said:


> Sounds like things are going quite well Phoebee


Not bad, but I have a curious envy of people with swarm problems. We were actually hoping to see signs that old grandma bee was making swarm cells last summer. She never did so we forced the issue, putting her in a nuc, making a walkaway, and letting the old hive raise a queen. All three survived the winter, but we found ourselves wondering what was wrong that our bees were not booming so much they needed to swarm. And flow last year was a week and a half at the end of June, producing a harvest of two deep frames.

This year for sure, right?

I forgot to mention who had the roughest time last winter ... the poor varroa mites. I expect they'll eventually recover but I have to look really hard to find one on an oil tray or IPM board.


----------



## Chris Muncy

Well I *thought* I had taken care of a possible swarm issue with my big hive when I split it at the beginning of March. The split is going gangbusters but it appears, after a quick check this weekend, that my big hive swarmed anyways. Time to dig deep this weekend if the rain will hold off.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> The mean queen portion that I had moved, I smoked them then sprayed all bees down with sugar water to keep them from flying and found the queen. She was a very nice looking queen, large enough and black with orange, ring striped. Too bad for her, I pinched her as I don't want that aggressive of a hive in the yard.
> 
> On Monday the 18th (in 5 days from now) I'll be going through it and destroying queen cells and splitting them into 2 four frame mating nucs and giving each a cell.


Mid to upper 80's here today, pretty warm and still, lots of sun.

I did that, split that mean hive up into 4 frame mating nucs, destroying queen cells, and added 2 cells each from my cell builder. I made up another mating nuc with cells also, so three 4 frame mating nucs made today total.

Recharged the cell builder and gave it pollen patty (Keith's Nutra-Bee) and gave it syrup. I Now have 10 mating nucs, 2 of which should have laying queens now, and 5 of which should have laying queens in a week or so, and three that just got made up today so in 20 days or less should have laying queens.


----------



## Bowfinger

I checked the farm apiary today. One hive has open queen cells and about 5 capped queen cells with one partly Torn down cell. Virgin queen somewhere? They had no queen 3 weeks ago, and they still don't. I don't get that. I tried to cut 2 off the plasticell, but I don't think it worked. Stuck them in the nucs that follow. Nucs, one had a queen split in it, but no queen or brood. She must have either went back to the original hive or swarmed with very few bees. Other nuc, failed queen cells in there, no brood. Added Supers to one hive that was ready. 1 hive capping honey. Two new queens in hives working along laying, didn't see them. 
I guess the ones with out a queen need a frame of brood or perhaps a store bought queen, If they are going to make it. Or Maybe I should just combine them. At this point It may be useless to keep the nucs. Can't sell them as a nuc and they won't make any honey on the first flow for sure.


----------



## michkel

Yesterday was a nice day, so I sat near my hives and watched the bees coming and going. I also saw them working the yellow blossoms on the clover. There is a lot of pollen coming in to both hives. Later in the day I filled up the feeder in my small hive and looked at the boards for mites. There were a lot of orientation flights late in the afternoon, so that was nice to see. The blackberry bloom will be here before I know it.

My son and I went to the garage and assembled a NUC. Today, maybe he will paint it for me.


----------



## bucksbees

Watched the hives yesterday evening, seen a lot of dark pollen coming in. I am thinking this might be crimson clover. The neighbor has about 10 acres of it planted.


----------



## gnor

Far be it from me to criticize my bees. After all, their ancestors have been here in one form or another for about 100 million years, and evolved along with our flowering plants. That's a lot longer than we **** sapiens have been crawling around, trying to claw a miserable living out of a hostile universe. Once in a while though, they do things that I have trouble computing, and I can only speculate that they have sound reasons for their behavior, given their seniority and all.
Up in the bee yard, I have a couple of holes where I dug out some soil, and until last week were filled with water. We get a lot of rain here, you understand. If it's not raining, it's either just done raining, or it's going to rain. Anyway, a few dry days, and the holes are filled with dry leaves. I was wandering around up there this afternoon, my mind in a comfortably blank state, and I noticed a lot of bee activity around one of the dry holes, with dozens of bees flying in, disappearing under the leaves, and flying out again. Lots of bees. In one hole and not the other. Why? I have seen feral colonies nest in tree roots around here, but the next time it rains, they would need life jackets. So I get down on my honkers and scrape the dry leaves away from the other hole, and exposed layer after layer of soggy wet leaves. OK, so it's a watering hole. I've noticed a bit of wrestling going on, so I guess there's some not so friendly competition for this resource, even though 100 feet the other way, there is always plenty of ground water in a swampy area. Maybe it's a case of if the other guy has it, it must be good. I don't know.
I do profess to being a bit hurt though. In their haste to crawl into a mess of wet, dirty leaves to suck up muddy water from a hole in the ground, they fly right over a beautiful watering station I set up last year, complete with a float to keep them from drowning, and filled with the purest rain water. I puzzled over this for a while, until I remembered that my kids always preferred greasy junk food over wholesome home cooked meals. Maybe we are closer to the bees than we realize.


----------



## Chris Muncy

I checked on my 2 hives last evening. The split that I made at the beginning of March is growing like gangbusters and will receive a 2nd brood box Saturday. The mother of this split is already at 2 deeps and 2 mediums. They are honey-bound in the 2 deeps ( it appears they stored more honey in the deeps that in the supers). 1 super is 75% honey and probably 50% capped. The second one they are working on so I swapped them out and added an entrance between the 2. This saturday I'll go through the brood box again and see how bad they are stuffed together. I might be making 1 more split out of them.

All in all the girls are going great. Here's a short video of my split line dancing:


----------



## nolefan1985

Today I inspected my one week old hive (installed a nuc). The girls looked busy and healthy and were drawing out comb on the foundationless frames I placed between the drawn nuc frames to beat the band. They had not touched the 4.9 plastic frames at either end. I pulled and measured one of the foundationless with just a small amount of comb as I am so curious about the cell size and was disappointed to see it still measured out at 5.4. I had hoped they might go some smaller.


----------



## Chris Muncy

nolefan1985 said:


> Today I inspected my one week old hive (installed a nuc). The girls looked busy and healthy and were drawing out comb on the foundationless frames I placed between the drawn nuc frames to beat the band. They had not touched the 4.9 plastic frames at either end. I pulled and measured one of the foundationless with just a small amount of comb as I am so curious about the cell size and was disappointed to see it still measured out at 5.4. I had hoped they might go some smaller.


Got any pictures to share?


----------



## Gilli_in_TN

The ones that my dad sent, were pretty much useless. Add to that, I can't figure out how to add a pic on here. If I do, ask share what he sent...

EDIT: let's try this, maybe it'll work...


----------



## gnor

Yesterday, the bees were all over a patch of moss the size of my hand. Just that one, although there is moss a-plenty around the bee yard. The were sticking their faces into the moss sucking up something, but I don't know what.If it's water they are after, there is plenty of it lying around that's easier to get to. Any ideas?


----------



## Chris Muncy

I was walking past my apiary yesterday and one hive was VERY loud. After looking closely, the drones were coming back from the DCA and they were MUCH louder than the girls. Is there a reason for this or is it because they are larger than the girls?

Here's a short video. You might be able to make out when the drones hit the landing board.


----------



## RayMarler

76F, filtered sun through high thin clouds. No breeze, very still. Rain or showers forecast tomorrow.

Have 2 laying queens from April 3rd splits into 4 frame mating nucs. Both are beautiful, one a tiny bit larger than the other, both are good size and great shape. Tiger striped black with brownish gold. The smaller one of the two has laid in all four frames, the larger one only a couple, maybe that's why she's a little larger, primed with eggs and just getting started.

A mating nuc made up this past Monday was full of ants yesterday evening. I greased the stand legs and brushed out a lot of ants. Seemed like there was only a few bees, but checked today and they have enough, with sealed brood too, no more ants, and a queen cell ready to emerge before tomorrow.

Looks good so far, ongoing mating nucs made every ten days, next date is the 28th of April, this month. Will make up mating nucs then, and will have 5 that were made up April 8th to check for laying queens.

OH, I marked the queens found today with White Out pen. I'll see how that works. I need to get to Walmart and get a regular fabric marker or art pen soon, this Paper correction pen has a very fine steel tip like a needle, have to be careful with it.


----------



## Colobee

It's a beautiful warm sunny afternoon in the 60's. The recent snow is ~2/3rds gone. All of the fruit trees "made it" - the ornamental Crab Apple is half blossomed and now alive with the hum of hundreds of bees. Dandelions are bursting out of the wet snow everywhere, so the bees have plenty to work with. The apple trees should provide the next round of forage within the week.

All of the hives made it too - it's still that precarious time of year when starvation is a fading possibility. It's comforting to see that nature is providing them with ample forage.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

For the heck of it I kept one capped swarm cell on February 28th (Coast NC) and tossed it into a nuc box with 2 frames of larva. First queen of the year. I was just curious if she would mate. Worker brood. Picked up nucs that didn't mate in time for me leaving NC. out of 72 nucs that got cells, 70 of the queens took. 20/20 of nucs made with queens. Gonna hate it when the law of averages smacks me upside the head..


----------



## VickyLynn

Went into my four hives for spring inspection. Reversed the boxes, took eight frames of honey, and added drawn and foundation to expand the brood nest. There was capped drone and worker brood in one of the honey supers. I guess it's time to start preparing for queen rearing. I have one queen that was raised last year who is incredibly prolific with beautiful frames of brood whom I want daughters from. I plan to split them in a couple weeks when the May flow gets really going. I checked for swarm cells, none so far.


----------



## JoshuaW

Went to check the hive I didn't get to the other day: it was queenless. No capped brood, no larve, no eggs, only nectar everywhere. I looked over each frame very carefully, and finally did the shaker box trick. No queen. So without further ado I put that hive on top of my second-strongest colony. With 5 queens coming in next week, I think I can do a pretty strong split and get some production back.


----------



## michkel

Rain all day, so not a darn thing.


----------



## bucksbees

Sunny, a few scattered clouds, upper 70's.

Hive J:
Frame 1: New Frame, wax stripped off plastic off side A/B.
Frame 2: New Frame, wax no combs on side A. New comb being built on side B.
Frame 3: Nuc Frame, side A/B pollen nectar. 
Frame 4,5,6,7: Nuc Frame, tons of nurse bees, veil too hard to see thru to see into cells, side A/B same.
Frame 8: New Frame, side A new comb, nectar, some pollen. Side B stripped of wax.
Hive A, B, C, and D: same notes as J, only exception was B and C, they both had comb built up to some degree on all new frames. B and C got second hive body.

Lessons learned, to remember to checker second hive body frames. Use phone to take pics to look over later to see if eggs and larva are present.


----------



## RayMarler

Michael Palmer said:


> ...Most clusters are very strong this spring. Took 460 nucleus colonies into winter. 22 died...queen issues or late season swarming. Again, large clusters.
> 
> Very encouraging wintering results. Now I just have to keep them in their hives.


Yes, it's always a fine line balancing act as winter closes isn't it? Strong for early brood for honey production, but keep them out of the trees!


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Made up some OA sugar water and sprayed the seams today in the hives. I'd been seeing a few crawlers and mites on bees...


Low 60's at the moment, breezy, partly cloudy partly sun.
Walked through the yard just watching entrance landing boards. I noticed the bees are nice and shiny again. Back when I'd decided to do the OA spraying, the bees were looking more dull. I think varroa infestation causes the bees to get a dull look to them. They look bright and shiny again now, and entrances are busy with bees a working after the rainy day that was here yesterday.


----------



## Cyan

Opened up the split that I had introduced the new queen to. She's no where to be found, and what's worse, I apparently missed a queen cell. There may be a virgin running around somewhere, but attempts to visually locate her turned up nothing except a few drones.

The old queen doesn't appear to be laying very much and I think she's near her end. I gave them 3 frames of resources with some additional bees in the hopes that they may try to supersede her. I feel somewhat bad about the situation, but I've taken a lot from the experience. I now know what the end of a queens lifecycle looks like which gives me a better idea on when to prepare to replace her.


----------



## Phoebee

My post on the 18th mentioned a certain envy of people with swarm problems, wondering what we were doing wrong that we've never had a swarm.

Well, that problem is now behind us. On the 18th we spotted a couple of queen cups in the big VSH hive. Nothing to be alarmed about. They seemed to have adequate room, and while there was plenty of brood, the population was not crowded. But evidently this queen, bred from a local line of TF VSH hybrids, got tired of waiting for us to try TF. This afternoon we got in there to find about a dozen very pretty capped queen cells, several more open ones, and no queen. I didn't spot eggs, either. So she's out in the woods some place. We put some lure in the swarm trap but I suspect we've seen the last of her. Oh, well, if any bee is equipped to try the feral route, its this one. We don't have to be happy about it, its just what she did. I would have liked to have moved the queen to a nuc if we'd found her in time.

At least the population is still robust.

The Cossacks were supered last week because they looked like they needed it. They have not swarmed but they made a rather alarming number of queen cups this week so they may be thinking about it. The Czarina was not found, but she never is. Eggs were abundant. We scraped off the queen cups. In retaliation, the Cossacks dispatched a suicide squad that managed to infiltrate a poorly closed zipper on my hood, and nailed me thrice on the head. They've always been an ornery bunch.

Grandma bee needs watching as well. The VSH matriarch is laying down brood in her little nuc. We donated a frame to one of her daughters, and gave grandma a super, but she bears watching as well. 

The good news is that hive weights have stopped falling. The bees probably have started a flow from Autumn Olive.


----------



## lamarcarama

I looked in on a hive that I split on Friday and verified that the NUC has made some quite handsome queen cups that are flooded with RJ


----------



## Cyan

Relocated my hives a short distance away so that working in the garden would be easier. In the process, I gave my split another box of wax foundation to keep them building. I also took note that there are now scouts checking out both the bait hive and a swarm trap in one of my trees. A small group of bees actually camped out in that bait hive over night- first time I've actually witnessed that. Other than that, I put several more traps out in the local area and am just hoping for the best. The nucs I'm purchasing should be ready in a few more weeks, so all I can really do at this point is keep things moving.


----------



## diymom

Just got my first bees via a swarm that took up residence two weeks ago in a 10 frame medium left out by a retired beek a few cities away. I am watching bee tv in my backyard every time I walk by a window. I have no idea what is going on in that box or if there are even frames or what condition it's all in. Put it on my stand last night late and they were very loudly buzzing and the hive reeked of honey...didnt know to expect those things. Will wait a week before transferring them to my 8 frame set up...give them the opportunity to get acquainted with the area first.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

diymom,

You are off to an exciting start! Good luck with it all.

Steve


----------



## michkel

Checked my hives and both are doing well, but are low on stores for the amount of broody they have. Saw queens in both and lots of capped/uncapped brood. Added more feed and closed them up.

Interesting side note. My small hive, if I lightly blow on them to move the bees, some instantly try to go for my face. My large hive, if I lightly blow on them, they wiggle out of my way. (none fly at me)


----------



## jhinshaw

It was this weekend but while I was elbow deep making my first split my husband found a large swarm in a honeysuckle bush so he hived a swarm while I made a split!


----------



## diymom

jhinshaw said:


> It was this weekend but while I was elbow deep making my first split my husband found a large swarm in a honeysuckle bush so he hived a swarm while I made a split!


Now that is pretty dang cool. Wish I had more room for more bees!


----------



## David LaFerney

Waved goodbye to swarm #6 today - 40' up a tree.


----------



## GSkip

Caught my second swarm today. Set a five frame NUC box with four foundation frames and one used drawn frame two weeks ago. As some on here had suggested I placed a Q-tip with lemon grass oil in a plastic bag in the box. Found it occupied yesterday. The box was attached about four foot up on a post of a pole barn, the same spot the first was caught. Both sets were occupied in less than two weeks of being set. Thanks to the information here on the Bee Source I was able to catch the first swarm and give it to a friend who bought his first two NUCs a week ago. He was pretty excited when he discovered the bees from the first swarm I'm not sure he thought it would work as I told him I had only read about it and never tried it. But now I'm hooked on catching swarms, we built 14 NUCs last week.:banana::wiener:


----------



## Gilli_in_TN

Yesterday evening, checked all three hives at the house. The two from packages looked pretty good. Capped brood emerging, in both, as well as eggs and larvae. They still haven't started drawing comb in the upper deeps, so I swapped two frames of brood from the lower boxes with frames of empty foundation from the uppers. The swarm that I hived a week and a half ago only have about one and a half frames drawn with some pollen and syrup stored. Daylight was fading and I couldn't see any eggs, except for in one cell that had an egg sitting on top of pollen. Still not sure what to think of that, as I have never noticed that happening in the other hives. I think the swarm that I caught was an secondary swarm due to the smaller size. Possibly, it has a virgin Queen that hasn't got a consistent brood pattern? Laying worker? The population of that hive seems to have dwindled the last few days, so I gave them a frame of capped brood that should be emerging today or tomorrow. Thursday I may give them a frame of eggs from a different hive just to see if they build any QC. Any thoughts or opinions on this?


----------



## michkel

Refilled the syrup on my small hive, they went through it in a day. My large hive still has plenty. But I was sitting by the hives in my bee suit after and almost every bee is coming in with pollen. Very few without pollen. They were all returning to the hive, as a storm is approaching. It's windy and getting really dark out. Poor bees were getting blown all over the place just trying to land.


----------



## diymom

Gskip! Holy cow, 14 nucs! That's quite bold! May you catch many a healthy swarm! 
I really want to try catching some bees.


----------



## Tim KS

WOW! I checked a swarm I caught 9 days ago. I put into a 10 frame deep with 6 frames of drawn wax and 4 frames without foundation. Today the frames are all drawn and 4 are full of brood of various ages plus pollen & nectar. I added a second deep box and made a mental note that this one will be a honey producer this year.  :applause:


----------



## Tim KS

double post...sorry


----------



## GSkip

diymom said:


> Gskip! Holy cow, 14 nucs! That's quite bold! May you catch many a healthy swarm!
> I really want to try catching some bees.


Just to clarify we built the boxes not NUCs with bees. We want to be ready plus I'm gearing up to make and sell NUCs and pollination service more so than honey production. From eight double brood box hives I have made ten NUCs since the beginning of April. Not near the labor in selling NUCs as there is in honey production. may have a third swarm at the same spot, my friend called today and said bees were activity using the box. I will check it tomorrow. This can turn into an obsession real easy!! It's hard not to make another hive when you find queen cells or once I discovered I could catch swarms!!!!


----------



## diymom

GSkip said:


> Just to clarify we built the boxes not NUCs with bees. We want to be ready plus I'm gearing up to make and sell NUCs and pollination service more so than honey production. From eight double brood box hives I have made ten NUCs since the beginning of April. Not near the labor in selling NUCs as there is in honey production. may have a third swarm at the same spot, my friend called today and said bees were activity using the box. I will check it tomorrow. This can turn into an obsession real easy!! It's hard not to make another hive when you find queen cells or once I discovered I could catch swarms!!!!


Seriously, why isn't everyone catching swarms? 
I understood you right, you built boxes in anticipation...but heck, if you are going into the nuc business, you have to build a lot of boxes.
I hope it all goes well, you will be helping out your local bees by giving them good homes.


----------



## GSkip

I figure it will take me another year or so to have enough hives to use in making spring splits for NUC sales. This is the first time I tried to catch swarms, if I knew it was this easy I would have been doing it the past two springs. 

Well yesterday we checked the "third swarm box" set in the same spot as the first two caught swarms and it has a swarm. It was put up after dark on Apr 26 and is now occupied. Plan to take it down tonight or tomorrow night. Placed two more swarm boxes next to it on two of the other barn poles. Five minutes later one was very busy with bees. 

What makes this such a hot spot for swarms?? The location of the boxes are under a barn eave about four foot off the ground. The first three boxes were facing north, the new one today that had immediate attention is facing west. Next year I'm planning to cover this area with as many swarm traps as possible!!


----------



## bucksbees

Inspected 5 hives today. All 5 hives are queen right.

2 hives are 70% drawn out.

1 hive is 90% drawn out in the second deep, with nectar and pollen. It received a third box.

1 hive is 40% drawn out in the second deep.

1 hive is 90% drawn out in the first deep. It received a second box.


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Sounds like you all are having fun. Here in Colorado... Not so much! :waiting:


----------



## Mike82

Hived my very first NUC ever today in a deep 10 frame box with foundation less frames. Went very well, it was cool so they barely moved on the frames. I found the queen which surprised even myself! I put a gallon of syrup and a quarter of a pollen patty. I will check on them in a few days when it warms up. My second NUC comes next week. I'm really excited about my new bees!


----------



## michkel

Wow, still snow in Colorado? So pretty, but we're almost done with spring here and soon we'll be onto summer.


----------



## jlaudiofan

Mike82, Congrats! They are very interesting creatures and watching them grow is a lot of fun. It's hard to stay out of the hives sometimes


----------



## Knisely

Today I got into all of the hives and pulled the capped drone brood combs. 9 frames into the freezer. Replaced them with new, undrawn drone comb or drawn worker comb (I didn't have enough green combs to give every hive a new drone comb to draw out. Notes taken to keep track of this activity to correlate with subsequent mite counts. 

I had one hive that superseded their queen earlier this month, and she's laying up a storm, and she got a little white dot on her thorax to mark her for 2016. Also found swarm cells in two hives, which I pulled to create two nucs. Each nuc got another two laid-up worker combs from the same hives and a couple shakes of nurse bees from other hives, and two combs with pollen and nectar that were stored from last season. 

Nectar is coming in and being stored. I wondered about the brood space in a few hives--the nectar's getting stored where I want the queen to lay. I don't know whether those nectar-laden combs should be checkerboarded with empty combs...any thoughts? No real white wax showing on the topbars of most hives yet, so I didn't super up most hives yet. 

The apple trees started blooming this past week, and we're still in dandelion season here in New Haven county, CT. Lots of multicolored pollen coming in, too, from a multitude of other floral sources.


----------



## diymom

GSkip said:


> I figure it will take me another year or so to have enough hives to use in making spring splits for NUC sales. This is the first time I tried to catch swarms, if I knew it was this easy I would have been doing it the past two springs.
> 
> Well yesterday we checked the "third swarm box" set in the same spot as the first two caught swarms and it has a swarm. It was put up after dark on Apr 26 and is now occupied. Plan to take it down tonight or tomorrow night. Placed two more swarm boxes next to it on two of the other barn poles. Five minutes later one was very busy with bees.
> 
> What makes this such a hot spot for swarms?? The location of the boxes are under a barn eave about four foot off the ground. The first three boxes were facing north, the new one today that had immediate attention is facing west. Next year I'm planning to cover this area with as many swarm traps as possible!!


Make a YouTube video when you put up the traps if you get this instant result...it sounds pretty dang awesome!
Maybe your traps are upwind of local bee traffic? 
At least take a picture of your traps, it sounds really neat!



michkel said:


> Wow, still snow in Colorado? So pretty, but we're almost done with spring here and soon we'll be onto summer.


Yeah, good old California climate!! I have family south of Denver and I get their pictures of all this late, heavy snow...and then I go check out my new bees and pick some strawberries and raspberries in my back yard and get a tan while doing it. 

Mike82, have fun watching bee tv for the next week, it's crazy how hard it is to stay out of the hive. I had my husband hide my bee jacket so I wouldn't get into the hive too soon. I transferred my starter hive into a medium and a deep on Tuesday.


----------



## RayMarler

Warm, clear and still today, mid to upper 80's

I have 7 main hives in 2 story 8 frame deeps, 4 are my stock 3 are Michael Palmers. Checked through the top box only of Mike's best queen here, she's the best in my yard! Nice brood pattern, comb drawn nice and flat, storing honey in the top box as brood emerges, had the most honey stored of my hives so far. Did not check the bottom box, did not check the other two of his, as per my management earlier, I know they are not quite as nice looking (I've moved them to a different stand facing a different direction, probably close to a month ago or so),

Checked through the four of mine, they look nice also, put queen excluders on them between the two boxes with the queen in the bottom box. I'm trying this on my four hives, I'm trying to get some honey this year! One of the four, didn't see any eggs, saw 1 and 2 day old larva though. Found the queen, she looks fine. Found one queen cell, looks due to emerge in the next few days....

Went through the cell builder, all 3 cells were void, so went to a mating nuc that had one of Mike's queen's daughters and put her on her frame into the cell builder. The frame removed from the cell builder, I put in the main hive of my four that had the queen cell, and moved the queen cell frame into the mating nuc that I'd removed the queen into the old cell builder that I'm de-commissioning. Hope this all makes sense. I'll check in a day or two to see if the queen is still alive in the decommissioned cell builder. I'll also check on that mating nuc that has the capped queen cell.

The decommissioned cell builder is a single eight frame box, I put on excluder and a medium super of drawn comb. I'll be trading the deep brood box as a hive in trade for a five gallon bucket of honey soon. I just put the super on top over excluder to give them room if they need it. It's a pretty packed deep 8 frame box under the excluder.

Put a rock on top of the main hive that had that queen cell, and on the mating nuc that I gave a queen cell, and will check them in a few days. All in all, I'm quite happy with how things are looking so far. All four of my main queens look italian cross either carni or russian, i've gotten rid of all the black more Russian looking queens, and will start up queen rearing again in a few weeks using Michael Palmer's best queen here as queen mother with drone combs in all my four hives.


----------



## amy.b

Day 6 of being a beehaver. I couldn't stand not knowing anymore. I finally gave in this morning and opened my hives to see if the queens had been released. It was about 9:30 am, mid 60's and overcast, and Weather Channel app said it was supposed to be storming off and on all day.

I veiled up, grabbed my bucket o' tools and headed out to get a look before the rain started. I decided to save time by not lighting the smoker. Popped the top, removed the feeder and inner cover from Bravo and there were hundreds of little eyes staring up at me from between their frames. I swear my heart melted! They were just gorgeous! I separated out the frame that had the cage suspended on it and pulled it out...she was released. Sigh of relief! After I got the wire removed, I had to cut the cage out...the girls had webbed it pretty well to the foundation. Felt bad about that, but they didn't seem terribly perturbed by it. Most of that frame is drawn out. I was really surprised about that, as they haven't taken much syrup at all. I then made myself put the frame back in, and close up the hive. Didn't notice any eggs on that frame.

On to Alpha - this one is the busier of the two. The queen was released from that one as well, and I saw some pollen being stored in a couple cells on that frame. No webbing on the queen cage, though I did count three queen cups on that frame. Interesting! No eggs or brood, but most of the frame is drawn. Alpha didn't seem terribly bothered by my poking around, either. I got lucky with gentle bees!

Later, as the day progressed, the storms that were predicted didn't happen, so I got to spend some time out there with the camera taking lots of gratuitous close ups at the hive entrances. They were unamused by the fact that I had been riding my bike earlier and was sweaty and stinky. Lots of scolding, no stinging.

Next planned inspection will be on the 10th and I'm going to go frame by frame to see what's what. Can't wait! Wish I'd started this years ago!


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Checked through the four of mine, they look nice also, put queen excluders on them between the two boxes with the queen in the bottom box. I'm trying this on my four hives, I'm trying to get some honey this year! ...


I have lots of drones and lots of drone comb, the drone comb has been moved to the upper boxes, the upper boxes have 3/4" hole drilled in them so the drones can escape. This is one reason for the excluders, I want less drones now as am in the middle of blackberry bloom. Since I'm in the blackberry bloom, and after that will be much reduced bloom in the area, I wanted to cut back on the amount of brood needing feeding. So put on excluders, to cut back brood being fed, and reduce drone numbers. Hoping they fill all the drone comb with honey from here on out with less brood needing feeding and less drones eating.


----------



## Michael Palmer

RayMarler said:


> Checked through the top box only of Mike's best queen here, she's the best in my yard! Nice brood pattern, comb drawn nice and flat, storing honey in the top box as brood emerges, had the most honey stored of my hives so far.


Do you remember what # was on the back of the cage? 56?


----------



## rkereid

Well this is about a week late, but "Today in the Apiary a week ago" I had my first bear attack at the home bee yard where I keep all the nucs. I was lucky. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. Out of about 130 mating nucs, overwintered nucs, a few breeder queens in nucs, and 13 or 14 production colonies, he only took out 5 nucs. I was able to salvage 2 of them with plenty of bees and the queens. I am glad of that because one of them is my oldest queen, a 2012 yellow dot queen from Mike Palmer. She's going into her 5th season and still laying up a storm. She's worth keeping because of all the right reasons, disposition, honey production, surviving.

The bear dug under the electric fence. He tried 2 places but the ground was too rocky and hard, so he dug under a third spot. So all you folks with electric fences might want to make sure it's low enough (yes keep the old weedeater fired up).


----------



## michkel

rkereid said:


> Well this is about a week late, but "Today in the Apiary a week ago" I had my first bear attack at the home bee yard where I keep all the nucs. I was lucky. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could've been. Out of about 130 mating nucs, overwintered nucs, a few breeder queens in nucs, and 13 or 14 production colonies, he only took out 5 nucs. I was able to salvage 2 of them with plenty of bees and the queens. I am glad of that because one of them is my oldest queen, a 2012 yellow dot queen from Mike Palmer. She's going into her 5th season and still laying up a storm. She's worth keeping because of all the right reasons, disposition, honey production, surviving.
> 
> The bear dug under the electric fence. He tried 2 places but the ground was too rocky and hard, so he dug under a third spot. So all you folks with electric fences might want to make sure it's low enough (yes keep the old weedeater fired up).


Wow, you were lucky!


----------



## Robdm1

I open the brood nest on my 3 hives and added supers on March 24 to help prevent a swarm. 6 day’s later (4/30) I had a swarm. Guess I was a little late trying to prevent this. Last year one hive swarmed 5/31.
Anyway, I captured my first swarm (Yeah!!!) and it is now in a nuc. Lots of fun, oh and two stings))


----------



## diymom

Today I counted 12 more crawler bees from my four week old colony...Deformed wings and almost all of them dead and I have been collecting the dead and dying bees each day...it's averaging 15 daily crawlers more than 50% drones, always with deformed wings or really small wings on a few workers. Young fuzzy dead bees if they are still alive they are obsessively grooming antennae.
I don't really know if I should requeen, let em die, force a brood break or what...pretty disappointed with my first hive. It's been a week of having bees and they seem like a sickly hive. I doubt they are from survivor stock...probably a swarm from a treated colony somewhere.
At least I have nice comb for next colony. Maybe I should set up a swarm trap out by a Tf beek's hives and bring them home...


----------



## scorpionmain

Been pulling honey.


----------



## diymom

Yum and pretty!


----------



## RayMarler

Michael Palmer said:


> Do you remember what # was on the back of the cage? 56?


My apologies Michael, I did not keep track of which queens went where. I now feel that was a great failure on my part. I am getting daughters from her and hopefully the performance of my bee yard will improve year to year from doing so. I'm working on the genetics in my bee yard this year and things are looking good. All of my hives are doing well for the conditions here, but that one queen of yours is a notch above.


----------



## jlaudiofan

First honey harvest! Only took one frame. Amazed by how much honey came out of just one frame!


----------



## diymom

jlaudiofan said:


> First honey harvest! Only took one frame. Amazed by how much honey came out of just one frame!
> 
> View attachment 24428


That's lovely, it gives us beginners an idea of what to expect. Is that wildflower honey?


----------



## jlaudiofan

diymom said:


> That's lovely, it gives us beginners an idea of what to expect. Is that wildflower honey?


It's a combination of palo verde (desert tree) and mesquite (desert tree). Might also be some prickly pear (cactus). There has been all kinds of different things blooming here in Tucson. There is some darker red pollen in the comb, and I have no idea what plant that comes from.


----------



## Cloverdale

jlaudiofan said:


> It's a combination of palo verde (desert tree) and mesquite (desert tree). Might also be some prickly pear (cactus). There has been all kinds of different things blooming here in Tucson. There is some darker red pollen in the comb, and I have no idea what plant that comes from.


Zombie flower.


----------



## JRG13

diymom said:


> Today I counted 12 more crawler bees from my four week old colony...Deformed wings and almost all of them dead and I have been collecting the dead and dying bees each day...it's averaging 15 daily crawlers more than 50% drones, always with deformed wings or really small wings on a few workers. Young fuzzy dead bees if they are still alive they are obsessively grooming antennae.
> I don't really know if I should requeen, let em die, force a brood break or what...pretty disappointed with my first hive. It's been a week of having bees and they seem like a sickly hive. I doubt they are from survivor stock...probably a swarm from a treated colony somewhere.
> At least I have nice comb for next colony. Maybe I should set up a swarm trap out by a Tf beek's hives and bring them home...


You're attitude towards your bees makes me sad, I'm sure they share the same feelings of disappointment in having you as their beekeeper. I love all my bees, I work to improve them but I'm not so quick in putting down their genetic short comings which is pretty short sighted. With a little treatment or actual management you could have a thriving hive which will provide you the resources in drawn comb and bees to get the queens to try out for the way you want to EVENTUALLY keep bees. I'm sorry for being a little blunt, but I hate that people get so focused on ideals they don't see the bigger picture in it all and that some things can be achieved in taking steps not just jumping to the finish line.


----------



## diymom

JRG13 said:


> You're attitude towards your bees makes me sad, I'm sure they share the same feelings of disappointment in having you as their beekeeper. I love all my bees, I work to improve them but I'm not so quick in putting down their genetic short comings which is pretty short sighted. With a little treatment or actual management you could have a thriving hive which will provide you the resources in drawn comb and bees to get the queens to try out for the way you want to EVENTUALLY keep bees. I'm sorry for being a little blunt, but I hate that people get so focused on ideals they don't see the bigger picture in it all and that some things can be achieved in taking steps not just jumping to the finish line.


Sorry I make you sad. I guess I'm just one of those people in general. I believe "finis non est iustum" the end does not justify the means.

I'm not interested in the same goals as you are, but that must not be a totally new experience for you.
This hive was a swarm trap essentially, moved to my yard. I will provide the bees with assistance in housing, physical management to keep mite levels lower and give them protection. I think they are better off than they would have been had they built their combs in someone's wall and been exterminated, but perhaps in your opinion they don't have the ideal situation. 

There is great TF stock around and I mean to get some, I was gifted this colony by someone who requested that I not treat because he knows it's a sustainable practice and is a viable option. He has 73 years of treatment free beekeeping under his belt and has had successful feral colonies in the hundreds for the last 38 years in California. Neither of us knew if these are from survivor stock or not. The bees may survive just fine. Crawlers are fewer the last couple days... I just put up a robbing screen yesterday as a precaution.
I don't really want a debate, I understand both views and agree with a different means of husbandry than you do. Perhaps I shouldn't post my comments anywhere else but in the TF folder...you let me know what you think about that.


----------



## clyderoad

I don't understand the arrogance time and time again. Are you trying to impress?
Abrasiveness must be a trait of a non coddler.
I guess it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

Another member has this as their tag line:
Just because something is new to you, doesn't mean it is new, or revolutionary.
But I like this one:
New beekeepers learn faster with open ears.


----------



## diymom

It's really frustrating to write something intending a certain tone but finding its totally misunderstood. If it's appropriate for me to only post in the TF forum, then I'm fine with that...it wasn't meant to be snarky. I don't want to incite a debate continually on other forums or need to edit my findings and methods to remain anonymous as a proponent of TF. I don't feel that something that is successful in my area for many commercial beekeepers needs to be contested. What is wrong with concluding that because other beekeepers are experiencing long lived success going TF within 10-30 miles of me, that I may have the ability to share this strategy with success also? 

I stated matter of factly what I wanted to communicate, as the previous poster was also blunt. I don't mind it at all, I know others do. I included my Latin phrase because it's a philosophy I uphold and because I took four years of Latin. I'm hardly smart, but I don't try to sound arrogant any more than I want to sound unintelligent.

Please don't take offense, and let's get back to hearing about people's day to day with their bees.

I think coddling in its denotative sense is inappropriate in most cases, it ignores the root problem which creates the need which then gives opportunity to coddling.
I am new, and by association, uninformed, yet I have been reading and discussing treatment s vs TF with many people and from many sources. This is a particularly difficult hobby to begin as the experiences and advice is rarely the same and often conflicting.


----------



## JRG13

I understand some of your frustration on this issue, but also you must understand some of the frustration from the other side. I'm choosing my words carefully here, I hope most will appreciate it the way this is going to be worded. I just wanted to merely point out that if you manage what you have a little differently then you are now, you could be so much further ahead in reaching your end goals than merely lamenting on your disappointment in your first hive. You even kind of stated, well, you might get some drawn comb out of the deal anyways... ok, that's one thing good about dead outs. On the other side of the fence though, dead outs don't make great starter colonies if you want to get some TF queens which is cheaper then buying whole hives or packages. Perhaps with some different management approaches, you can turn this perceived dud into a nice colony and split it 3-5 ways and introduce 3-5 tf queens for the price if getting a single package/nuc/hive from a TF operation in your area. Perhaps the means don't justify the ends here, but it's a much more efficient and effective way to get there.... just saying.


----------



## diymom

JRG13 said:


> I understand some of your frustration on this issue, but also you must understand some of the frustration from the other side. I'm choosing my words carefully here, I hope most will appreciate it the way this is going to be worded. I just wanted to merely point out that if you manage what you have a little differently then you are now, you could be so much further ahead in reaching your end goals than merely lamenting on your disappointment in your first hive. You even kind of stated, well, you might get some drawn comb out of the deal anyways... ok, that's one thing good about dead outs. On the other side of the fence though, dead outs don't make great starter colonies if you want to get some TF queens which is cheaper then buying whole hives or packages. Perhaps with some different management approaches, you can turn this perceived dud into a nice colony and split it 3-5 ways and introduce 3-5 tf queens for the price if getting a single package/nuc/hive from a TF operation in your area. Perhaps the means don't justify the ends here, but it's a much more efficient and effective way to get there.... just saying.


I don't want to hijack "today in the apiary"
I do quite appreciate your help, I have been researching my options since my post and figuring out a little more about what is going on here. My initial feelings were of disappointment and confusion as I thought it would take more time to manifest diseases in a young colony and didn't expect my first week to have so many deaths. I do feel bad for the bees, they are hard workers and shouldn't have to die from such deformities. They have so much to overcome these days.
Requeening is something I am considering, I just didn't know if the conditions warranted it. I don't know much about the progressing of DWV but it seems to not be consistently expressing, of course this is just one week.
I know there are some other mite management tactics and I hope to try them to extend the colony. I do think it's better to help a colony (sans elemental treatment) progress than let them die, which is what I am interested in. I just don't want to support poor genetics and dependency. I certainly don't want a deadout to create problems for other local bees either. I'm conscious of some of the consequences if I do nothing. I never intended to just do nothing.
Thank you for the nice response (authentic gratitude here), it contained helpful suggestions vs judgments.


----------



## squarepeg

very proud of (most of) you ladies and gents. nice discourse and good information sharing here.

found out today that my cell builder hive is queenless. luckily i have a newly mated queen in a five frame nuc that i'm going to try newspaper combining on the top of it and if it works i can get back to grafting soon.


----------



## bucksbees

So today was a massive learning experience. I was working through our hives rotating frames up and down, checkered boarding, looking for larvae, the usually stuff. I get to one hive that a frame in the bottom deep broke off and was laying at a slant, with comb built on top connecting to the frame above it. A total mess with honey and comb going all over the place. So i decided to dig down to the bottom box and fix. I did not have any frame savers but went with two nails gently tapped in to make it long enough. During the process bees filled the air, they were everywhere. I got it all put back together. And the bees were still flying nonstop. So I went ahead and placed an entrance reducer on it due to worrying about robbing. With the mess of comb I did get out was taken back to the house, and taste like lemon honey. The wife and kids love the taste.


----------



## diymom

squarepeg said:


> very proud of (most of) you ladies and gents. nice discourse and good information sharing here.
> 
> found out today that my cell builder hive is queenless. luckily i have a newly mated queen in a five frame nuc that i'm going to try newspaper combining on the top of it and if it works i can get back to grafting soon.


Whoohoo! That makes two of us...queenless here too, no idea why, trying to figure out if I can get a quality queen this weekend, if not, I'm newspaper combining a swarm into my hive. I won't get caught with just one hive again.


----------



## squarepeg

diymom said:


> Whoohoo! That makes two of us...queenless here too, no idea why, trying to figure out if I can get a quality queen this weekend, if not, I'm newspaper combining a swarm into my hive. I won't get caught with just one hive again.


understood nc (short for non coddler), and to answer your question in the other thread, i don't think it matters too much if the queenright half of the combine is above or below the newspaper. i try to do my newspaper combines late in the evening because ventilation can be a problem in the box above the newspaper and you don't want that upper box getting too hot. i poke a few small starter holes in the newspaper and by the next morning they have pretty much broken through the paper and the air can be moving through again. i then try to give them a couple of days before going in if needed to move things around the way i want them. good luck!


----------



## michkel

Rain showers coming the next few days, so I filled up syrup. The hives have been clearing out a jar in a day. Blackberries have just started to bloom, but not enough yet for a strong flow.


----------



## gnor

non coddler, I have a question for you: do you at least do regular mite counts? If your colonies are truly TF, then your mite counts will continue to be within acceptable limits, but if they aren't, then you would know when to intervene. It's a good way to eliminate surprises. There's also no benefit to allowing a productive colony to die just because they need some help.
The old timers on here will tell you that you can sometimes go for years with no treatments, and then the mites will all of a sudden boil up out of nowhere, so it doesn't pay to get ****y. You will find that the successful TF beeks on here do regular mite checks, and keep good records.


----------



## gnor

Did a complete Spring Cleaning on Sunday. Frame by frame, shook the bees and cleaned up the burr comb and propolis so the frames fit together again. The girls have only drawn out 8 frames, so I cycled out the outside frames and checkerboarded a couple of foundationless frames into the midddle. Observed lovely football sized brood patterns, and capped drone cells around the perimeter. They still have a ton of stores left from last year, and I saw several different colours of pollen. In hive 2, most of the stores were in the bottom box, so I reversed them. In hive 1, they had already moved down and cleaned up the comb. Did not observe any chalkbrood, wierd smells, or other nasty stuff.
All in all, it looks like 2 healthy colonies getting ready to dig into the Black Cherry in 2-3 weeks.
My next rock pile job is to repaint everything into dark colours to help them lengthen their foraging days. And watch for swarm cells and make splits.


----------



## squarepeg

gnor said:


> non coddler, I have a question for you: do you at least do regular mite counts? If your colonies are truly TF, then your mite counts will continue to be within acceptable limits, but if they aren't, then you would know when to intervene....You will find that the successful TF beeks on here do regular mite checks, and keep good records.





gnor said:


> I've been working at this for a year now, and expecting my first 2 nucs in a few days. I am a good woodworker, so I build my own woodenware over the Winter, and spent hours absorbing everything I could get my hands on. Here's my first 2 hives waiting for bees:


gnor, by some accounts i might be considered a successful tf beek. i don't take regular mite counts but have taken alcohol wash samples on a few colonies these past 2 seasons in late summer/early fall. my infestation rates came in at 8-15% which most would consider unacceptable, others would find a 'death sentence', but in my case did not result in the death of the colonies nor keep them from being very productive so far this year.

dr. richard cryberg has made the point in a recent post that mite counts may not be relied on as an indicator or predictive of a colony's future. this has to do with the fact that some of the viruses the mites vector are more virulent than others. for me, assessing the health of the brood toward the end of the season is more important, and if i see that it is mostly drone brood being affected i don't worry too much about it.

i notice that it has not been quite a year since you first got bees. some might say that an relative newbee throwing out admonitions like the one you gave non coddler could be considered '****y'. that said, non coddler will certainly have to be vigilant with monitoring her colonies as she is in an area where the mite/virus complex is impacting bee colonies much more so than what we see here.


----------



## gnor

squarepeg said:


> i notice that it has not been quite a year since you first got bees. some might say that an relative newbee throwing out admonitions like the one you gave non coddler could be considered '****y'.


squarepeg:
Some might say that you are the first one to throw out an admonition, so why put it into the third party? Yes, I just got bees last year, but I spent the two years before that doing almost nothing but studying apiculture, working with a local beek, and planning a strategy that would allow me to be a successful beekeeper. Some might say that I have a lot of experience. So far, I have 100% of my colonies over Winter and build up successfully in a climate that would have you crying for your mother. I do this by following an IPM strategy based on the best scientific knowledge available, and husbandry practices used by successful beekeepers that also have spent the time and effort to share their knowledge. So far, I count myself as a successful beekeeper.



> dr. richard cryberg has made the point in a recent post that mite counts may not be relied on as an indicator or predictive of a colony's future.


Cryberg's operative phrase here is "some of the viruses", but so far, I haven't read of a way to pick and choose which viruses the mites carry, so I'm going to follow accepted guidelines and keep below a 3% threshold. An 8-15% count in late Summer means your bees will be carrying twice that going into Winter. That's kind of like letting your dog get infested with fleas and ticks and doing nothing about it. The dog may survive, albeit uncomfortably, but sooner or later, those pests are going to vector a deadly disease. You may be able to get away with a high mite count in an Alabama Winter, but here, the bees are confined for 4-5 months, and that many mites would be deadly.
Please keep posting and let us know how you make out.


----------



## jbeshearse

gnor said:


> "We learn more from our mistakes than from our success"


Irony rules the day.


----------



## squarepeg

understood gnor, i appreciate your reply.

i honestly don't understand why the high mite loads aren't impacting these colonies more than what they do. when spring rolls around i start looking again for mites in drone brood that gets broken open during inspections. so far i haven't found any mites yet this year, but in fairness i'm not going deep into the hives at this point, only adding honey supers.

i'm guessing that most of the mites that i see in the late summer are drifting in with drones during our summer dearth 'brood break'. the mites then get a chance to reproduce while the bees are going through their late season brood up selecting and impacting mostly drone brood.

jmho, but i think it's hard for any of us to make generalized statements about what others should do or not do for mite control and that's because there is so much variability between locations. that's why i usually try to get folks to link up with locals if they can to get the most appropriate 'read' of what' going on around them.

it appears that non coddler has had some albeit limited success in doing that.


----------



## JoshuaW

Phew.

One colony swarmed but left behind lots of bees; I saw the virgin. I cut the remaining capped cell, put it in a cell-protector and made my first mating nuc. That colony STILL has more bees in the supers than the other two!

I also got an order of 5 queens, so I prepared nucs (ready for bees), pulled frames of capped brood for the nucs, removed the attendants from the queen cages and have a temporary queen bank set up until I can transfer the bees and queens tomorrow.

God-willing that will bring the nuc yard to 7 nucs.


----------



## bucksbees

This thread makes for a better work day.

opcorn:


----------



## diymom

first time shaking bees today...spritzed them with water and shook a new swarm from a bee remover who was kind enough to help me out with my queenless situation. I did the newspaper thing with drizzled honey on it and holes between the swarm and the queenless colony. The weather is perfect, nice temperatures in the low seventies and very overcast. Hopefully they will combine into a happy, productive group.
I hope I can get another swarm for my other hive body soon too.

And for the record, I have checked mites once in the week they have been in my hive body over a screened bottom board. I also heard that mite loads are variable within resistant bees, that they don't necessarily indicate the need to treat...bear in mind, in my area, I have africanized bees, the same that are in Brazil which all have mites but tolerate them without needing treatment. I have spoken to beeks who have local feral bee colonies which do not respond in the same way as many bred bees to mites...they don't monitor because it's not an indication of colony health as far as they can see. These are guys with a hundred to three hundred hives of feral survivor bees. They are isolated though from commercial operations. We also don't really have a winter/dormant period for the bees...so location, location, location.


----------



## rw willy

50 degrees and lite rain, here! Nothing happening. Maybe this weekend?


----------



## yukonjack

Bear got into our one hive. Remarkably little damage to comb or woodenware, except for the honey we'd left on as overwinter feed.
Those frame were cleaned off as if the bear had used utensils.

Gah.

Took 40 minutes to get stuff put back together. Only took five hits. Did not see the queen, hope she's ok. Guess well start reading about bear deterrents here at bee source - got two overwintered nucs coming in the next week or so.

Wonderful start to the morning...


----------



## AHudd

yukonjack said:


> - got two overwintered nuns coming in the next week or so.
> 
> Wonderful start to the morning...


This typo is testing my efforts at self control. I won't make any jokes. I won't, I won't.
Thanks for the inadvertent laugh this morning. 
Sorry about the bear, though.

Alex


----------



## yukonjack

lol

fixing now


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Jack,

Sorry to hear about your bear, but it will be back because they don't forget where they had a good time. I have bears all the time and here is my post from a few hears back, and it works. The sheet metal or chicken wire ground is necessary here in arid Colorado but may not be necessary if you have moist ground without litter on it. I have had as many as five different bears around here in the summer and never had a hit.

True, a good electric bear fence is expensive, but a well built one is indispensable if you hope to preserve your bees and equipment. Get an electric bear fence built before those NUC's arrive !

See Post # 11. http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...the-bears-are-back&highlight=bear+Creek+Steve 

Regards,
Steve


----------



## yukonjack

Yes.

We were tempting the fates. We knew we have bear here. Given the dogs and the proximity to the house, I was hoping they'd find easier sources of amusement than our hive(s).

We'll probably be picking up a fence today.

What is that saying about money and buying a boat? Maybe is should be modified to include hobby be-havers.


----------



## gnor

yukonjack said:


> We'll probably be picking up a fence today.


They tell me that once a bear gets into an apiary, an electric fence won't stop them. They will take the hit to get what they want. There seem to be a lot of variables in play but a really powerful charger might be a good thing.
It might come down to move the apiary or move the bear.


----------



## yukonjack

I'll report back.
We'll find a way to deter the bear.
We've got a cranky, old, soup-pot rooster I'd prefer it take a liking to...


----------



## michkel

Not a darn thing, light rain here. Very few bees were flying yesterday. It was cold (by CA standards) and overcast, so they stayed inside.


----------



## diymom

Rain down here too, no idea what is happening in my hive after a possible catastrophic combo involving swarm and queenless colony. Hoping the rain and cooler temps calms and lulls them into complacency and resignation. I am so glad it's raining today.


----------



## diymom

AHudd said:


> This typo is testing my efforts at self control. I won't make any jokes. I won't, I won't.
> Thanks for the inadvertent laugh this morning.
> Sorry about the bear, though.
> 
> Alex


Yes, this made me laugh a lot too, partly because I have autocorrect and partly because I have a convent a block from me. I know all about overwintered nuns, most of them don't attract bears though.


----------



## Arnie

Sorry about the bear, Jack. I had one rip 4 hives apart one year in Boulder. What a mess! And the bees were furious. No fun.

Checked on one of my backyard queens from a double screen split I made on April 14th. She looked pretty good, I found the cell she emerged from, nice and plump. She should have been able to take mating flights the last few beautiful days. I'll check for eggs next Sunday or Monday. The bees did a good job even with the nasty weather we had.


----------



## yukonjack

Arnie said:


> Sorry about the bear, Jack. I had one rip 4 hives apart one year in Boulder. What a mess! And the bees were furious. No fun.


Love Boulder!

...sigh...It's just the bear being a bear.

But, now we have a fence worth more than the bees we have...just gotta laugh it off and make it a good day regardless!


----------



## bucksbees

I shall refer to my bees going forward as nuns instead of girls. Celibate, hard working, devoted, and willing to sacrifice themselves, I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Nuns they shall be.


----------



## Cyan

I finally found a great day to get into the hives today- between all the rain that is. Inspection of the garden hive showed no visible eggs, larvae, or brood- leaving me to think that the old queen finally failed. 

However, upon inspection of the nucleus colony (and to my complete surprise) I finally found eggs, but not by the new queen I expected, but from the old queen whom obviously re-located.  So I recombined the frames back into the garden hive, in the best order that I could. There was no evidence of laying workers or anything out of the ordinary, so no harm no foul??

I should be receiving a Nicot system, several nucs, and other equipment here shortly. I'm going to attempt to obtain a few backup queens from the old girl if weather, colony size, and time permit. Other than this, I'll be checking swarm traps today, although I'm not expecting any luck there.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Ate some black locust honey.... Good stuff!


----------



## Pooh Bear

My bees are rascals, absolute rascals. Just when I think I know what they are up to they go ahead and teach me a lesson. 3 weeks back, I finally moved a 4x4x4 overwintered Nuc to a deep. I was late doing this, I know I was, and it was all because of lousy weather we were having. When I moved the nuc there were about 4 or 5 capped queen cells and the nuc was bursting at the seams. I ended up destroying the cells (in hindsight should have started a nuc but I was under time pressurenand didn't have equipment nearby). My initial thoughts were that I caught them just before they swarmed. An inspection a week later revealed no new brood and just the tail end of older brood being developed. Now my thoughts are that the Queen swarmed or died and that I had now put myself in a bad predicament. Bee numbers were still high but I still assumed the former had happened. So I added a frame of brood from my other hive. A week later, now there's no more brood except what I added a week before and no queen cells started. Perhaps the larvae were too old on the frame that I added? So once again I add another frame of brood. Now today I inspect and what do I find - 3 to 4 frames of brood in addition to what I added the week before. Didn't see a Queen but where did all this brood come from? Now I think the Queen got into starvation modein the prepration to swarming and only now is back to her old self. Is it possible that they decided not to swarm after really disrupting their setup and expanding the hive?nNext weeks inspection should settle all bets.

One things for sure, their nectar intake over the last 3 weeks has been amazing compared to my other hive (Italians versus Carniolans). Not sure if that is the difference between the two but how fascinating is all this? 
Love this hobby


----------



## AAIndigo

Spent the day with a local commercial beek. He found me here on BS looking for local overwintered Nucs and I turned him onto my friend and Pres of our local bee club. The club purchased 65 Nucs and I spent the day pulling those Nucs. Lots of stings and lots of Nucs. Next time I wear the full suit. Stopped at one apiary that had been blown over by a freak high wind storm a few months ago. Talk about some mean hives. Bees up the leg and in the veil. Great day and a little swelling but 5 new nucs installed in my yard today. Bourbon and a cigar to end the day.


----------



## Phoebee

We just got home to read the headline in today's Washington Post: "Washington's streak of consecutive rainy days is longest on record. It has rained on a record 13 straight days."

The bees pretty much have cabin fever. The two big hives are down 4 pounds each in 8 days. Still no sign of a flow yet this year. Autumn olive still had some blooms but they are not getting many breaks to work it, and when they do, no doubt it is washed out. There is some pale yellow pollen coming in.

Two of the hives had some large larvae in their oil traps, probably wax moth larvae. Both should have enough population to control wax moths at this point, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Almost no sign of SHB though. One hive, started as a nuc last summer, has never been treated for varroa and is starting to drop some. The others have very few.


----------



## michkel

The blackberry flow is coming on quick. We just finished a few days of rain, yesterday was the first day of them foraging again, and I noticed quite a bit of gray pollen coming in. So today, I did a quick inspection to make sure there aren't any queen cells, and supered my large hive for the oncoming flow. This coming week is going to be warm (70-80's), so the blackberries will really start blooming.

My small hive got another deep after I moved some frames around. They are bursting with bees and even though all frames aren't drawn yet in the lower deep, they were worrying me about possibly getting ready to swarm (no queen cells yet) so I added it anyway with the heavy bloom coming on. The frames that are drawn out are packed wall to wall with brood, except for storage in the upper corners. They are still taking some syrup, so I added more.


----------



## BeeBop

michkel said:


> The blackberry flow is coming on quick. We just finished a few days of rain, yesterday was the first day of them foraging again, and I noticed quite a bit of gray pollen coming in. So today, I did a quick inspection to make sure there aren't any queen cells, and supered my large hive for the oncoming flow. This coming week is going to be warm (70-80's), so the blackberries will really start blooming.
> 
> My small hive got another deep after I moved some frames around. They are bursting with bees and even though all frames aren't drawn yet in the lower deep, they were worrying me about possibly getting ready to swarm (no queen cells yet) so I added it anyway with the heavy bloom coming on. The frames that are drawn out are packed wall to wall with brood, except for storage in the upper corners. They are still taking some syrup, so I added more.



You're giving them syrup during the blackberry flow? Aren't you worried about contaminating the honey with sugar syrup? Or aren't you going to harvest honey this year?


----------



## biggraham610

Phoebee said:


> We just got home to read the headline in today's Washington Post: "Washington's streak of consecutive rainy days is longest on record. It has rained on a record 13 straight days."


Tell me about it, I had 2 swarm at the first break in weather. Saturday while I was in the shop building woodenware. Watched em go, 40' up in an Oak, so be it. An hour later they were off to their new destination. Good Luck. Then yesterday morning at the farm yard I rolled up on a issuance, luckily they settled in one of the fruit trees in the orchard and I was able to capture them. They were bringing in pollen today, so I expect they are happy. I was able to put them on drawn comb. 
I was afraid the poplar blossom was destroyed by the weather but today I see a ton of blossoms just opening. Hopefully its not all lost, blackberries are on full tilt. 
A hive that swarmed seriously early seems queenless. I suspect she missed her window due to the weather. I will give them one more week. 
Today was the first day i was actually able to assess top to bottom throughout the apiary. All in all I cant complain. Have lost production on 3 hives due to swarms, but it was out of my control. Hopefully they requeen successfully and will build up strong for the coming winter.
I hope the weather stays decent. G


----------



## michkel

BeeBop said:


> You're giving them syrup during the blackberry flow? Aren't you worried about contaminating the honey with sugar syrup? Or aren't you going to harvest honey this year?


Only the small hive is being fed. There is NO super on this hive, they need to build out the 2nd deep. (foundation only) The blackberry flow is just beginning, and they still need to draw comb. They are taking it more slowly, but still taking it. I'm not worried about contamination because I'm not going to take any honey from that hive. I'll quit feeding when the flow is strong enough for them.

My main hive that I added a super to is *not* being fed. They are large enough and all comb is drawn, so they are good to go for storage in the super.


----------



## BeeBop

michkel said:


> Only the small hive is being fed. There is NO super on this hive, they need to build out the 2nd deep. (foundation only) The blackberry flow is just beginning, and they still need to draw comb. They are taking it more slowly, but still taking it. I'm not worried about contamination because I'm not going to take any honey from that hive. I'll quit feeding when the flow is strong enough for them.
> 
> My main hive that I added a super to is *not* being fed. They are large enough and all comb is drawn, so they are good to go for storage in the super.



Got it. :thumbsup:


----------



## RayMarler

I started a queen rearing system here back on April 3rd I think it was, making up mating nucs every ten days. Today I checked all ten mating nucs that have been made and have nine that are good. One of those nine I had pulled the queen from for another hive, and the cell inserted was of unknown viability, it had not emerged yet today so I gave it a frame of eggs from another hive here. The tenth nuc, it has double eggs per cell, so letting it sit to see what develops with it, I'm suspecting a mating failure as we've had bad weather during the time queens needed to be mating. I've found and marked five of the eight queens and the other three I could not see, but did have eggs and larva so they are in there somewhere. 

I checked through a hive that I had questioned during a week ago inspection, and it seems fine now. I checked through the decommissioned cell builder that I'd put a queen into from one of my mating nucs. She's in there and doing a fine job of laying. This hive is a single 8 frame deep and is getting traded for a 5gal bucket of honey tomorrow. 

The rest of the main hives will be checked through sometime during this week.


----------



## jlaudiofan

Well, Yesterday in the Apiary anyways...

Met up with a local beekeeper who is raising queens, I believe she gets stock from her dad in Florida and raises them out here. Picked up a buckfast queen, went home and got my old queen drunk on vodka. She was a lightweight and didn't make it.

Hopefully these bees will calm down now. There weren't REALLY bad, but very skittish while being inspected and liked to headbutt my veil.

I guess I will find out a month from now if the hive temperment changes


----------



## gnor

55 degrees today, and the girls are in full swing. They're all over the yard, on dandelion and creeping charlie. The bumbles are off to a good start this year, and there are lots of smaller native bees too. I saw drone cells last week, but I watched for quite a while today, and didn't see any flying yet. Soon, I guess.


----------



## diymom

Finally, my first successful and gratifying day since the day i got the bees! I got to see my purchased wildflower meadows vsh itallian queen was alive, accepted, adored and is laying beautifully! I had put her directly onto the comb with her court in a pushed on wire mesh cage i made over about 10 remaining capped brood and some honey stores. It went perfectly, although the other bees figured out how to get into the cage and it was quite crowded, glad i didn't wait four days. 

I never got to see eggs or a queen since the colony i received was queenless, now I can see what a queen right colony does and see larvae too.


----------



## Beebeard

Half hour drive to a swarm. 12 ft up on the trunk of a very branchy and thorny hawthorn. At 8:00 at night. In a thunderstorm. Soaked, Stabbed, Stung, Satisfied customer.


----------



## gnor

I've seen capped drone cells but I haven't seen any drones yet. The bees are working Dandelions and Creeping Charlie. I pulled the trays in the SBB, and saw 3 different types of pollen balls. Lots of ants, some chewing pollen, but I imagine they clean up any mites that drop through, because I didn't see any. I don't think they bother the colony much, because I also saw pieces of ant as well. A paper wasp hung around for a while on the doorstep, but the girls didn't seem to mind unless it turned towards the entrance, then a couple of head butts turned it around. 
I posted in late June last year that I hadn't seen one native bee, but this year they are all over the place. At least 2 species of Bumble bee, and several smaller versions from rice grain on up.


----------



## RayMarler

Today is Thursday May 12th, clear and sunny, upper 80's, supposed to get up to 91 today.

On Monday the 9th I had found one of my mating nucs with 2 eggs per cell, could not find queen. Today I checked and it was laying worker, making queen cells and laying multiple eggs in the queen cells, so I figured they still wanted a queen. I went to 2 of my main hives that had queen excluders on them and pulled the queen with three frames and a foundationless frame into 4 frame nucs. Put those two queen right splits in the spot where the laying worker nuc was and shook out the nuc on the other side of the yard. I'll check next week to see if the two queens are still alive.

Back on that same Monday the 9th I had used an OAD mix in a trigger spray bottle to treat all the mating nucs and all main hives. All nucs treated are fine, queens laying as I watched. This way to treat is NOT SUPPORTED anywhere that I know of so _I'm not recommending it in any way_. I'm just sharing what I did and the results so far.

The two hives I split the queen out of today looked fine too. Did not check the rest of the main hives today. Blackberries are pretty much over, not much nectar coming in now. Maybe pulling the queens into splits on those two will help get more honey for me as they'll now slowly get so no brood to feed. I'll see in time.

Also on Monday the 9th I had marked the queens I found in the mating nucs. 3 of them I did not find that day. Today I found them and they are now marked.


----------



## yukonjack

Follow up on the Bear vs. Bee-haver from last week....

Was able to do a same-day install of a mesh electric-fence and protect the yard.
Very easy to set up, probably took an hour.
Given the couple days it takes to solar-charge the battery, we went old-school and put some ammonia dipped rags around the perimeter of the fence to discourage any additional intrusion.
We've since baited the line, but realistically, hope we don't have any more encounters.

Picked up two nucs this morning and got them inside the wire. We're now having 3 colonies.
It was suggested that we both feed and provide pollen supplements to the new nucs, so we put hive-top feeders and pollen patties on all three hives (to help discourage any robbing).

I guess we're set, until the next crisis...


----------



## VickyLynn

Today, I set up one of my strongest hives for a Snelgrove split. Of course, I couldn't find the queen. I put all the brood in the top box, and the stores and one frame of brood too old to make a queen in the bottom box, and separated them with a queen excluder. In a couple days, I'll go back in and look for eggs. Then, I will at least narrow down where her majesty may be hiding. She needs to go in the bottom box without the brood. There were no queen cells, just a couple of cups. There is beautiful wall to wall brood. I guess if I can't find her, I can do a walk away split, but I really wanted to try the Snelgrove technique that Enjambres has shared on this forum.
The bees were getting a bit testy, but it is supposed to rain this afternoon, so they are feeling the change coming.


----------



## gnor

Black Cherry is out in full bloom, so now the girls are splitting their time between Cherry, dandelion, and Creeping Charlie.
Changed out the boxes for dark brown (from white) on the premise that here in Nova Scotia, they need all the warmth they can get. Either that, or knit them all little sweaters!
I am going to propagate queens next year using the cell punch method, so this year, I am going partly foundationless on the brood boxes. Last week, I checkerboarded in some frames with a starter strip between comb already drawn on plastic. Amazing how fast they draw it out, and all straight as a whistle.
The one colony is actually using the drone trap, laying about 1/3 of it with drones. The other girls seem content to build drone cells around the edges, or with a few areas on the regular comb.
Cleaned up the old wood and repainted it dark, and ended up with a handfull of Propolis. Very hard and brittle stuff - it chips off, rather than scrapes off.


----------



## clyderoad

gnor said:


> Black Cherry is out in full bloom, so now the girls are splitting their time between Cherry, dandelion, and Creeping Charlie.


As I've read your posts I am amazed at how quickly your weather has gone from cold to warm enough for bloom so quickly.
When you say black cherry do you mean the orchard variety or wild black cherry?


----------



## gnor

clyderoad said:


> As I've read your posts I am amazed at how quickly your weather has gone from cold to warm enough for bloom so quickly.
> When you say black cherry do you mean the orchard variety or wild black cherry?


It's the wild variety. Our yard is covered with them, to the extent that I am thinning them out so the others get more light. There's a stump beside our house that's almost 4 feet across. They are good eating, so I'm letting some branch out from the smaller stumps so I can get at them. They are pretty widespread in North America, and apparently they are one of the first volunteer species after a forest fire.


----------



## clyderoad

gnor>> thanks for the response.
we have them here also, and like you lots of them. Ours though are not yet blooming, a couple/few weeks out yet and
normally bloom at the same time as black locust.
And that's what tipped me off to how quickly your location came to bloom time after the cold spring weather. NS seems
to have caught up and surpassed me on LI in NY. I never would have guessed that if it weren't for your posts.
Hope the bees are up to the challenge and make you lots of honey.
Thanks again.


----------



## rwoodworth98

First year Beek here. I've just finished up my third week of beekeeping. I started with two 5 frame medium nucs. Both have ,I've up into the second medium brood box and they both have good brood patterns. The problem is one hive seems to be much more active and building comb at a faster rate. I have done everything the same I guess it is just up to the bees as to how they respond. When should I add another medium box?


----------



## gnor

That's a surprise for me too, because you guys are usually a lot warmer than we are. I'll take it though.


----------



## Phoebee

We woke up this morning with the NE West Virginia temperatures around 40 F. Winds have been 30 mph with higher gusts. Tomorrow morning they will be under a frost advisory. This is more like mid-February than mid-May. We were unable to inspect the hives today.

I did upgrade the entrance landing board, tunnel, and foyer of the indoor nuc. The old 1" tubing has been experiencing epic traffic jams. The new 1.5" tubing was like replacing a 2-lane road with an interstate highway. The old entrance system was left outdoors overnight, in hopes that the bees in it would fly back to the hive. About a dozen didn't get the memo. They looked dead this morning, but I shook them out into our sugar shake jar (screened lid) and took them indoors. Some gentle warmth and a paper towel soaked with sugar syrup revived five of them, who were soon fit to be released on their landing board. I used the same method to rescue a drowned bee the previous day. I'm not saying this is a practical use of time, but it is fun and informative to watch them come back. The five cold-coma bees really perked up when I added a drop of HBH to their syrup blotter. The first one to revive fed a couple of her groggy sisters.


----------



## Harley Craig

Today, I shook out a laying worker colony, made a split to replace it, dug old junk boxes off a crap pile and added to hive that desperately need it. Made a rescue bar for my only TBH that I hived a swarm in last week and stabbed on some comb with eggs because it looks like half the swarm left and I suspect it had multiple queens. I cut enough wood for 6 boxes, but ran out of staples after 3 so I painted them up and made up some frames to go with them.


----------



## diymom

Today I found a virgin queen bee dead on the ground ten feet from the hive. I only noticed her because there were about ten bees around crawling on her. Her wings were ripped on one side. She was still soft but curled up with her stinger extended.
She was really undersized, perhaps she shrank a little since she died. My hive had pretty small queen cells which hatched probably 9 days ago. I'm hoping they still have one viable queen that will begin laying within 6 days.
Anyway I made lemonade out of lemons and put her into a small jar of alcohol to make swarm lure per Michael Bush's suggestion from a YouTube lecture.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Harley Craig said:


> Today, I shook out a laying worker colony.......


The one thousandth post. Good deal. Keep them coming.


----------



## PepperBeeMan

I had a bad fight with Nosema last year and lost. This year I went with Russians that are less susceptible, better at cleaning the hive, aggressive towards SHB & Varroa. Perhaps Russians would be a good TF choice.


----------



## PepperBeeMan

I installed my Nuc into an 8 frame deep (Russians) on April 23rd. A few days later, they had drawn out a frame (great black locust in Mid TN). A couple weeks later, I had more capped brood and the previous brood had hatched, so I moved them from an 8 frame to 10 frame, giving them 2 more frames of foundation to work and stuck a super of foundationless (25% of which was drawn out last year by my first failure.) 

Even though it was a bit colder this weekend, the sun was shining on the girls. I opened the top of the hive to find them drawing out the super, fixing the comb from last year. Everything is blooming here in TN so I have no doubt that they'll store enough to survive, perhaps even draw out a 2nd super. It smells like a perfume shop in my neighborhood.


----------



## GerrieRPh

Second year beek: split a hive a month ago due to queen cells. Split 1: booming and laying nicely. Split 2: laying worker. 4 to 6 eggs per cell, couldnt find the queen x 2 weekly inspections. So, shook this one out yesterday. Plan to paper combine with split 1 later today. I have 2 queens (one Italian and one Russian) anticipated to arrive next week (delayed shipment by 1 1/2 months). Original 2 hives are still booming with double deeps of brood, and filling supers. Should have enough to steal brood and food from them next week for the new queens to split. Im more interested in growing bees than honey this year. Side note: saw mites on some burr comb drone cells on one of the big hives. Will need to address that after the nectar flow. Learning, learning, learning.


----------



## diymom

PepperBeeMan said:


> I had a bad fight with Nosema last year and lost. This year I went with Russians that are less susceptible, better at cleaning the hive, aggressive towards SHB & Varroa. Perhaps Russians would be a good TF choice.


I think Russians are what the usda imported to begin breeding varroa resistance in bees. They imported them from isolated regions in Russia to several stealth apiaries in the 90s...
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Research/docs.htm?docid=2744&page=3

I just wonder how true the Russian genetics over here remain. good sourced stock couldn't hurt in a TF method, maybe needing to requeen to maintain Russian genetics if they do work out. Michael bush says Russians will pull your hair before they sting...if they can get at your hair. I don't think they would work for my region, but Good luck!


----------



## PepperBeeMan

These Russians that I have are quite aggressive. Definitely a change from last year's Italians that I got from Wilbanks (GA). I've been stung 1x, but I received plenty of warning. It was after I changed over from 8 frames to 10 and took away the syrup (that they had barely touched.)

They buzz & bump me all the time. They slam into my face, head. They seem to be extremely strong flyers. When I got stung, she bumped me several times, then buzzed in my hair for about 5 secs before I tried to brush off. When I brushed her, she stung.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Done selling nucs for the spring, onto making queens.


----------



## 1102009

Seems our weather changes to some kind of tropic rain in spring, but my bees survived.
















I made splits, now I have 12 colonies.

My first crisis came with one hive being sick with the Paralyse Virus. Trembling bees on the landing board.

I remembered a post from Clayton Huestis, he described an act of tossing sick virus filled bees on the ground, so they could not fly back.
I did this, they lost some strength but are healthy again.
When I did this I saw that they superseded their queen.

Now I will wait and see what my bees will teach me.
Sibylle


----------



## Bowfinger

Extracted first honey over the weekend. 100 lbs. , Not much but a start anyway. Today found a new queen and another cell in a Nuc that has been struggling for 6-8 weeks. Hope it goes well for the winner. Need more supers to get me through farm harvest. $ is an issue as usual. Maybe I should sell a hive or two.


----------



## CW Finnerty

May 7, helped pick up 2 bought hives and catch a swarm at a biologist's hose on the same day...how ironic.


----------



## Cyan

Several days ago I started seeing the wax foundation I introduced to the garden hive get drawn out- a good thing to keep them busy while the weather wasn't cooperating. 

And to my surprise, I must have rolled that old queen between the frames while looking.  The good news though is that I now have queen cells in the process of being made, so I'm not disturbing them until after she's expected to be laying. As well, I'm not having any luck so far with my traps, but I was able to obtain a nice size swarm to hive. All in all, a mixed bag sort of week.


----------



## pinkpantherbeekeeper

At about 2 am this morning I moved a small cluster of bees. They had gotten left out when I installed my packages of bees and sealed up the hives. I scooped em up with my hand and put them in their hive! 

Probably only a hundred bees, but it amazed me how warm a small cluster like that was.


----------



## jadebees

Finished all the preparations on 11 swarm lures. Time to plant them here & there!

Will be checking some placed lures, I may have bees now, but won't know till I go look.

I'll be placing about 40 total this year. More, and it's too many bees to deal with. 

Caught bees make more carpentry chores.


----------



## Cloverdale

We split 3 overwintered hives; one we got 3 splits from, that was my LottieMay hive. Well, she swarmed yesterday high high up in the tallest pine. Had 2 swarm boxes out, prepped to entice those girls in but they turned their nose up at them and found another home. :-(


----------



## EvilZeg

Yesterday I removed the remaining entrance reduces. Placed a honey super on my 1 super strong hive.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> On Monday the 9th I had found one of my mating nucs with 2 eggs per cell, could not find queen. Today I checked and it was laying worker, making queen cells and laying multiple eggs in the queen cells, so I figured they still wanted a queen. I went to 2 of my main hives that had queen excluders on them and pulled the queen with three frames and a foundationless frame into 4 frame nucs. Put those two queen right splits in the spot where the laying worker nuc was and shook out the nuc on the other side of the yard. I'll check next week to see if the two queens are still alive.


Today is May 22, mostly clear and still and mid 70's

Both queens are there, I lucked out!
I also, today, went into the hives that I'd pulled the queens out of and made up a nuc from each hive with frames that had queen cells, leaving a frame with queen cells in each hive. I went through and destroyed all cells except for two in each hive and each nuc.

I moved 3 of the 4 frame nucs into single 8 frame boxes, and put quart of syrup on them, and on all 4 frame nucs.

A lady stopped in today to ask about bees and buy a queen. From talking with her, it seems like her hive has been dwindling since last fall from 3 boxes down to what is now a grapefruit sized cluster. I advised her to treat for varroa. She said she might come back by after the first of the month and purchase a nuc from me, if she can talk her husband into the idea.


----------



## Cloverdale

Cloverdale said:


> We split 3 overwintered hives; one we got 3 splits from, that was my LottieMay hive. Well, she swarmed yesterday high high up in the tallest pine. Had 2 swarm boxes out, prepped to entice those girls in but they turned their nose up at them and found another home. :-(


Well update; the other hives that we did splits from, one a walk a way and the other a double Nuc, both of the mother hives swarmed too. Crazy year so far.


----------



## diymom

Watched bees for half an hour today and took out newspaper from combining my nucs back into one hive. The bees seem to have great coverage on the brood comb now and I hope the colony will finally build up with their new queen. I'm hoping this colony doesn't have anymore issues for a while.


----------



## pinkpantherbeekeeper

Checked my new hives that were package bees. Wanting to see if the bees had drawn enough comb for the queen to start laying. They had. But to much to my shock, one hive had left!!! My girlfriend said she noticed a ball of bees and bunch flying around the other day. I very nicely let her know, she needs to tell me these things! Lol.

Decided, "hey maybe they swarmed on a tree somewhere." Sure enough 20 feet from the hive they were on a limb. So I got to practice my swarm skills! Put em in back in the box and all is well.

Finished the checking my last hive after all of this, and got stung in the ear. Like right in the ear canal. inch:


----------



## JasonA

Today I tried to mark my first queen after practicing on drones for a couple weeks. It did not go well. I finally caught her by the wings, but somehow lost my grip on them. The last time I saw here she was tree top high headed for Florida! I stood still for about 10 minutes with the lid off the hive hoping she would reconsider. Nope, she gone! Then I tried again on a different queen (glutton for punishment) and got stung in 3 fingers by the workers. I buttoned up the hive and called it a day!

Oh the joys of learning. Michael Palmer and others make it look so easy to catch a queen by the handles.


----------



## VickyLynn

This week I caught and marked three queens. I catch them with my handy plastic queen catching clip. The ladies I catch with her can escape, but she is trapped. Then, for extra insurance I use a queen muff, so if she does escape she can't go very far. 

Today, I will be adding supers to the hives that didn't get split.


----------



## diymom

Went to help and learn from my sage beekeeper at his small apiary today. We found out quickly that the hives he received back from the almond pollination were not his own, that they had swapped his mild, local feral bees for AHB hives that were in horribly dilapidated boxes with just plywood roofs and holes everywhere. How did we find out? We moved a few hives to new stands and were surrounded by swarming bees from two colonies. I got stung about 8 times on my legs after calmly walking forty feet away (I wore medium blue jeans and my bee jacket and hood because we expected his mild mannered bees). First experience with AHB, they weren't as evil as I've seen in videos, but these were small two box colonies. We didn't even open the hives and were very gentle in transporting
The hive boxes.
I was disappointed I didn't get to see and do more, the time at the yard was really cut short by those dang bees. Going back next week with dual smokers and baggy, white pants.
Learned a lot.


----------



## Zephyr

This newbie got her first sting :/ I was doing an inspection and had just set down a frame, noticing a half dead worker who'd been squished. I guess she was emitting pheromone as the moment I put the frame back BOOM got me right in the flap of skin between my thumb and index finger. I went my first month stingless over 3-4 inspections & a swarm capture but now I know what it's like! I hate it  On the plus side I trapped a SHB by squishing the comb around it & grabbed another who promptly got a hive tool to the face. After getting stung, doing that felt pretty darn satisfying. It may be a while before my confidence comes back (Quick! Someone slap some sense into me!)


----------



## RayMarler

Got a call from Bill Carpenter who raises queens with the all grooming or ankle biting trait in Florida. He's got two queens in the mail to me today. I'll be introducing them on Thursday, if they get here by then.

Refilled syrup jars on 11 nucs.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

RayMarler said:


> Got a call from Bill Carpenter who raises queens with the all grooming or ankle biting trait in Florida. He's got two queens in the mail to me today. I'll be introducing them on Thursday, if they get here by then.
> 
> Refilled syrup jars on 11 nucs.


Nice ray keep us posted!


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

200 gallons of sugar syrup fed, 400 sheets of foundation, 100 migratory lids built/painted and 3 Beeyards weed whacked,...... and it is still the best job ever


----------



## JRG13

diymom said:


> Went to help and learn from my sage beekeeper at his small apiary today. We found out quickly that the hives he received back from the almond pollination were not his own, that they had swapped his mild, local feral bees for AHB hives that were in horribly dilapidated boxes with just plywood roofs and holes everywhere. How did we find out? We moved a few hives to new stands and were surrounded by swarming bees from two colonies. I got stung about 8 times on my legs after calmly walking forty feet away (I wore medium blue jeans and my bee jacket and hood because we expected his mild mannered bees). First experience with AHB, they weren't as evil as I've seen in videos, but these were small two box colonies. We didn't even open the hives and were very gentle in transporting
> The hive boxes.
> I was disappointed I didn't get to see and do more, the time at the yard was really cut short by those dang bees. Going back next week with dual smokers and baggy, white pants.
> Learned a lot.


How do you get your bees back and not even notice them not being your bees for about 2 months?


----------



## diymom

JRG13 said:


> How do you get your bees back and not even notice them not being your bees for about 2 months?


He is pretty senile, he knew a few boxes looked wrong when he checked on them a month ago. He didn't find out they were africanized until yesterday. This is his small apiary, he spends most of his time out at his main bee yard.
I am going to help him requeen them using another hive's genetics, transfer them to better boxes when they mellow out in 6 weeks. It seems like I will be helping him regularly, he really needs an extra set of hands and another strong back. I'm ready to adopt a needy elderly fellow too.
Today I found out how uncomfortable stings can be. Initially they hurt, then they swell, itch and hurt down into your muscle. I have six stings on one leg and I've been gimpy all day.


----------



## JRG13

Well, it's good your helping him out then. I got a small patch of poison oak recently... it's not as bad as bee stings, except it's lasting longer, but I hear you about the itching.... don't remember them itching so much as a kid.


----------



## RayMarler

Three new virgins in the yard. These are from my own over wintered stock. One was puny, she's black. All the black bees that I get from my own stock are always puny. I'll be pinching her, as I have all the others. I'm gearing more towards hybrid crosses here, they seem to do the best. I also have some dark orange with black tips Italians that do well also.

Received the two queens from Bill Carpenter's Apiaries this morning. I'll get them introduced tomorrow.


----------



## Zephyr

Hey someone want to give me a little hand with waxing? Since I'm new to this, I dont have enough combs to collect to wax everything. Apiary store sells 1 oz wax bars I can use to cover my plastic foundations. How much do you think will be needed to cover ~16 deeps and 10 mediums?


----------



## Levi's Bees

I have read somewhere that there is roughly one pound of drawn wax on 8 deep frames . What I have done is just a coat enough to get it started . I used roughly 4 pounds of wax on 50 frames some may use more some may use less. I have found there is a trick to it if you fill the plastic starter cell up with wax they won't use it all up have to keep it on the rim. Takes practice. But my hives have drawn 10 frames out less than a week.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Three new virgins in the yard. These are from my own over wintered stock. One was puny, she's black. All the black bees that I get from my own stock are always puny. I'll be pinching her, as I have all the others. I'm gearing more towards hybrid crosses here, they seem to do the best. I also have some dark orange with black tips Italians that do well also.
> 
> Received the two queens from Bill Carpenter's Apiaries this morning. I'll get them introduced tomorrow.


Nice day here, clear and sunny, slight breeze, mid 80's

Yes, I pinched that virgin, and I pinched another black mated queen that was not laying up as good as she should be, and introduced the two queens from Carpenter's. I removed the attendants and marked the queens, put them back in a cage with candy and set between two combs. Bees seemed to like them. I'll check back on them this evening, and in the morning, and might release them in the morning if it all looks good. Then again, I may wait until Saturday morning.

I'd picked up a different queen marking paint pen yesterday, so re-marked a few queens, the one's I could find today. I'll get the rest marked as I see them during inspections.


----------



## Metis27

that's funny.


----------



## Beauregard

I've been posting videos of my playing in the Apiary.. Today I built 5 Swarm Traps..

https://vimeo.com/168233703

We are raising queens in a cell builder

https://vimeo.com/167808576
https://vimeo.com/168095413

And I have 10 packages in a new Apiary I'm going to re-queen with these cells.. The group of videos is in my channel I made on vimeo if you want to watch them. I love watching and learning so hoping to return the favor if possible..

https://vimeo.com/channels/1077190


----------



## JRG13

don't do it Ray, wait a few days.


----------



## EvilZeg

With help from my Father in Law I got the electric fence up at my first bee yard. I have been keeping my bees at a friends house for the last two years. I'm excited to finally have my own yard.


----------



## m0dem

Yesterday I found one of my queens. And I watched a pro work one of his yards. Awesome!


----------



## Phoebee

All hives lost weight yet again over the last week. The weather was markedly better, but the forage was not as good as hoped. But we spotted Tulip Tree blossoms today, and blackberries are finally blooming. A couple of scraggly Black Locusts bloomed ... if the thousands of others in our valley would bloom we might get something going.


----------



## diymom

Today I inspected my hive to find capped brood everywhere and my fabulous queen laying in the upper medium. (I only have two medium boxes as my hive body). It's so much fun to see the bees all working with their queen.
My bees have six extra frames to fill with comb and so far, nothing. I'm concerned they won't build new comb in time for the queen to have space. Hope they figure it out soon. 
Weather is supposed to heat up soon and I am noticing great squash and melon pollination in my gardens.


----------



## InBees

I tried working my calm hive without smoke. Bad idea. Angry buzzing. One managed to sting through my jeans...in the crotch. Ouch. My other hive had no brood cells, just drone, nectar, pollen & honey. And wax worms. Killed the worms. Not sure what to do now. So much to learn.


----------



## gnor

Did a frame by frame inspection yesterday, looking for swarm cells. Both colonies were full of bees wall to wall, but no swarm cells yet. I did see lots of drones, and a full frame of capped drone brood, plus lots of play cells hanging from the top frames. Another inspection in a week.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ... and introduced the two queens from Carpenter's. I removed the attendants and marked the queens, put them back in a cage with candy and set between two combs. Bees seemed to like them...


Clear and HOT today, over 90 so far.

Checked on the 2 queens from Carpenter's, they have been released and have just started laying. One of the nucs that one was in had queen cells also, and the bees were a little runny, understandably so, so I removed all queen cells and buttoned it up. I'll check back on both queens in a few days.

Caught 3 of the nicer queens from Michael Palmers stock and caged them with 7 attendants each. Now I'll make sure they get water throughout today and get them in the outgoing mail in the morning.


----------



## Cyan

Checked the garden hive- no new queen no eggs or young larvae but a few older larvae getting capped or capped. Gave them a frame of eggs and 1-2 day larvae as a last ditch effort to save them. I'll keep an eye on them and see how it goes. Hate to shake them out, but they've been on a downward spiral for some time.

The swarm hive however is one heck of a colony. A gorgeous, golden Italian queen is already laying eggs in the second box! I'll have to add their third box within 2 weeks at this rate. Seeing this really brought me some much needed happiness today.


----------



## McBee7

here's a picture of 3 weeks ago when I moved 4 nucs into 10 frame boxs at a new yard. I checked them today and some of the frames barely had a rim of wax on the rite-cell foundation and all the cells had eggs in them ,,,,, waxers will have to kick it into high gear 


==McBee7==


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Checked on the 2 queens from Carpenter's, they have been released and have just started laying. One of the nucs that one was in had queen cells also, and the bees were a little runny, understandably so, so I removed all queen cells and buttoned it up...


Clear and HOT today, 104F on the back porch.

Upgraded two 4 frame mating nucs into single 8 frame deep boxes today. One was a queen from Carpenter's, there's two eggs in each cell. I think it's because she really wants to lay but no open comb left for her, and am betting it clears up over time. The confusion with queen cells being built during her introduction and release may have something to do with it. Anyway, I'll check in on them in a few more days or a week.

Caught and caged three queens yesterday with 7 attendants each. Kept them in house in the dark and gave water to them three times yesterday. Gave water again this morning and shipped them out. I've found that caging the day before, and giving a drop of water right away and again whenever they buzz loud, makes for good shipping of them the next day.


----------



## JRG13

Today in the Apiary.... who am I kidding, it was over 100 today I didn't go to any Apiary...


----------



## m0dem

Today in the apiary I did my first ever hive split. I split into a nuc. 2 frames of capped brood + honey and 1 frame of eggs from the queen of my choice and a sugar feeder.


----------



## m0dem

Today in the apiary my queenless nuc is building out a queen cell! Should be capped in about 4 days!


----------



## lemmje

While inspecting my hives I got a phone call about a swarm of bees in a tree near the airport. They were well over 30 feet in the air, and had been there for two days. Most of the bees seemed to be flying, but there was a nice cluster on a branch. I put a box with two frames of drawn comb and a little honey on the ground below then and spent the next 30 minutes watching them move it. That was cool to see. Had two of my fellow beekeepers there just for fun.


----------



## m0dem

lemmje said:


> While inspecting my hives I got a phone call about a swarm of bees in a tree near the airport. They were well over 30 feet in the air, and had been there for two days. Most of the bees seemed to be flying, but there was a nice cluster on a branch. I put a box with two frames of drawn comb and a little honey on the ground below then and spent the next 30 minutes watching them move it. That was cool to see. Had two of my fellow beekeepers there just for fun.


They just came down to the box in 30 minutes? That's pretty neat!


----------



## lemmje

m0dem said:


> That's pretty neat!


It was awesome! The scouts were checking out the box while i was carrying it over. Within minutes there were dozens of bees checking it out. Within twenty minutes there were bees all over the top nasanoving and we watched the cluster grow smaller and smaller as more and more bees flew in. We were squating next to the hive hoping to see the queen go in, but none of us saw her. Within 30 minutes there were no more bees in the tree. Still a lot in the air, and my friend who is going to keep them will go back tonight or in the morning and take them home.

It was pretty dang cool to see.


----------



## EvilZeg

Today was an exciting yet frustrating day. 

Exciting in that I got to move some bees into my newly finished bee yard. 

Frustrating because the bees came from a quick split to try and prevent a swarm. 

My friend texted me at work to tell me that my hive was doing a practice swarm and returned to the hive. I left work and grabbed a newly assembled Nuc and headed over to check out the hive. 

This hive has been a bee producing machine. I have already split this hive once this year. When I opened the hive they had filled almost the entire upper deep with honey, I noticed it was getting full last week and put a super with drawn comb on but they have ignored it and filled the deep. 

As I went through the lower deep I found swarm cells on the bottom of a frame. I then found the queen on another frame. So I moved her and two frames of honey, pollen and bees into the Nuc. With the newly freed space I added some empty frames to the original hive. 

Hopefully everything turns out well. I am just happy to have my own bee yard and don't have to keep them at a friends house anymore. 

Weather permitting I will move the rest of my hives tomorrow.


----------



## MariahK

Today I decided to do a quick inspect of all 6 hives. My nuc has hd its queens hatch, I stole a frame of eggs and brood to hold them through until she gets mated, weather looks good for the next week.

I have 4 hives booming this year 3 have supers on and they appear to be storing honey. My topbar hive is getting near capacity, this is there second year. So iam having a friend build me a second. But they are looking fantastic. Were from a cut out last year.

My smallest hive, is a deep. Was a very late cut out last fall. They came out of winter with only1 frame of bee's. They are now 1 solid deep, so are getting a second deep. But I am so pleased they pulled through from the brink on their own. 

I love watching them they all are different. My 3 big langs were all doing different things one was tackling a rubber band removal, one had 7 gals fanning there little hearts out, and the last had a very determined little guard che king every bee that landed.


----------



## howlin

my first nuc install. I ignored all advice and checkerboraded a 3 frame nuc into a shimmed up (to accommodate deep) 7 frame homemade @ 1 3/8ths"thick medium box on Monday night. I couldn't find the white qeen at that time as it was getting dark shortly after the 2 hr drive on the windiest day and night in weeks. 
i did not feed them. 
I was expecting like a ladder of burr comb between the drawn deep brood and medium foundationless when I looked today just after noon, but, they had started drawing comb on the four foundaionless frames. i have pictures, but not at my computer atm. I was only looking because tomorrow is rain when I originally wated to check. saw the queen on the 2nd frame of drawn brood.(pics to follow later), also saw starting of queen cup. which if this continues, I could? apply to a split if it ever gets an egg? 
oh ya, really windy yesterday, does that keep them in? and building comb? how about a fan on them? so, I was going to feed them due to not nice weather, had made a 5:3 mixture that I was going to put in a ziplock bag of 1:1 from my buddies wife, but didn't. instead since it was in a travel coffee mug, I just decided I would pour it down the side missing a frame due to inspection. it started leaking. lol. 
and straight straight comb. ya, twice. 
they really threw up a buzz/hum shortly after dumping syrup in the hive, anyone confirm?
I'll do it again to see. was wondering if I killed the queen, but it stopped quick. 
if they don't die or leave from the stress I gave them...

h.






checkerboard nuc.






outside frame in 1.5 days






centre brood frame.


----------



## howlin

http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?325570-the-right-foot&p=1428013#post1428013 

forgot a link to explain the beginnings. 

h.


----------



## johngfoster

That comb looks really dark for freshly drawn comb. Usually brood comb gets darker with use due to build-up of cellulose from the pupae, but this comb is fresh. Interesting.


----------



## howlin

@ JF, right? lol, I found the dirtiest bees on the planet... some California/Aussie pigpen mix. 
h.

edit* can anyone confirm it if it related to w/e nectar they are finding?

edit2 * saw some pollen coming in for first time.... 

























i think i double a picture... sorry about that.
h.


----------



## 1102009

Expanding into the next top box:









That`s what happens if the bees came on another system and you are still not able to put out the short frames....
Well, just now I need my drones...


----------



## howlin

howlin said:


> my first nuc install. I ignored all advice and checkerboraded a 3 frame nuc into a shimmed up (to accommodate deep) 7 frame homemade @ 1 3/8ths"thick medium box on Monday night. I couldn't find the white qeen at that time as it was getting dark shortly after the 2 hr drive on the windiest day and night in weeks.
> i did not feed them.
> I was expecting like a ladder of burr comb between the drawn deep brood and medium foundationless when I looked today just after noon, but, they had started drawing comb on the four foundaionless frames. i have pictures, but not at my computer atm. I was only looking because tomorrow is rain when I originally wated to check. saw the queen on the 2nd frame of drawn brood.(pics to follow later), also saw starting of queen cup. which if this continues, I could? apply to a split if it ever gets an egg?
> oh ya, really windy yesterday, does that keep them in? and building comb? how about a fan on them? so, I was going to feed them due to not nice weather, had made a 5:3 mixture that I was going to put in a ziplock bag of 1:1 from my buddies wife, but didn't. instead since it was in a travel coffee mug, I just decided I would pour it down the side missing a frame due to inspection. it started leaking. lol.
> and straight straight comb. ya, twice.
> they really threw up a buzz/hum shortly after dumping syrup in the hive, anyone confirm?
> I'll do it again to see. was wondering if I killed the queen, but it stopped quick.
> if they don't die or leave from the stress I gave them...
> 
> h.
> View attachment 25299
> checkerboard nuc.
> View attachment 25300
> outside frame in 1.5 days
> View attachment 25301
> centre brood frame.


that was 2 days ago... 









this is today. figured out what the discolouration was from. hippie bees doing tiedye.

h.


----------



## howlin

howlin said:


> my first nuc install. I ignored all advice and checkerboraded a 3 frame nuc into a shimmed up (to accommodate deep) 7 frame homemade @ 1 3/8ths"thick medium box on Monday night. I couldn't find the white qeen at that time as it was getting dark shortly after the 2 hr drive on the windiest day and night in weeks.
> i did not feed them.
> I was expecting like a ladder of burr comb between the drawn deep brood and medium foundationless when I looked today just after noon, but, they had started drawing comb on the four foundaionless frames. i have pictures, but not at my computer atm. I was only looking because tomorrow is rain when I originally wated to check. saw the queen on the 2nd frame of drawn brood.(pics to follow later), also saw starting of queen cup. which if this continues, I could? apply to a split if it ever gets an egg?
> oh ya, really windy yesterday, does that keep them in? and building comb? how about a fan on them? so, I was going to feed them due to not nice weather, had made a 5:3 mixture that I was going to put in a ziplock bag of 1:1 from my buddies wife, but didn't. instead since it was in a travel coffee mug, I just decided I would pour it down the side missing a frame due to inspection. it started leaking. lol.
> and straight straight comb. ya, twice.
> they really threw up a buzz/hum shortly after dumping syrup in the hive, anyone confirm?
> I'll do it again to see. was wondering if I killed the queen, but it stopped quick.
> if they don't die or leave from the stress I gave them...
> 
> h.
> View attachment 25299
> checkerboard nuc.
> View attachment 25300
> outside frame in 1.5 days
> View attachment 25301
> centre brood frame.


that was 2 days ago... 

View attachment 25387


this is today. figured out what the discolouration was from. hippie bees doing tiedye.

h.


----------



## JRG13

Yesterday in the Apiary, I sweated, a lot. Moved 13 hives, pulled 5 splits before moving them for some new queens from Wootens and Wildflower meadows. Need to pull 4 more at home today to finish housing the remainder of the queens, 5 from each. Bees were looking good for the most part, need to feed sub and syrup though. The new yard has a lot of competition, hopefully it works out ok though. Introduced 5 queens before coming into work today, about 630am, hopefully they get released soon. I've never been impressed with queen ordering that much, both of these batches of 5 were pretty runty looking, a few of them still piping, but that's normal when a bunch of queens are next to each other I guess. We'll see how they stretch out once they start laying again...


----------



## RayMarler

Solid cloudy and 85, what a nice relief.

Checked the main hives, looks like a little nectar flow might be starting. Robbed from them frames to make up 2 mating nucs (4 frame deeps). These will go with the three others made queenless back on May 30 to make five queenless, making queen cells. I'm going to be receiving queens for them from Fusion_power early this coming week, and will destroy queen cells and introduce the new queens.

Checked on the two queens from Bill Carpenter, they both are doing fine, no problems now they are laying good.

Moved one nuc to a 8 frame deep box, they were quite crowded, one of the queenless ones made back on May 30th.

That one queen from Michael Palmer is still one of the best in my yard, looking very good. Has more honey stored than any other hive. Some of my fresh new queens are doing very well also, but they are with feeders so I can get wax drawn, still building up they are, so is hard to compare them to the larger honey hives. Thanks Michael for the exceptional queen!


----------



## ForestHillHoney

Installed two nucs into 10 frame deeps about 3.5 weeks ago at my upstate NY farm property. Gave one nuc a second deep of drawn comb, the runt nuc I left in one deep. Came back to find the two deep nuc packed out, added a super. The other, packed out the deep and swarmed into a bush right in my bee yard. Made my first attempt at capturing a swarm. Fingers crossed I got the queen. 

Ps...how do you upload photos?


----------



## Phoebee

Finally, this weekend we weighed the hives and all but one showed an increase. Not a big increase, but better than a 4-pound drop. This corresponds with good weather and stuff blooming. We spotted Tulip Tree blooms last weekend and this. Locust seems to be a dud again this year. Dutch White and Sweet Yellow clovers are getting traffic, as well as some Cat Mint.

One hive still lost weight. That was the Cossacks ... the ill-tempered Russians. Our last inspection looked off, with an absence of young brood and a lot of queen cups. We suspect it swarmed. We won't be tracking down the old Czarina ... good riddance. This week there is fresh brood and a young-looking queen, easily caught and now marked white. The old Czarina was never marked ... as soon as we announced it was Ambush Makeover Day last year she went into hiding and has not been spotted since. So it is possible this is the old queen but all evidence is to the contrary.

The other new queen is laying down frames of lovely brood, much of it now capped.

Grandma bee, the Lavender Lady (born summer of 2013), was moved from her indoor nuc location to a nice spot in the garden, without benefit of a 2-mile intermediate move. Kept them locked up Saturday, opened it up today in a location facing some bushes. A couple of hundred foragers didn't get the memo and went back to their garage window, but by and large they seem to be orienting on the new location. They'll move to 8-frame hardware next week. I don't want the old girl to swarm on me as I'd like to get a few more queens from her.


----------



## MariahK

Today during a cut out I had that oh crap moment when I felt a bee crawling up my pant leg.


----------



## Cyan

I recently received some nucs that I ordered earlier in the year, and I must say that it was worth the wait. For the first time ever, I'm seeing solid laying patterns taking up almost the entire frame! They were in need of more laying space, so I added another box to each. Weather permitting, I hope to do a sugar roll this weekend to figure out what the mite load is, and treat if necessary.

The new swarm from last month is just getting into their 3rd box and are also doing very well. However, my garden hive (a small swarm from last year) just isn't cutting it. I gave them a frame of eggs and larvae about a week ago and all they are doing is capping them- no attempt to make a new queen. I'm not seeing any laying worker activity, and i'm not seeing any new eggs or larvae. There is also definitely no queen- haven't had one for a month now so they will be shaken out. I hate to do it, but at the rate these other hives are growing, I could use the equipment for splits.


----------



## Cloverdale

Cyan said:


> I recently received some nucs that I ordered earlier in the year, and I must say that it was worth the wait. For the first time ever, I'm seeing solid laying patterns taking up almost the entire frame! They were in need of more laying space, so I added another box to each. Weather permitting, I hope to do a sugar roll this weekend to figure out what the mite load is, and treat if necessary.
> 
> The new swarm from last month is just getting into their 3rd box and are also doing very well. However, my garden hive (a small swarm from last year) just isn't cutting it. I gave them a frame of eggs and larvae about a week ago and all they are doing is capping them- no attempt to make a new queen. I'm not seeing any laying worker activity, and i'm not seeing any new eggs or larvae. There is also definitely no queen- haven't had one for a month now so they will be shaken out. I hate to do it, but at the rate these other hives are growing, I could use the equipment for splits.


Could they have swarmed?


----------



## bucksbees

Performed my first split today. The queen had lain all the way to the top of 3 deeps. This is just amazing with that many bees flying. Moved the queen right hive to my other yard. But before that, after working to make the split, working resources, extra house workers for the queen, the queenless split at 2 deeps high; I get the queen right one ready for transport. 

The lid is strapped down, the hive top feeding hole covered with 1/8th mesh for ventilation, the box is double strapped to keep it in place, when the old farm truck over heats. So I go grab the wife’s keys to her new jeep patriot, and start moving everything over. She walks out and sees all the hitch hikers holding on to the transport box. Me wearing the bee suite and strapping it in; I can see her ears turning red, steam starting to pour out, and quickly let her know the truck is over heated. The steam stops coming out, but her ears are still red. So I drive 12 miles to my other yard, wearing the bee suite, waving at folks, getting the strangest looks back, lol, fun day.


----------



## Nharcher1

Was pleasantly surprised today when I checked on my first hive that was started from a package. It was very slow to start and the queen was laying a lot of drone in worked cells. Bees were also backfilling and everything seemed to be a mess. I figured this was my first attempt so I would just keep checking every week and see what happened and what I could learn. 

Today was the most worker brood I've seen. Almost no drone brood and the brood pattern is improving and instead of backfilled brood cells they we were loaded up with eggs. 

Nice when things go well


----------



## AHudd

Friday 06-03-2016, I finally found and dispatched a Queen in a very hot hive. Yesterday, the 7th, I destroyed all QCs, they were all over the place, then added a frame with eggs which I notched in a couple of spots. I think I will check in a couple of days to see if they have started building a QC.





















Alex


----------



## JoshuaW

Today I made 4 splits: this brings the nuc yard to 10. 2 had robbing problems, so I shut the robbers in. 

Also did mite checks: 7 samples of 1/2 cup each. 6 samples had no mites, 1 sample had three. I had done an oav in February, and I removed some drone brood here and there. I'll check again in 4 or 6 weeks.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Checked the main hives, looks like a little nectar flow might be starting. Robbed from them frames to make up 2 mating nucs (4 frame deeps). These will go with the three others made queenless back on May 30 to make five queenless, making queen cells. I'm going to be receiving queens for them from Fusion_power early this coming week, and will destroy queen cells and introduce the new queens.


Nice day, slight breeze, low 80's

Fusion_power sent me 8 queens, half are going to JRG13 when he can make it up here. I made up 3 more nucs to go with the other five made up from various times in the last ten days, pinched all queen cells in the first five, and installed all 8 queens from Fusion_power. I removed all attendants and marked the queens before installing them, they are caged with candy. I'll keep watch on them over the next few days.

Checked through a few other hives. Made up syrup and put feeders on 6 of the nucs/hives that needed it. I'm feeding at least some syrup every day now. I've got some single deep 8 framers that were upgraded nucs that are drawing wax well now.

About three weeks ago I had made splits off a couple hives, pulling the two queens off into nucs, and making up two more nucs, plus the original hives... I've killed one of the queens for lack of performance and joined her with the other one. The other four have now got laying queens. So, four new laying queens in the yard, one of the old queens were pinched, so turned two hives into 5.

Took a count, I now have 23 hives/nucs with queens in them now. 3 of the 23 for honey production.


----------



## EvilZeg

Prepped two of my hives to move to my new bee yard. 

Happy to see my weaker hive is picking up the pace.


----------



## m0dem

Today I ordered my first supplies for a langstroth hive from Mann Lake.
2 deeps
20 assembled ritecell frames
1 pro feeder
1 Chinese grafting tool
1lb 7D nails
1 Migratory top cover
1 Bottom Board (w/reducer)
1 Plastic Queen Excluder
Total: $128.70
Not exactly "in" my apiary, but definitely for it.


----------



## AHudd

I checked on the hive today that I am re-queening. They are making QC's with the eggs I gave them.















Alex


----------



## Zephyr

RayMarler said:


> Solid cloudy and 85, what a nice relief.


I'm jealous! Been sunny and mid 90's. Collecting wax has been a nightmare.

Took out 2 frames who had just one face mostly drawn each. They keep trying to fuse frames together or glue the tops to bottoms of the ones above them (like to kill em for that. Every time!) The worst drawn one had some eggs and capped drones and workers. The other was alright but had a column sticking out where it merged to the neighboring frame and was full of nectar. Left both out so workers could take back the resources... forgot about it till after noon! The brood comb had fallen off and was nearly too soft to handle. The nectar comb looked completely polished. No nectar and the wax distributed neatly so I dont even have to wax it! Put the brood comb in a bucket but it caught this morning's sun. Partly melted, pupae all over, ants, mixed with dirt in the bucket when it liquefied. To whoever makes wax products, hats off to you. What a mess this is but the more I do it, the easier it gets. 

At least I got a sample of what the honey will be like this time next year. Very light and sweet, it was good! There are 2 flowers in bloom in southeast Arkansas (what looks like black eyed susans and some shrub/tree with large bundles of tiny white flowers) that cured my dearth and turned my bees back into the calm hive I knew pre-sting! Still lacking confidence, woe is the this new beek!


----------



## crofter

Sometimes the bee wins!

I spotted a dragonfly take a bee that was coming in for a landing. A bit of a struggle in the air, then a buzzing gyration in the sand. Since I have queens that could be mating I bent down to see what the bugger had grabbed and at that moment the bee took off and the dragonfly sat befuddled on the ground. I think it took a sting in the boiler room. No sign of a torn off stinger so maybe the bee just had a really close call!


----------



## diymom

Inspected after three weeks of installing my new queen in the queenless hive and I still have no new comb being drawn! They are in two eight frame mediums and have the original 10 medium frames they are using. The queen was laying on the outer comb opposite the entrance, so she may be running out of room. Why are the bees not drawing comb???
I am seeing much more activity at the entrance and some orientation flights at three today. New brood should finally be hatching too.
I decided to checkerboard a frame in between the pollen and honey stores. And another in the bottom box the same way. Maybe that will inspire them. It's been two months since I got my bees and I am going nuts waiting to see new comb!


----------



## squarepeg

i'm seeing heavy bearding on all of the hives across the yard for the first time this season, suggesting to me that not enough nectar was brought in today to require processing, and signaling to me the start of our summer dearth. 

this is coming about 3 - 4 weeks earlier than it has in the previous few years, as did most all of the other milestones this year given the earlier start to spring that we had along with the absence of any late freezes. 

we are also experiencing severe drought at this time and that isn't helping matters although the forecast is favorable for us to return to more normal rainfall over the upcoming weeks. either way, this summer dearth looks like it will be longer and dryer than normal and it will be interesting to see how the bees handle it.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Went back out to my beeyards after work. Bam. Think I'll be able to squeak in two cells builders setup by tomorrow. Got to grocery store just as they are closing. Big boy dinner tonight. Chocolate cereal.


----------



## GaryG74

Thought swarm season was over, caught one yesterday that would go about five pounds. Found it early in the morning, about 8 AM so probably swarmed the previous afternoon late. Looks like it's going to stay in the hive I put it in. Was a lot of bees orienting today from it.

Like squarepeg, seeing some serious bearding the last couple of days. Hot and humid, may get some rain by the weekend. Bees are bring in yellow pollen (crepe myrtles probably), sumac a couple weeks off if we can get some rain.


----------



## Tim KS

GaryG74 said:


> *Thought swarm season was over*, caught one yesterday that would go about five pounds.


Today I drove through the second of two swarms in the last week. The first was on Interstate 35 just north of Oklahoma City....just killed a couple on the windshield as I drove through them. Today's swarm was on the outskirts of Wichita, KS on the by-pass (235).......they splattered the windshield pretty good...maybe killed 30 or so.


----------



## tunedin5ths

The two packages I installed in March are now filling 2 10-frame deeps. I will super after I assemble more frames tomorrow. I don't know if this is typical for new packages on foundationless frames in my area or not. The swarm I captured a month ago has filled their first deep and I added a 2nd deep today. They have a little hotter temperament than the package bees, and seem to propolize more. I removed all the feeders, opened entrances all the way up on all 3, removed the mite count boards, and gave everyone a top entrance. Temps are supposed to be in the 90s for a while.


----------



## Beeathlon

Finally got my first hive this wednesday. 
Moved it from my mentors farm to "the wilderness". We ofcourse moved it at night, so there was no "action" 
at the entrance. When I stood there alone at night looking at the box, I had a mixed feeling of joy and fear.
I moved the hive very gently on the stand, (to adjust it to where I wanted it). I then realised I was alone in the woods
with a box with thousands of stinging insects. Today I will move them to one of my own boxes and give the original back to my mentor.
Wish me luck.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Beeathlon,

Sounds like you are off to a good start. With a mentor to fall back on you will do just fine. Don't let thousands of bug intimidate you and just hang in there.

Steve


----------



## Beeathlon

Well. Im back from todays box change. 
First lesson learnt: Learn to light a smoker and be sure it produces smoke more than two minutes.
At first I used dry grass. This burnt up straight away. I later added some pine needles, and this worked better, but still I need to do some work on this.
More moisture is needed in the smoker it seems.

Not much activity outside the hive, but one or two bees coming and going every other second. Most carry pollen. I also saw some bees searching for water in leaves on the lawn.
I opened the hive and discovered that all frames were covered in bees. I guess that is good. 6 frames of bees, and a spare frame with honey.
I figured the bees might need space, so I removed the "filler insulation" and moved the food frame to the back of the frames. (My frames are oriented in the "cold" direction).
I also added 3 frames with just foundation. I will take a peek at them later next week, but they might need to settle a bit first.
The bees were a bit distraught about the whole thing it seems. They increased their activity outside. Some just sitting on the hive box. Some were hovering outside, and some just hung out at the entrance.
Some bees decided it was a good idea to go into the old empty box 3 feet away. I placed the new hive in the spot of the old one.
I did not inspect the frames or look for the queen, just made the move.

Lesson learnt: 
-Smoker-training is important.
-Have a plan on how to order the frames. Take your time to think it through.
-If in doubt or anything unusual or unexpected reveal itself when you open, close up the hive and think a bit.

As this is the first time for me alone I ofcourse worry about having killed the queen. I cant see a step of the move where this was likely to happen, but accidents do happen.

Will inspect them more properly in a week. Will consider feeding them some sugar to help them build wax if that is going slow. Maybe a late july split?


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Beeathlon,

A good inexpensive smoker fuel is burlap bags. The burlap can be cut into roughly 5 cm X 5 cm and sort of crumpled up (not layered) and lit in the smoker. Alternatively you can cut a long strip of burlap (~ 12 - 14 cm. wide and 50-60 cm. long) and roll it up with a large hole in the middle. The light the middle of the roll on the bottom and put it in your smoker with the lighted end down. Pump a few times and it should burn for an hour or more. Burlap bags are often used to ship coffee beans in and when you find a source they are often free. Old cotton blue jeans work well too, after the knees go out on them.

Please define your use of the term: "cold direction", regarding frame orientation.

Steve


----------



## Tim KS

Bear Creek Steve said:


> Beeathlon,
> 
> A good inexpensive smoker fuel is burlap bags. The burlap can be cut into roughly 5 cm X 5 cm and sort of crumpled up (not layered) and lit in the smoker. Alternatively you can cut a long strip of burlap (~ 12 - 14 cm. wide and 50-60 cm. long) and roll it up with a large hole in the middle. The light the middle of the roll on the bottom and put it in your smoker with the lighted end down. Pump a few times and it should burn for an hour or more. Burlap bags are often used to ship coffee beans in and when you find a source they are often free. Old cotton blue jeans work well too, after the knees go out on them.
> 
> Please define your use of the term: "cold direction", regarding frame orientation.
> 
> Steve


Try rolling up strips of corrugated cardboard with those jeans....works good.


----------



## Zephyr

diymom said:


> Inspected after three weeks of installing my new queen in the queenless hive and I still have no new comb being drawn! They are in two eight frame mediums and have the original 10 medium frames they are using. The queen was laying on the outer comb opposite the entrance, so she may be running out of room. Why are the bees not drawing comb???
> I am seeing much more activity at the entrance and some orientation flights at three today. New brood should finally be hatching too.
> I decided to checkerboard a frame in between the pollen and honey stores. And another in the bottom box the same way. Maybe that will inspire them. It's been two months since I got my bees and I am going nuts waiting to see new comb!


I'm having a similar problem; slow buildup & I got mine 2 months ago as well! My plastic foundation was essentially waxless so what they did draw out wasnt very good. I've been pulling & melting the combs to brush on frames. While they are slower than what everyone says is good, the waxing did seem to steer them in the right direction. Maybe they cant draw for jack and just like to color inside the lines! Prehaps you should try that out on a frame and see if they take. Good luck!


----------



## Beeathlon

Cold orientation: Frames run parallell to entrance.
Warm: Frames are 90 degrees on entrance.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Fusion_power sent me 8 queens, half are going to JRG13 when he can make it up here. I made up 3 more nucs to go with the other five made up from various times in the last ten days, pinched all queen cells in the first five, and installed all 8 queens from Fusion_power. I removed all attendants and marked the queens before installing them, they are caged with candy. I'll keep watch on them over the next few days...


Clear and 90F

Let this be a lesson to me once again, and to others. When installing queens, only install them into desperately hopelessly queenless hives or nucs...

The three nucs I'd made up that day for 3 of the 8 queens of Fusion_power, I checked today and 2 of them had released and killed (I assume, the queens were missing and queen cells had been started...) but the third had been released and accepted; The two that went into 4 day old nucs where I killed the started cells and introduced a queen each, those had been released, but one of them was not on the combs, she was on the side wall of the box. I'll check in a few more days to see how she's doing: The other three went into ten day old nucs, I had killed the started cells, those three queens had all been released and accepted well. 

Making up syrup now, 12 of the 4 and 8 frame nucs need feed.


----------



## RayMarler

And, the 2 that had rejected the queens, I stacked one on top of the other in a 4 over 4 stacked configuration.


----------



## osmievod

Hi. I'm a novice in beekeeping. A week ago I made a trap on 5 framework. Average with empty combs, the remaining wax. Put this creation in the garden on pear height of about 3M. Today I looked - out Roy(my first swarm in the first trap). 
Bees through the notches flies a bit in the trap bees on two frames. pull the wax which is closer to the middle.
Question: beehive is 15m from the pear. If I put the frames with bees in the hive, and the trap put back on the tree, a swarm of hive will not run away back to the tree?
what would you recommend would be better? can keep not to touch them?


----------



## Phoebee

We had more of an adventure than we expected this weekend, but it seems to have worked out.

The plan this week was to move Nuc 1 into 8-frame quarters. This hive had our grandmamma queen, the Lavender Lady, given to us by our mentor in 2014. She is a locally-crossed VSH bee, descended from a TF line, and has a very good track record. We raised two daughters from her last year, with hopes of making some more this year. She spent the last 10 months in the nuc. She has never swarmed before, and tended to keep her brood production in line with available space. But things were getting crowded ... the old girl is not out of eggs yet. Last week we moved her from her special garage window location out to the garden. Some foragers, of course, kept going back to the window.

This weekend we started the transfer to 8-frame. Her top medium was not only drawn, but was full of brood and had capped queen cells. Second medium had the same. And the bottom deep had a queen cell. But we were in luck, the Lavender Lady was still there, easily identified by her unique lavender dot. We moved her back into the same nuc, with a frame of her brood, plus some stores from a strong granddaughter. She went back into the garage window location, much to the satisfaction of the foragers who still think of that as home. The 8-frame still has queen cells and should raise their own.

Two other frames with queen cells went into a queen castle we built last month, along with a frame each of stores from the granddaughter. I'm glad we got that thing ... its really handy if you find yourself suddenly with a lot of queen cells from a bee you want to make queens from. So hopefully, the Lavender Lady now has three more daughters.

Everybody got fed. Despite a hot, dry week that we'd hope would produce nectar, all the hives had lost weight, and stores are looking sorry. 5:3 was greatly appreciated. Even the two 2-frame nucs in the queen castles polished off a pint each overnight.


----------



## Cloverdale

On May 8 we made 6 splits and one walk away split with swarm cells; happy to say all have laying queens now BUT the 3 mother hives swarmed around May 18-20. out of 3 hives that swarmed two have laying queens, one still waiting. Everything took longer than usual to happen. We have now started our sustainable apiary using Michael Palmers way.


----------



## EvilZeg

Moved my final hive into my bee yard.


----------



## Paul_B

Went into the beeyard today with a clear plan. One of my two hives won't move up into the second brood box, which happens to be a medium over a deep. I planned on pulling two frames of honey from the deep to freeze and dropping two mediums in their place. Then, let the bees draw out the two frames, move them up next week and repeat. However, they were honey bound, and low on brood. 

So, I went over to my other, the stronger hive, to pull two frames of brood and drop in the weak hive. Turns out the strong hive is also honey bound, but going strong. So I pulled the frames of brood, mixed frames of foundation in between honey frames and dropped the brood in the weak hive. Closed everything up and started walking away. Then I realized I never checked for the queen. 

And of course the queen in is on one of the two frames I pulled. Phew! I almost created an even bigger problem. Still loads of fun though!


----------



## m0dem

Saw the queen in my first hive! My other queen is black. I really like the colors of my two queens. Both from feral swarms. I like the auburn color


----------



## ForestHillHoney

Woke up to two nucs, late season I know, decimated by my local black bear. The nucs were headed to VT tomorrow. Shame on me....


----------



## yukonjack

Pulled our first frame of honey for personal consumption after our first full year of bee-having!
Did an inspection and our Italians had started cross comb off the end of a frame in the top medium-box/super.
We tried to fix it, but it was full and thick, and tore up the end of it to the point where it was really leaking.
My kids, who have been patiently waiting for a year (we left the bees everything for the winter) "suggested" that maybe we should "test" this frame of honey to see "if it was any good".
15 minutes later, I'd guess about 3.5 to 4 lbs of honey and comb were diced up into plastic kitchen containers with lids. The kids are on their bikes, racing like wild banshees, headed out to share with their friends.
Great start to the weekend!


----------



## Bdfarmer555

Easier to laugh after a few hours of reflection:

Been busy for 2 weeks planting soybeans. Today, I found that in those 2 weeks, my 5 mating nucs have gotten very hot, and very hungry. Have a small entrance to prevent robbing, and it appears that there wasn't enough airflow to keep the brood cooled. 

I found 2 queens still alive, and decided to cage them(protect them from the new bees), and fortify the nucs with bees/brood from other hives and add syrup to boost them. As I tried to catch the first queen and place her in the cage(first attempt ever, not good at this at all, apparently) she took flight. I remained still and calm, knowing that the dummy in the white suit (me) would serve as a landmark for her. 

She soon returned, but before I even bent down, flew again. After a couple more circles, she landed on the front of the neighboring hive! They ran her off, but after 2 more circles, she returned to the foreign hive face. The resident guard bees ran her up the front wall and underneath the ledge of the tele-cover. 

I finally was able to dislodge the ball of angry bees from the cover, only to see them disappear into the tall grass below. Quickly parting the vegetation, I picked up the fighting females and quickly dropped them again, but this time next to her home hive. This time I picked individual attackers from this poor queen until I was able to put her in the cage. She has a stinger in one of her back legs, another in her abdomen. 

Added the frame of brood, and only a few nurse bees, then took off. When I placed the hive at the new location, there were several bees on the queen cage, and none looked threatening, so I decided to release her. She hurriedly exited the cage, and then froze as if to be glad to be home. Then slowly limped down the frame. 

I decided that my attempts to help were just too cruel to subject the other queen to that kind of abuse...she has a better chance without my "help".


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Clear and 90F
> 
> Let this be a lesson to me once again, and to others. When installing queens, only install them into desperately hopelessly queenless hives or nucs...
> 
> The three nucs I'd made up that day for 3 of the 8 queens of Fusion_power, I checked today and 2 of them had released and killed (I assume, the queens were missing and queen cells had been started...) but the third had been released and accepted; The two that went into 4 day old nucs where I killed the started cells and introduced a queen each, those had been released, but one of them was not on the combs, she was on the side wall of the box. I'll check in a few more days to see how she's doing: The other three went into ten day old nucs, I had killed the started cells, those three queens had all been released and accepted well.
> 
> And, the 2 that had rejected the queens, I stacked one on top of the other in a 4 over 4 stacked configuration.


Those two queens, one of them was not missing, I checked the stacked nucs and found one of the queens was in there and laying, Checked the other six and all are laying. I'll give them a week or two and see how they doing. So, only one was rejected, that's great.

Checked through a few other hives, put quart of syrup on a total of 19.


----------



## EvilZeg

Sunny and 89F.

Pinched the queen that was not laying and did a newspaper combine with my strong NUC. 

The hive that I captured the swarm from had formed a queen cell but it did not hatch. It is still on the bottom frame, but upon further inspection they are building two new queen cells. I saw that they are not capped yet but full of royal jelly. I will check it again in a few days, and I might add another frame of eggs and larva just to play it safe.

My third hive is still booming they are filling the honey super I placed on them last week.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Virgin tore down cells. Gotta put them back above an excluder dummy...setup 3 new cell builders for first of July. Time for nachos.


----------



## Homestead Expressions

Opened hives to bottom brood chamber to remove burr comb that went into the bottom screen board. Didn't find queen but saw eggs. The bees were remarkably tolerant of this enormous intrusion. Fed brood cells that where in said burr comb to our chickens...nearly had a riot


----------



## vtbeeguy

Yesterday I took my 2 queens I got from Michael Palmer (thanks Mike!!!) requeened one of my nucs that had a failing queen. Used the second queen to make a split from my Italian hive. Took 2 frames of brood and 1 of honey along with 1 empty comb and I frame foundation. Brings me up to 5 hives for my first year beekeeping.


----------



## EvilZeg

My newspaper combine went well, check the hive and had a frame full of capped brood. My 2nd hive I believe has a laying worker, I'm adding a frame of eggs and larva from my super hive.
My 3rd "Super" hive is going strong, fill up the honey supers and has a ton of bees in it. I'm debating adding a 3rd deep or making a split.


----------



## m0dem

EvilZeg said:


> My 2nd hive I believe has a laying worker


laying worker*s*


----------



## EvilZeg

m0dem said:


> laying worker*s*


True


----------



## Cyan

First 2 stings of the year. The first one was through my jeans, right above the knee- not so bad. The second one was landed by a bee that found her way up the other leg on the inside on my jeans. Felt like someone drove a red hot nail into it. Thank all that is good that she didn't craw another 8 inches into no man's land. Lol


----------



## RayMarler

clear and 90F or higher today.

One queen missing, with queen cells. Destroyed all the cells. Upgraded 8 nucs to single deeps, giving one of the combs from the missing queen hive to each one. Put syrup on them and a couple others. It's going to take probably 3 more brood cycles to get everyone built up and equalized. Pollen sub needs to go on most of them but did not get to that today.


----------



## Agis Apiaries

Building new deeps and wiring frames in preparation for adding second deeps to all of our splits tomorrow and upgrading one nuc to a full deep.


----------



## Beeathlon

Well..
I did move frames from my mentors box to my own. Didnt seem so strong.
Queen not seen, but small larvae spotted. I was worried I had to feed them during the june gap.
I also received a hive from our association. 6-7 frames with food and larvae. Seemed pretty weak on first inspection.
Not many bees I thought. Worried a bit about their numbers, bought some sugar.
Got some rain and a couple of days with sun and 25 degrees celsius.

A week later I was walking along the path towards the hives and heard something resemling an airplane landing.
The latest hive was swarming! The swarm the size of a football (american football) was lodged on a branch of a spruce tree 10-15 ms up!
I kind of freaked out. Went to place a bait hive between the two existing hives. 5 minutes later the swarm was gone..

I guess the "new" hive was halved in ammount of bees and almost no foragers left. Still, they did not seem much weaker than the week before.. No robbing seemed to take place.
I found just one capped queen cell..
The old hive was bustling with activity. I feared they might be next and checkerboarded them, placed super and removed some of the brood frames (3) and placed them on a snelgrove board above the super.
I might have overdone it with the "old" hive with my interventions. 
What Im pondering now is what to do next. Should I channel the foragers from the one above the snelgrove down into the parent hive, or try to get it to build up on its own letting the foragers go into the one above?
I might not have an option since the foragers will not join this newest hive if I move it on its own bottom board.
I am not aiming for a big honey crop this year.


----------



## Bowfinger

went down to the bee yard. looked at my hive stand I made from 2x4s . the legs were shifting, up. went home got a car jack and jacked it up and drove more screws in. This one was made when I only had 3 hives on it now it has 5 and they are now HEAVY. I could have fallen what a disaster that would have been. I will fix it better.


----------



## EvilZeg

Went to the bee yard to check out my hives today. 

NUC. Doing well after combining with week hive #1. One frame of capped brood ringed with honey and pollen. Another frame full of young larva plenty of stores. 

Hive #2. Lots of bees a little hit today. I had introduced a frame of eggs and larva last week. Since it was late in the day I did not go all the way into the bottom deep. I will this weekend to check for eggs/queen cell. 

Hive #3. Booming. Lots of bees. Bottom honey super is almost completely capped. Second honey super is getting filled. The bottom super is all light honey, but the top one has some dark honey mixed in. Not quite sure what the source of the dark honey is yet.


----------



## Zephyr

Do yall think planting fruit trees by a hive might lure robbers? Got a decent pin oak providing a couple hours midday shade but the ladies have been bearding quite a bit the last few weeks. Heat index keep going over 100 so I think they'd appreciate some extra protection!


----------



## Joe Mac

Planting fruit trees will not cause robbing, but I would consider giving them a little upper ventilation if they don't have any. You can put a couple of small chunks of wood 3/8" or so thick under one end of the top cover, (if you use a telescoping cover) to give them a little extra ventilation. A strong hive will beard late in the afternoon and that's normal. Several of mine were bearding and I gave them a little upper ventilation and now it is minimal. A lot of beeks swear by "full sun" for their hives as an aid to control SHB, but in our neck of the woods the temp can be triple digits for weeks at a time and the bees get hot and use a lot of energy fanning to keep the hive from overheating. I prefer to locate them where they get early morning sun to get them up and going, but begin to get shade by 1:00 or so.


----------



## InBees

Came up with a bee yard/hive reference coding system (for my four hives, lol) and an iPad spreadsheet notetaking system. Saw eggs for the first time. LOTS of them. In spite of a rough start this spring, colony populations are finally increasing. Rapidly. Feeling more optimistic than I did this past spring!!


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and 80F this morning in the beeyard.

Checked on a few hives/nucs today. 

A couple of the nucs that has Fusion_power queens only had one to two frames of bees, so I went into two other hives and pulled one frame from each of sealed brood with adhering bees, and gave one to each of the weaker nucs. I guess they were made up with only a couple frames of bees when they were installed back on June 9th, so needed a little boost today.

Put syrup jars on seven hives, the larger ones that can take it. The weaker ones, they still have stores and more syrup would hamper them instead of helping at this time.

Today is forecast to be the end of over 100F days for a week, so glad of that. A week or more of over 100F temps has taken it's toll on me and the bees. Things looked pretty good in the beeyard today though.


----------



## squarepeg

sat in the golf cart under a shade tree sipping a cold beer watching a little pollen and mostly water getting brought into the hive entrances while mrs. squarepeg sold this week's harvest of two cases of honey at the farmer's market. life is good, happy 4th ya'll.


----------



## EvilZeg

Hives are doing well, harvested my first honey this season and got to use my Mannlake 3 frame extractor my awesome wife got me for Father's Day. Honey has a hint of apple. 

https://youtu.be/qlmbir0UIrA


----------



## Phoebee

Good news, bad news. Mostly good news.

Get the bad news out of the way. The Cossacks are showing classic Russian pessimism. They swarmed over a month ago. The new queen never did start laying, so last week we pinched her and gave them some brood to see if they would raise a queen. They're raising the brood but did not make a queen.

Now for the good news. Both apartments in the queen castle apparently have mated queens. I insist I see eggs, and the new queens look fat and sassy. We'll let them ride to next week to be certain. The hive we pulled their queen cells from also has a new queen, but apparently still a virgin. We believe we damaged the queen cells we put back in that one (they were on the bottom of a frame and were probably crushed). But there were fresh eggs still in the broodnest so they were able to raise several queens (we saw the cells still being broken down).

Meanwhile, their mother, the venerable Lavender Lady, is back in her nuc laying down brood like there's no tomorrow. We'll probably breed more queens from her this summer if any of our friends want them. One of her new daughters will take over the Cossacks, the other will be given to our mentor, who gave us the Lavender Lady back in 2014, and would like to get her line reinforced.

And most of the hives actually managed to put on some weight this week. We think we now know where the late-June, early-July mini-flow came from last summer: common milkweed. They're working it with enthusiasm.


----------



## Metis27

Today was a *great* day. I was reminded by the bees the reason I got into beekeeping. I have been leaving them alone for the most part - inspecting once a week. I added a honey super 2 weeks ago and had not seen ANY thing on the frames. Today I went thru both hives - found two strong, growing hives - lots of activity - calm and productive. The first hive seems to be growing quicker. The second brood box is built out to 8 frames. They have also started gathering honey in the super. The second hive is considerably slower. There is certainly evidence of queens in each with lots of capped brood etc. They have only built out 4 to 5 frames of the second brood box and there is no honey in the super. 
I am a first time beekeeper. I had gotten into the pattern of inspections but not really seeing much difference week to week. This week was different. Gone is the angst. The bees are calm. I am using much less smoke. 
Its simply amazing to me to see such a growth since my last inspection. When I lifted the frames full of brood and honey - it was an amazing feeling. I had mentally micromanaged these hives and in the end, they just did their work. A great day ~


----------



## Arnie

Ya know, Metis, I have seen what the bees can do when conditions are right many times, but the amazement never goes away. The thrill of the first honey of the year is still there. They are truly astonishing creatures.


----------



## Knisely

This morning I finished building two Rauchfuss queen castles from 1 x 12" shelves that I pinched from my mother-in-law's home when it was being sold for a tear-down so that a mini-mansion could be built on the lot. 3 car garage, no lawn. You may know the type. Not my kind of home. I would abscond.

Frank Rauchfuss was a big-time beekeeper in Colorado a century ago who came up with the approach of dividing a 10 frame deep super into four 2-frame mininucs, according to Frank Pellett in "Practical Queen Bee Rearing". I started mine from on-line plans from Honeydrunk Apiaries (http://honeydrunkapiaries.blogspot.com/2014/11/build-your-own-queen-castle-two-frame.html), but adapted it, of course, to what I felt would be a better approach that would provide some extra room under the frames (by not ripping the boards down to the depth of a normal deep brood super) for any dangling queen cells built when a colony wants to swarm. When a colony gets to that stage, I'm a proponent of breaking it up to a degree that short-circuits that swarming urge, and every frame with a queen cell on it can be used to get a new nuc going.

After the Rauchfuss queen castle was built, I chose 8 frames of capped brood and nectar/pollen from my colonies to put in all four chambers and added queen cells that I cut out. Frames of foundation replaced those pilfered frames. I hope that there's still going to be a nectar flow as we enter July so that they are drawn out promptly and well. 

I look forward to seeing how these mini-colonies work out. I hope that at least 75% return from a mating flight and start new colonies. 

New things to try, new things to learn.


----------



## Phoebee

We recently stuck two frames with queen cells into two apartments of a queen castle, along with a frame each of stores. We cut holes in the top boards, put on pint Bordman feeders, and added a 10-frame deep body as a feeder shell. Three weeks later, both have fat new queens and eggs. It don't get any easier, and a queen castle is easier to put in service than four nucs.

They're also great fun to decorate if you're so inclined. Ours has a big golden crown, and each of the four entrances is decorated with a Disney princess sticker. The two queens being raised at the moment are Cindy and Jasmine.


----------



## frysl

Requeened two very aggressive hives a week ago, went into them today to make sure they were out and doing queen bee things. Didn't see either queen, but saw a lot of young larvae in both hives so all seems to be good. Can't wait for the new queens off spring to start dominating the hive.


----------



## Cloverdale

Well, my day in the apiary is finding AFB in a hive on Saturday, couldn't inspect on Sunday, do went in today and found some in another hive. I am thinking I might have to burn all 13 in this apiary. One was a new package, another was a split. On top of that we had to pick up 4 Buckfast queens that someone drove up to Ferguson's Apiary in Canada and picked up an order.
I have been anticipating these queens for quite a while. I'll save them somehow! Very very sad about my bees. Wish I could figure out where the spores came from.


----------



## frustrateddrone

About 8PM on the 4th of July I was on the lawn tractor. I mowed the leach field of Mexican Hats and a few other flowers. The bee stand is right in back of it. 1st time I have mowed and not been worried about being attacked by the bees. I had Africanized bees and had previously mowed with my bee suit on if I was mowing anywhere near the bee hives. 
It's really nice to be able to have gentle bees. REALLY IT IS!


----------



## Arnie

Checked the laying worker nuc and found a young queen. Right on schedule after the third frame of open brood given to them. 
A nice jet black queen; like the Black Onyx queen Tenbears talks about. Let's see what she can do; she's got a lot of catching up to do.

The other hives are expanding, with seven starting to draw the foundation for cut comb.


----------



## VickyLynn

I checked on one of my splits that had made their own queen who, two weeks ago, was laying well. Well, today, no where in sight and she left no evidence that she had been there, except for one small capped queen cell the workers had made. So, something happened to her. I'll let the queen emerge and see how she is. I will probably end up combining this split with one of my mating nucs when (if) the virgin queen comes back from mating (have to wait until July 17 to see eggs).

Exchanged some capped super frames with empty extracted ones. Some frames are so close to being pulled, maybe another week.


----------



## Zephyr

Joe Mac said:


> Planting fruit trees will not cause robbing, but I would consider giving them a little upper ventilation if they don't have any. You can put a couple of small chunks of wood 3/8" or so thick under one end of the top cover, (if you use a telescoping cover) to give them a little extra ventilation. A strong hive will beard late in the afternoon and that's normal. Several of mine were bearding and I gave them a little upper ventilation and now it is minimal. A lot of beeks swear by "full sun" for their hives as an aid to control SHB, but in our neck of the woods the temp can be triple digits for weeks at a time and the bees get hot and use a lot of energy fanning to keep the hive from overheating. I prefer to locate them where they get early morning sun to get them up and going, but begin to get shade by 1:00 or so.


Just a bit ago my relatives a few miles up the way had their purchased hive abscond. His boxes were new and he had more food sources than I do but his got a lot more sun. Luckily my hive came with a top entry plus a bottom one & the wood is a little warped so theres gaps between boxes and the roof doesnt sit straight. Protects them enough but I can see inside without lifting the lid  

Last time we had weather like this it was May when I started getting my first stings! Someone needs to drop a glacier on us so I can get in there. Today's heat index was 109... Not up for more angry insects.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and 90+ today, was pretty nice day.

Late in the afternoon I checked on a few of the hives, mostly the queens from Fusion_power and from Carpenter's Apiaries...

One of Fusion_power's queens is being superseded. One of Fusion_power's is building wax and is ahead of all the other queens of his here. One of Carpenter's queens is still not building up well, the other is doing pretty good.

Both Fusion_power's and Carpenter's queens have much spottier brood and so don't build up as fast as Palmer's queens or my line of queens, but I guess that can be expected as they are advertised as VSH and Allogrooming beees.

Michael Palmer's best queen here and three of the daughters I've kept are doing exceptional, clear brood frame bar to frame bar and building up quite fast and drawing wax.

Two or three of my line of bees daughters are also doing very well, clear brood and drawing wax.

Put syrup feeders on 14 of the hives today.

I see mites on some bees and signs of mites in many of the hives, so the pressure is on and will be for the rest of the year.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Should have built more frames last winter. Hives are full. Nucs are full. 
Full of bees. Full of honey. Put in a super and walk away, seem fine to me!


----------



## JRG13

found my Cordovan swarm queen I captured in the spring of 2013. I knew she was slowing down this year and I thought she was gone as I found a daughter queen laying in the hive awhile ago. I went to pull a frame of brood yesterday and low and behold she caught my eye with that purple thorax. She's kind of slow on the frames now and you can tell she's got some mileage on her from her wings and her daughter was on the other side of the frame.





In her prime


----------



## JRG13

found my Cordovan swarm queen I captured in the spring of 2013. I knew she was slowing down this year and I thought she was gone as I found a daughter queen laying in the hive awhile ago. I went to pull a frame of brood yesterday and low and behold she caught my eye with that purple thorax. She's kind of slow on the frames now and you can tell she's got some mileage on her from her wings and her daughter was on the other side of the frame.





In her prime


----------



## squarepeg

we lucked up and got a couple of good soaking rains last week and at least the lawn is not crunchy anymore, but we remain in a state of extreme drought.

i haven't seen any uncapping of stored spring honey, but at the same time i'm not seeing any new nectar being put into empty comb.

i'm seeing drones getting evicted from a few hives and not being allowed to enter any of the others.

it's dearth here with a capital d.


----------



## Snapset

Dug deep into all 5 hives and 6 nucs today. Encouraged by what I saw. I thought I had 2 queenless Nucs, but the last brood transfer did the trick. Found queens and nice capped brood in both Nucs. 

I have been feeding heavily all summer in an effort to get sufficient comb and resources for winter and spring. It looks like a success. All but one of the hives is effectively full. In fact, they are honey (capped syrup) bound. I'm not sure if that is a significant problem this late in the season, but I made a call for some queens to do some splits. Not sure yet what to do. I have 1 queenless dwindling hive I will lose, but the rest are looking healthy.

I had 2 hives that laid out 3 full deep frames of drones in May, and finally those drone numbers are starting to fall off, and these hives are gaining weight like they should. While it feels like the dearth should be upon us, the blackberries sprout blooms with each rain and we are awash in dandelions and thistle blooms. Bees are working hard and hauling in the pollen. I need to throw together another 20 Nuc bodies this week in case I do split these boomers.


----------



## Phoebee

Our bees must think we're crazy.

We checked the Queen Castle and both queens had capped brood. The one with the most brood was Cinderella (its how we label the apartments). But when we tried to cage her, she got loose and flew back down into her apartment, and hid. So we moved over to Jasmine, who had significantly less brood, but what the heck, she's good enough to take over from the queenless colony of Cossacks.

So we opened the Cossacks and found ... queen cells. Several frames of brood introduced 2 and three weeks ago in an attempt to make them raise a queen, suddenly had queen cells, apparently made pretty late. We dug these out, revealing several undersized pupae that could not have possibly produced viable queens. Jasmine is now in there on one of her brood frames, and time will tell. 

The following day we found Cindy again, this time using a queen catcher. She got away again, this time flying down into the grass. But being a fat queen, she was unable to fly from there and I was able to catch her. She's caged and in a jar with some attendants, ready to become our mentor's problem tomorrow. Good layer ... just paranoid.

Cindy had several brood frames with eggs to capped larvae. These needed a home, so we put those and the stores frames from the queen castle into a deep nuc body and squeezed them in with her mother's nuc. Hopefully they won't try to make queen cells. Next week we should have a new queen we've had on order since January, and this hive body will become the new queen's nuc. We wonder if Grandma feels put upon, suddenly having a whole new nuc of babies.


----------



## m0dem

Phoebee said:


> We dug these out, revealing several *undersized pupae* that could not have possibly produced viable queens.


hmm...
If you don't know the *exact* times on when the queen cells were started and such... how can you judge the size and viability of a queen by its pupae?
And how can one tell the "proper" size of a queen pupae?
Something's rotten in Denmark.


----------



## Phoebee

m0dem said:


> hmm...
> If you don't know the *exact* times on when the queen cells were started and such... how can you judge the size and viability of a queen by its pupae?
> Something's rotten in Denmark.


I'm hoping to look this up, but a capped queen cell should have a fairly large pupae in it, much larger than a worker pupae. Their feeding is done. So finding a dark-eyed pupae less than half an inch long tells me something is wrong. There were no queen cells, open or capped, last week, by which time any eggs present should have been too far along to make into a queen. We do know the dates when we pulled these frames of brood (with eggs present) from a donor hive. I suspect a few workers tried to fatten a larvae up with royal jelly after it was too late to work, and built a queen cell around it.

In any event, the queen cells had to go. We had a new mated and laying queen for them, produced by the Grand Old Lady of the apiary.


----------



## m0dem

Ok, what does a dark-eyed pupae mean? It sounds familiar.

It would be interesting for a scientific test to be made with many bee hives over a few years (maybe 2 or 3 years). Half the bee hives would be allowed to create their own emergency queens (with young enough larvae/eggs available) and the other half would be given a grafted queen cell (from that hive's own queen - the graft cells would have to be marked corresponding with each receiving hive). The colonies would all be given the same exact treatment (not as in actual treating, just the way they are treated  ). After wintering, the colonies would be compared and monitored throughout the year and into the next winter and year. That would be interesting... anybody have about 100 hives open for experimentation?


----------



## EvilZeg

Took off my last honey super. Made a split from my super hive and started mite treatment.


----------



## Phoebee

m0dem said:


> Ok, what does a dark-eyed pupae mean? It sounds familiar.


Dark eyes develop on a pupae late in its term in the cell. It means its nearly a bee. As for the research program, sounds like something a SARE grant might cover.

http://www.sare.org/


----------



## New bee man

Finially I can confirm Queen, Present,Laying.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

One perfect frame of capped brood after another making nucs. Watching all hives from 10am and still going crazy on basswood. 
Beer time. Need to find a girl friend beekeeping partner. It's a shame to enjoy this all alone.


----------



## dtrooster

Took another partial frame of capped brood along with nurses and wax makers from the pink hive and put it in the welfare hive. No signs of fighting then and slid the top over about 30 minutes later. Looking good so far


----------



## AHudd

A strong line of thunderstorms with wind came through at about 3:00. Fortunately, only one 5x5x5 got blown over. You would think they would appreciate it when I went out to stand them up, but no, they acted as though I was the one that knocked them over. :scratch:

Loving the rain though.

Alex


----------



## m0dem

100% mating success!
All 3 of my new queens are mated and laying! Will check back next week for capped brood in all the hives.


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale said:


> Well, my day in the apiary is finding AFB in a hive on Saturday, couldn't inspect on Sunday, do went in today and found some in another hive.


Curious as to how this turned out? was it whole apiary?


----------



## Cloverdale

Almost. 8 hives gone remaining 7(including one top bar, two nucs with brand new Buckfast queens from Ferguson's and one Spring split) seem ok but still inspecting and will keep an eye on them. The latest hives had beautiful brood patterns, very healthy hives; I would find one cell with AFB. Extremely distressing. I have MUCH experience with this now. I won't take any chances with them so I didn't treat any of them, we burned everything. We are not sure how this happened. We extracted some honey frames in April and had robbing from some feral black bees that I had never seen before around here; also an old frame that came in a purchased nuc a few years ago had scale in it. They might have cycled out their old frames and didn't know there was scale on it; again, there are different scenarios of what could have given our bees the spores.


----------



## clyderoad

clover> that's too bad, sorry to hear it. 
did the apiary inspector make any mention as to how much AFB he has seen this season?


----------



## Joe Mac

A strong thunderstorm blew threw my hometown last evening. There were lots of large broken trees and power lines. This morning I got a call at 7:00 from a local tree cutter in Hampton AR to inform me that a large oak tree had broken off during the storm and it had a bee colony in it. He unknowingly cut a tree with a bee colony in it last year and was severely stung, and no longer wants to work around bees. I went to take a look and it was a mess. The tree was large, old and had shattered when it hit the ground and the combs were totally destroyed. There were a lot of bees flying but weren't clustered in one place. A small cluster here and another one over there. Honey was all over the ground and street and there were about as many "looter" bees as there were residents. I suspected that the queen was smashed when it hit the ground. A lot of bees were having trouble flying because they had honey on their wings. I went back home and caught the queen from a very small hive that has been struggling since May. I put her in an intro cage returned to the scene and tied her to a limb. About 2 dozen bees clustered on the cage within a few minutes and I thought this was going to be easy. There were still about that same number after 30 minutes or so and only a couple at a time fanning nasonov. I went back home and got a frame of brood from the same hive that I took the queen from and they weren't interested in it either. I fired up my smoker and started smoking them under the smashed log which was a couple of inches off the ground. There were some fanning nasonov under there and I figured that's where the queen was. After smoking them for several minutes they started swarming and clustering on the only limb left on the broken tree about 20' high. About the time they all got settled on the limb they began to take flight again. The air started filling near where I had been smoking them from. I got the caged queen and started tying the cage to a small limb and before I could get it tied, my hands were almost covered with bees. After just a few minutes they were clustering around her. After a half hour I backed my truck up with the hive across the bed and shook them in. I am going back to get them at dark. 

Why they ignored the caged queen the first time I have no idea. Maybe the queen *was* under there and was either injured, dead, or too fat to fly and when she didn't join them, they decided they would accept my offer. Who knows. They do have a mind of their own.


----------



## dtrooster

Nice mess of bees man


----------



## Joe Mac

Thanks, dtrooster. I'm going to join them with the little struggling hive that I took the queen from. They'll need a lot of help before winter, but hopefully they'll make. it. I just hate to see bees like that be destroyed. I would've loved to had that tree in my backyard.


----------



## dtrooster

Hope springs eternal. Some good luck with forage or some feed and a good queen that pile should build out and pack it in in a hurry. Good luck


----------



## Phoebee

One caged queen was dug out, probably very recently. No brood seen yet. We spotted her playing dead in the bottom of the hive, near the entrance. I peeked in an hour later and she was gone, so the hope is she was just paranoid. After all, the last time she encountered her, we'd caught her in a marking tube, painted her, stuffed her in a tiny cage, and stuck her in with a bunch of strange bees.

A second new queen is fat and beautiful, but not making much brood yet.

The big, strong hive managed to put on about 5 pounds during what the calendar says should be the start of a dearth.

We hope to pick up a lovely new queen from a good local supplier tomorrow.


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> clover> that's too bad, sorry to hear it.
> did the apiary inspector make any mention as to how much AFB he has seen this season?


I called Paul Cappy he said to send a sample in to Beltsville to confirm which I haven't done yet but will. Pat Bono of Bee Wellness sent me an AFB test kit which confirmed it. Also, Joe Hewitt is a retired NYS Apiary inspector, he did it for years, and he still keeps bees in a few yards. He came over and confirmed it. He is so helpful a really nice man. He happens to live somewhat near me and is showing my husband and I queen grafting. Aren't you going to the Bee Wellness workshop at Dyce lab in a few weeks? If you do I might bring one of the healthier brood frames that I froze that had an AFB cell and you can see. Sorry for being so "wordy".


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale said:


> Aren't you going to the Bee Wellness workshop at Dyce lab in a few weeks? If you do I might bring one of the healthier brood frames that I froze that had an AFB cell and you can see. Sorry for being so "wordy".


No won't be there but say hello to Pat for me. I will be at Dyce next weekend for the ESHPA meeting and picnic, maybe you're going?

Good you got some local confirmation. Sure would be nice to have inspectors and I thought you being 'upstate' one might find time to swing by. Should have told Paul you needed an inspection to move hives out of state haha. Never see or hear of any down here anymore.
When I started out I got paid for work I did for a LI beekeeper with some beehives. Two years before that he had AFB and that's why I was making new hives for him and how I met him. Anyway, did beeyard labor when he needed help and was very reluctant to accept the hives as payment. Never had a AFB issue from them so he was right, the ones he paid me with were clean and old. Good memories though I didn't think much of it all then, didn't really like it even. Just wanted to do my woodwork.
Hang in there.


----------



## Nharcher1

Squished a queen and introduced a new one...4 days later queen cells and no sign of the queen....2 days later queen and queen cells! Each time I crack the cover I get to learn!


----------



## RayMarler

Clear, low 90's today, quite nice out this morning, was out playing beekeeper around 8:45am.

Today is the 20th on the calendar. Back on the 10th, a friend came and got 6 queens and 3 nucs with queens from me, and on the 14th I made 3 more splits by moving queen away into nucs and setting beside the hive. Queen cells made and close to emerging today and later this week.

Most of my hives this year had foundationless combs that had a lot of drone comb in them. During the spring as I was making splits that was great, as had lots of drones for queen mating flights. However, with some splits later in the spring for purchased queens and with bees stopping making drones, the bees all backfilled the drone comb and mites started hitting the worker brood and became high in numbers in most of the hives. On the 14th I did an OAD using a trigger spray bottle adjusted to a fine stream into all the seams in the hives. Today, I see that foraging has increased now with the treating a week ago, so is very good. 

Starthistle has been blooming and Tarweed is starting and wild carrot and morning glories are somewhat out in the area, and have been for awhile now. The Starthistle started back the first week or two last month, so flows have been on, but brood got spotty and foraging pretty much stopped because of the high mite loads. Many of the hives have halved populations since the first of June. So, hives looking better now since the last treatment, foraging now starting up again, and I did the same OAD treatment again today. I spray a light thin stream into the seams that have bees in them. I've not had any queen failures or brood failures that I can tell. Indeed, the brood is looking better now than before the treating, much better in most cases. so now the ones with queen cells are reducing in brood and so mites have been hitting the adult bees harder, but with these two treatings I'm thinking the mite loads will be greatly reduced for the queens emerging into healthier environments. After the queens mate and begin laying, and just before any brood gets capped, I plan on doing one more treatment again.

I'm testing this way of treating here, it's fast and easy to do during normal hive inspections, and is the cheapest treatment I can think of that actually works. I'm not advising anyone else to do this at all. I'm just stating what I have been trying out this year on my own here in my hives.

Also, found and marked four queens that I had raised earlier in the year, so now all queens are marked. I'll be marking the others as they emerge and get to laying for three weeks and have sealed brood.


----------



## camero7

squarepeg said:


> it's dearth here with a capital d.


Same here


----------



## camero7

Combined a laying worker hive with a 10 frame today. Some confused bees


----------



## Gypsi

Checked last week's combine of a laying worker nuc (shook bees out on other side of apiary) and a small nuc whose queen was producing and then the bees were moving next door due to shb. Not a sign of shb or wax moth, in the deep medium medium deep 4 stack nuc, but I am not sure if I got rid of the laying worker downstairs or not. Uncapped brood in the upper 2 was too young to tell if drone or worker. Stole 2 frames with varying ages young to capped brood and some nurse bees from my big hive, and gave them to the upstairs nuc. Will see if I have to buy a queen in a week or 2. Bees seem to have found something in bloom, pulling in nectar, big hive is capping honey


----------



## Zephyr

Went to go observe the hive entry and saw drone eviction taking place! On my way back I thought "The first sign of fall despite being the middle of summer" I'm starting to have a problem with carpenter bees. Last time I observed I watched one land on my landing deck and get mauled but it went away. Just now I saw a dead one in front of the hive with some dead workers. Red flags up! Always suspicious. Luckily in the forum archives, someone also had issues. Carpenters are likely just looking to bore into the hive and the workers wont ever let them so for now, no threat.


----------



## JRG13

Found my 3rd two queen hive for the year. Third supercedure this year where mama queen is still around after daughter is mated and laying. I saw the bees from one of my hives balling one of those emerald green june bugs on Saturday. Guess it landed on the landing board or something, but apparently the bees didn't want it around. I just saw a ball of bees on the face of the hive with emerald green underneath. Of course they couldn't hurt it, it took flight and tossed the bees off like nothing when it spread it's elytra.


----------



## dava303

tomorrow I am going make split


----------



## Pooh Bear

Jarred my honey last night; its a sticky job but somebodies got to do it. All in all I think I got about 90lbs from my Carniolans and considering I live in the suburbs north of NYC and am not surround by fields of flowers, I think that was a respectable haul. 

Now I have to figure out how to sell it


----------



## bravobees

Where would I find out how many btu's does a hive put out in the winter, lets just say its 38 degrees outside with no sun?


----------



## Phoebee

Hive I got a new queen a couple of weeks back, one we raised ourselves. Something went wrong. Last week we thought she was playing dead, lying on the bottom of the hive. Looking in later she'd disappeared. But this week, no brood, and no queen. Zilch. But the good news is we now have an opening for one of the Ankle Biters a local bee supplier has on hand.

The new VSH queen we got last week to reinforce our VSH line is out of her cage and making babies.

Our old VSH breeder queen just contributed a frame of brood with eggs to the queen castle, as a backup in case our supplier is out of Ankle Biters. She's still laying brood down fast for a queen in her third summer. If we don't need the queen, we have friends who will want her.


----------



## Phoebee

Ah, and I forgot ... our strongest hive put on weight. It hasn't rained a drop in two weeks, the forage is too dry to make nectar, and at this time of the year we should be in a dearth anyway. Never mind that, the big hive is packing on the pounds. If winter started tomorrow, their stores condition is ready for it.

I'd say we have some mischief going on. Yeah, a couple of the other hives have lost a little, but not enough to account for it. And inspecting them today, they're not robbed out. The strong hive must be getting at least some of it the old-fashioned way, by foraging. 

Well, that's the way it goes. The rich get richer. Where did I put those robbing screens?


----------



## DanielD

I took away a queen from a hive and made a nuc with it over a week ago. When the cells in the remaining hive were close to emerging last week, I split the remaining hive 5 ways. In the last couple days I have found 3 queens outside the robber screen with bees attending to them, so I let them in. I read that they would figure it out. I guess not. The last 2 haven't had any indication of returning queens yet.


----------



## RayMarler

Checked the queen-right hives for stores. Put feeders on 5 of them. Populations are light in many, good in others. I'm wondering if it's from dearthiness or if it's from the OAD I've done a couple times? I did the OAD one last time on these, and will judge from here on. I've not fed in a couple weeks either, so that may be it. Only five out of 10-11 needed feed this time around though, the rest have been pulling in stores, but wax drawing has slowed down in all of them.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Lift things up. Put them down. Honey. Honey. Honey. Honey. Saturday night. Beer.


----------



## Nharcher1

Checked on a hive that's been struggling all season and that I requeend a week and a half ago. Lots of eggs and wet brood. Looks like she is doing her job..

Maybe now with some more feeding they will build some more comb and start putting away honey. Goldenrod is getting good and we finally got a little rain!!!!


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and sunny and was only 85 in the yard as I checked through a few hives.

The one I thought might be weak seems to be fine today. Moved a few frames around between hives so that six now have combs to draw so feeding will be going on here for a couple weeks.

Did a count, I have 22 boxes with bees, 11 of them should have virgin queens in them now. I'll be checking through those 11 in 8-9 days, hoping eggs will be laid by then. From what I saw today, all seem to be doing well enough for the conditions. 

Every time I see an exceptionally good looking hive, I check and see that it's a daughte from Michael Palmer's queen. This is not conclusive though as his were the first earlier queens I raised, the others are not that old and so have not built up as strongly yet. A truer tell will be later in the year still, as to which bees are doing best.

I'm mixing syrup up right now and will get feeders on the five that need it at the moment.


----------



## usngunr

Well, I'm on the verge of panic. Went in to two of my hives at the house today. Tons of bees, no eggs or larvae. I find it hard to believe both hives went queenless at that same time. Is it possible this is a dearth and she's slowed/stopped? Seems early, I'm in Northwest Illinois by the Quad Cities (Moline/Davenport) So. Do I panic? 

The bees didn't seem overly aggressive, fairly docile. I'm not sure. I'm open to ideas. Thanks.


----------



## squarepeg

usngunr said:


> Is it possible this is a dearth and she's slowed/stopped?


yep, good bees do just that. just watch for signs of robbing and inspect again with the pollen flow picks up going into fall.


----------



## usngunr

Thanks. There are a ton of bees in both hives. Fair amount of drones. We'll ride it out.


----------



## Zephyr

Bout had a heart attack today. I made a good 2 or 3 pints of 1:1 and fed it as I always did; out of a bowl with a stick in it. (Fancy stuff right there. Upgraded from a peanut butter lid) This time instead of leaving it on my porch, 40 yards from the hive, I took to to the entry. Didnt take long for them to explore and find the reservoir so I left. In about an hour, the sticks were covered with workers but the entry was in a flurry of activity. Robbing?! I dont think so. There are several gaps between boxes no one was trying to get into. No fighting (just a lot of bees cleaning off after falling into the feed bowl!) under the lid they all looked normal and calm but good gracious there are bees just storming in an out of the entry! If I get one of these panics a year I may need a new heart in 5 years. How are some of yall still alive after multiple decades?!

Even more support is that we are not in a dearth. Last few days lots of pollen going in and going on 10 inches of rain over the last month. Just about everyone feeds the hummingbirds with syrup so it aint like I'm the only bowl of free food for miles around!


----------



## AHudd

Placing open syrup at the entrance of a hive is inviting trouble.

Alex


----------



## EvilZeg

Hives looking good, all have traffic at the entrances. My zareba fence charger bought the farm so I installed my new parmak today.


----------



## usngunr

usngunr said:


> Thanks. There are a ton of bees in both hives. Fair amount of drones. We'll ride it out.


I figured while we're broodless I might as well OAV. Timing is everything. LOL.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and not so hot today, was 70+ degrees F as I checked some 4 frame nucs.

I added a story to 4 of them, ones that had well laying queens in them. Four frames added were wax coated plastic foundation, two on the outside in both top and bottom boxes, stores and brood in center of bottom box, brood in center of top box. Adding a top inverted jar feeder so comb should start getting drawn. The bee season is getting late, I won't be able to keep comb drawing past the first week in October, so now am pouring the feed to them all that need comb drawn.

Awhile back I'd posted here that I got some queens from Fusion_power. I gave most of them to a friend to work with, keeping brood from them back for myself for them to make daughters. They should be laying now by next week so I'll check then. But, I kept two of them and they looking good now. It takes awhile for a nuc, when it's first made up, to build up enough to start expanding. These are starting to expand now and one of them is drawing wax very well. I have good hopes for them and the daughters that will be coming online next week, to add some good treatment free genetics to my yard here. I think they'll work very well crossed over with Michael Palmer's queens. I'll be working on that next year, as the rest of this year is getting comb drawn and all hives up to 8 packed frames for over winter.


----------



## squarepeg

good report ray, i'll be happy when we start seeing some 70's here. 

i'm looking forward to hearing how dar's genetics do out there.

as a side note, the colony he brought to my yard in march was the very first colony out of 20 to start drawing new comb.


----------



## QUIKSVT

Pulled two frames of honey.


----------



## Phoebee

The temperatures finally being mild enough for formic acid, the death sentence against the varroa mites in Hive N was carried out today.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and low 90's today.
Checked in on the mating boxes I had here, some made on July 10 and some made on July 14. Some have eggs starting, some don't. I think I was a week early in checking, I hate disturbing them too early. And, last week I did see a wall of dragonflies thirty feet out from the hives, so may have lost some queens to that. All in all, I was disappointed in what I saw as far as queens being mated. Some were loud and laying multiple eggs in queen cups, which is NOT a good sign. I'm giving them another week to see what I have and make joins then if needed.

I put feeders on the 11 hives that were not mating hives.


----------



## Zephyr

Hey what's everyone's drone count? Seems I'm totally out of drones now; curious to know if anyone still has any.


----------



## Clairesmom

Saw some drones today in Minnesota.


----------



## Nordak

Zephyr said:


> Hey what's everyone's drone count? Seems I'm totally out of drones now; curious to know if anyone still has any.


I'm in Arkansas as well, still plenty of drones about in my area.


----------



## Joe Mac

Zephyr said:


> Hey what's everyone's drone count? Seems I'm totally out of drones now; curious to know if anyone still has any.


I still have some. I have seen some being evicted but some colonies haven't thrown them out yet.


----------



## Beeathlon

Autumn is approaching. I thought I'd give an update.
I placed a super on the hive that did not swarm. They only gathered 5-6 kgs (9-11 pounds).
They have not built out all frames in the brood box. I have restricted the space to 6 frames both in brood and super.
Queen seems to be laying ok.

The swarm hive has a new, fat queen. Very long and lively. Has been laying a bit it seems. Larvae spotted. Seems to have some honey and pollen.
Built out all frames and deposits honey in the ones furthest from the main brood area. Was thinking of restricting their space, but I didnt want to take food from them.
I will maybe move some honey frames from the non-swarming one.

The hive I placed on top of a Snlegrove board seems to have gone down the drain. All drone cappings except strangely enough a couple of apparent queen cells on the bottom of a frame.
A failed queen being replaced?? Weird. Might not get ready for winter I'm afraid, but it is first year so I will experiment a little.

I'm not sure how much honey/sugar 5-6 frames of bees will need for winter. I'm not taking anything, but will feed them when most flows are gone.


----------



## Zephyr

Joe Mac said:


> I still have some. I have seen some being evicted but some colonies haven't thrown them out yet.


Good to hear. Today while assisting some family in their yard, I spotted a small swarm (300-600 bees max) so it's not too late to make something from them. Put up a swarm trap with 2 of my waxed frames and syrup splashed on the unwaxed ones. It got some attention! Left it when they were fanning the entry and passing in and out. They are a bit mean though! Twice chased me from the tree they are in all the way to the house nearly 100 yards up an incline  Trying to get my neck of all places (better than the foot?) Hopefully they all move in when I go back near dark.

So now I've got my next project... a winter nuc. Going to be removing my medium super from my established hive and will probably hand it to them. Got lots of woolly croton in bloom & goldenrod is just starting plus I'm going to push syrup so if they are good at building they should do pretty well considering the situation.


----------



## rkereid

Beeathlon said:


> The hive I placed on top of a Snlegrove board seems to have gone down the drain. All drone cappings except strangely enough a couple of apparent queen cells on the bottom of a frame.
> A failed queen being replaced?? Weird. Might not get ready for winter I'm afraid, but it is first year so I will experiment a little.


All drones would normally mean laying workers or a drone laying queen. If the queen is present, kill her before combining colony with a queenright one.

Skål !


----------



## RayMarler

It was clear and 85 in the beeyard this morning.

Checked through the hives. 3 or 4 of the mating nucs I'm still not sure about, will check them in a few more days.

Checked through the rest. Some are drawing comb very well, others are already hunkered down and packed for winter. Hope I don't get any swarms, I'm going to stop feeding on those. I do have 10 to put syrup on this afternoon, making it up now.

I'm still not sure about Dar's genetics, one is doing fine, the other just won't build up. I'm still boosting it with comb and giving it syrup and it has pollen. The rest I'd given to someone else as queens or as splits, and what was left behind just has not shown good mating yet. I'm still hoping. I must say that the queens from Dar showed up at the wrong time of year here for me, and my mite levels were very high, and then splitting them to give to another person was wrong decision on my part. 

This is the third year I've paid good attention, and I've come to the conclusion that July is a very bad month to try mating queens here, and I'm not going to be doing that in the future any more. The end of March through the end of May is good, or middle June is OK to be mating. Again in September and October if on drawn comb with good stores and populations. But no more queen rearing middle June through middle August here for me any more.


----------



## Phoebee

A few weeks ago, put a new queen in a "queenless" hive, which promptly died. We had pinched a queen that was not producing brood. We were in the process of raising a queen for them when they did finally manage to make some queen cells from some donated brood frames. With the new queen on the way, we removed those queen cells.

The new queen we raised was found dying on the bottom board shortly after they released her from the cage. Now we know why. The hive has brood. We must have missed one of those early queen cells.

Danged bees get a kick out of out-smarting us, don't they?


----------



## Nordak

Checked on some emergency cells (3) in an overpopulated nuc with plenty of food that I am going to utilize for a small split as an overwintering test. The comb is fresh and white, the cells are on the side of the comb which should be capped tomorrow. These cells appear to be every bit as flooded with royal jelly and completely vertical with a direct line of sight to the larvae in the same way as a swarm or supercedure cell. The older comb e-cells that are in the same hive do not have the direct line of sight that the fresher comb has, and require getting just the right angle to notice the larvae still partially in the worker cell. I've read that new comb (Jay Smith and others) makes a difference in quality of queens in regard to e-cells, and it's kind of neat to actually observe what was meant by that. 

My plan is to attempt to overwinter this fresh queen in an 8 bar TBH to see what limit there is to colony size for my area. This will get me out of my comfort zone, but I think it will provide me some answers as well.


----------



## pjrafosala

I spent my whole day assembling and repairing beehives for another colony to be split this week. Thank God for the productive day! good day ahead!


----------



## pjrafosala

I spent my whole day assembling and repairing beehives, preparing for another colony to be split this week.. good day everyone.


----------



## Eyeshooter

Went in to check on the nucs today. 1st nuc is a split and they raised a queen. Saw her on the 2nd frame and was really running which I thought was odd. Wait! 2 frames later, HERE is the queen they raised who really is laying a beautiful pattern. The 1st queen is a virgin who just came out of a supercedure cell found on the last frame... I caught her and put her in a queen introduction cage and put her in a Russian hive where yesterday, I killed a queen who had it coming all season. Nastiest hive I have ever had. I went in to inspect it yesterday and immediately 500 bees went for the veil. Within 2 minutes, I bet there were 1000 bees on me. Expecting a feisty greeting, I had put on thick pants, a bee jacket and nitrile gloves. Good thing...I went into the bottom deep, found the queen and ended her reign. She had to have some really stinky pheromones as that hive was getting worse every visit, tho' never like yesterday. I put the queen introduction frame in the hive just to give the new queen (not a Russian) a bit of chance. They bees were better tho' still testy again today. Being virgin, they did not seem to care much about her. I'll see how she is tomorrow and release her if she survived.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

I mentioned last week that my brood boxes were full but they did not seem to want to draw wax in the supers. I had stopped feeding 1 : 1 in July because of how fast they were breeding. 
So last week it was recommended we started to feed again. We provided about 8.5lbs each day for each hive. Every day I go back they are completely empty. We have golden rod blooming then as now. Do I continue to feed?? That's 150 pounds of feed in the last 6 days for 3 hives.
Also, I am finding queen cells with larva in each hive. Wondering where I go from here?


----------



## JRG13

If they have stores, you don't need to feed them. It sounds like you may have fed them too much and now they want to swarm. See if the queen has any room to lay or is the broodnest all filled with syrup/nectar now?


----------



## JRG13

Well, it was technically yesterday... Visited my purchased outyard of bees, 16 hives total. Went through them all checking on queens and mites. Mite pressure is definitely taking it's toll, one hive was down to nothing, PMS induced EFB present. Probably should just write them off but I dropped in some Apivar and see if they can pull through. Identified 3-4 hives that actually looked very good still though, will have to do a sugar roll or something. Interestingly enough, one of them I identified as a possible breeder earlier in the year just based off worker bee phenotype and uniformity. They were probably the best looking hive if I recall correctly now and I did make a walkaway split a couple months back and got a nice daughter out of it. The other 11-12 hives definitely need some treatment or they'll be collapsed in a month so will have to grab a bigger pack of Apivar to take care of the issue. Other than that they look good in preparation for fall. On the flipside, most of my other bees are looking much better in terms of mites so perhaps some progress has been made in getting some tolerance and I have 3 queens from Fusion Power getting evaluated so it's been an exciting year.


----------



## redindiaink

Does any one else have Queen going through their head as they count the mite death toll post OAV treatment(s)? 

It's the third treatment, but I'm not liking the tool. The bees attack it scattering crystals, and it fries a few bees. I have one hive that is not standard which needs to be lifted* and the sides plugged before I can slide the tool in. So last night I modified a shim, and covered the tray where the crystals go with some screening and tried to treat from above. I had hard blackened crystals ... I'm thinking the next step is to modify a soup can with a hose coming out one end which can be fed into a hive. 

*Ever held something in place and you weren't sure what was moving, you or the thing you were holding onto? That.


----------



## snl

redindiaink said:


> Does any one else have Queen going through their head as they count the mite death toll post OAV treatment(s)?
> 
> It's the third treatment, but I'm not liking the tool. The bees attack it scattering crystals, and it fries a few bees. I have one hive that is not standard which needs to be lifted* and the sides plugged before I can slide the tool in. So last night I modified a shim, and covered the tray where the crystals go with some screening and tried to treat from above. I had hard blackened crystals ... I'm thinking the next step is to modify a soup can with a hose coming out one end which can be fed into a hive.
> 
> *Ever held something in place and you weren't sure what was moving, you or the thing you were holding onto? That.


If vapping from the bottom bothers you (and the bees), Vap from the top down! Make a 2 inch rim with a slot in it for the Vap. Place a 4x4" 1/4" piece of plywood on the top frames. Place the Vap with OA on the plywood, cover with rim, cover all with inverted top cover and vaporize! Same results top or bottom ... Dead mites.


----------



## DanielD

Several hives were doing some washboarding this morning. It would be interesting to know what that means.


----------



## redindiaink

snl said:


> If vapping from the bottom bothers you (and the bees), Vap from the top down! Make a 2 inch rim with a slot in it for the Vap. Place a 4x4" 1/4" piece of plywood on the top frames. Place the Vap with OA on the plywood, cover with rim, cover all with inverted top cover and vaporize! Same results top or bottom ... Dead mites.


Thanks snl. That's what I did, though I went a step further and took a piece of window screening tacking it down it the wood to keep the bees out of the tray. I think what happened is the oxalic bubbled up and was trapped by the screening. *oops* Live and learn.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Adjusted 2 story nucs yesterday. These were all made up during the first half of July. Some not drawing their foundation well, so I pulled the plug on that and replaced any un-drawn foundation with comb. They're certainly strong enough, it's just something that happens some years. The flow ends and the bees can't draw comb. So, rather than wait until the fall flow is finished, and hope the bees were able to finish the job, I made the decision to do something, now.

Back to extracting.


----------



## Phoebee

Grandma bee, now in her third summer, got an ambush makeover today. Her original lavender dot was nearly worn off. We dug out the green paint and re-marked her in the correct color for her year, but she'll still be known as the Lavender Lady.

During the inspection we admired her brood pattern. The old girl is really laying it down. Her girls have packed the attic of her nuc with solid capped honey, so we gave them a medium super in case they want to make some more.

Next nuc over is her cousin Georgie, just obtained from our favorite breeder in King George county a few weeks back. She's established and doing a fine job, although not yet on par with her older relative.

After a brutal freeze in May that killed much of the usual spring flow forage, we thought the year was kaput. However, some of the hives are putting on weight since July, and it is more than they could get by robbing. We've always had lots of wildflowers available in summer (right now there is mountain mint all over the place, and earlier it was common milkweed). But what we've just noticed is that there are not nearly as many bumbles competing for it. We're wondering if the May freeze starved the native bees but our bees had the stores to get thru, plus we did feed some.


----------



## redindiaink

Reached 37C today, it feels like walking into a furnace every time I open a door. I went to see how the bees are coping with the heat and found a clump of drones huddled at the entrance on the far side of where all the traffic is coming and going. Between that, and finding quite a few dead drones in front of the hive this AM, I wonder if the hives are starting to kick the boys to the curb as we head into autumn. Pity.


----------



## Zephyr

Might be one of the happiest rookies there is. First inspection of this month, all was well no eyes on queen but eggs present so no big deal. Within a few days I started to try and make some DIY SHB traps to no avail. Went digging around again and had found queen cells. My eyesight aint good enough through a veil it seems. Could of sworn they were occupied with maggots or jelly but today I went to check on them. Those cells no longer exist and there are only empty cups dotted around. No eggs, hive extremely aggressive, was certain it was queenless until I accidentally saw my queen on the next frame! Marking paid off.

Pretty sure the lack of eggs is from them syrup-binding themselves. Noted; feeding is now done. Just tried to get them to draw out the super so I'd be ahead for the April blackberry and clover flow but we'll manage. The waxed deeps I put into the brood boxes are still in the process of getting drawn and now that it's getting late, no point in making them work on something I'll have to take off for winter. SHB population is up as is up as is.


----------



## RayMarler

clear and low 80's today, perfect for working with hives.

OK, last month I'd sold 3 nuc splits with the queens, and 6 queens to someone that had more resources to use the genetics in his operations. The splits left behind, were seven of them. That was on July 10th. Then on July 14th, I made 3 more splits by moving queens away into nucs. I've been checking in on them for a week or two and things have not been looking good, but today I got out and went through all hives and splits. I'm happy to report that 9 of the 10 splits failed. Yes HAPPY!!! 22 hives were getting to be too much work and I'm so glad now that I'm down to 13 hives with all drawn comb now so no more feeding! Even 13 hives is at the upper limit of what I want to play with here, but I'll be able to manage them much better now.

A couple to three weeks ago, around the timing of queens going on mating flights, I saw a wall of dragonfly's twenty feet out from the mating nucs. I was worried then, and yes, it looks like they got a few queens. Three or four queens did make it back, but there are no drones in my yard and I'm guessing no drones in the area and all laid a small patch then failed. Most just failed and made a queen cell, one failed and the hive turned laying worker. The laying worker hive I moved to the other side of the house and the rest weren't laying worker so I swapped frames from them with drawn combs into hives that still had combs needing to be drawn. So now down to 13 hives, all combs drawn, feeder on 6 of them and that's the end of feeding here now for a few weeks at least as all are heavy with stores.

I now have 7 with queens of my stock, 4 with queens of Michael Palmer's stock, and 2 are queens from Fusion_power here in the forums, and all are looking good right now. Very happy. I have one or two that are a little shy of bees, but not by much. Time will tell how they look in a month. The bees are slowing down, backfilling and slowing brooding for the winter already, even here in my location. It's been hot here the last two months also, and in pretty much a dearth, so all the queens have slowed down. All hives are now in 8 frame single deep boxes and packed with stores, whoohoo!


----------



## squarepeg

RayMarler said:


> there are no drones in my yard and I'm guessing no drones in the area and all laid a small patch then failed.


good report ray. i haven't seen a drone in going on a couple of months now. our spring flow ended early and we've been under drought conditions ever since which is why i believe there are no drones. i recently had to shake out a couple of established hives that had become queenless over the summer and i'm guessing the lack of drones played a part in that.


----------



## RayMarler

squarepeg said:


> good report ray. i haven't seen a drone in going on a couple of months now. our spring flow ended early and we've been under drought conditions ever since which is why i believe there are no drones. i recently had to shake out a couple of established hives that had become queenless over the summer and i'm guessing the lack of drones played a part in that.


Yes SP, I've noticed here over the years that queens need to be mated by first to middle of June. July through August queens just don't do well here if at all. I'm thinking it's lack of drones in the dearth. I have noticed that last of September through first of November there will be drones back around, but just not near the numbers of them that were in the spring.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and 90F today

OK, this morning I was out in the beeyard talking about goats to a friend. We noticed a small swarm of bees in the yard. Watching them, I saw they went into an empty stack of boxes on one of my stands. I went out this afternoon and made them up a box with drawn comb and dumped them in, and moved away that stack of boxes they'd swarmed into. I must have missed seeing a queen yesterday when I did all the work swapping frames around and joining bees into the 13 good hives I had. So, now I have 14 hives, all in single 8 frame deeps, all with drawn comb. I put a feeder on this one boxed swarm today, and will go give it frames of stores from other hives that are a little overly heavy for this time of year in a few days.


----------



## m0dem

When I was in my bee yard today, I saw a not-so-dense cloud of bees flying around in the distance. I walked up to them and followed them as they settled on the back of one of my hives. They were a very small number of bees (probably only a couple hundred bees), I hope its not a virgin queen afterswarm. I put them on some drawn comb, I wonder if I'll be able to do anything with them. Atleast its a free queen if I need it. (and it looks like I might)


----------



## redindiaink

Found wax moth larva on a deep frame I pulled from the brood chamber about a month ago. Not sure how the moths got in the house, where I thought the equipment would be safe from pests, or if they were already on the frame when I brought it in, but it went into the freezer. Then I took a look at the hive it came from. It's healthy, booming and there's no wax moth damage to speak of. 

I also noticed they've managed to fill six frames in a honey super I gave them in mid July during a clover flow. A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon ... indeed. The colony started out as an artificial swarm in mid April, filled a double deep by mid May and swarmed in early June. I wasn't expecting anything from them this year; I stuck the super on there to deal with a booming hive I'm not sure how to manage - heh. 

ps: And I saw drones emerging from some cells.


----------



## EvilZeg

First NUC hive had a 3rd box of drawn comb on 8/23, they are filling it with nectar. Second NUC hive is doing very will plenty of brood/eggs/larva, the first box is pretty full so I added a second box. I was able to get a picture of the queen. My first full size hive which had a laying worker issue is still not right. I found Queen cells July 3rd so I left the hive alone. Unfortunately upon inspection I am not seeing any eggs, I'm not sure what happened to the queen cells. I know it's getting late in the season, but I added another frame of eggs and larva to see if they make another cell. My second full size hive is doing very well, I've added my honey supers. The golden rod is out in force.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Clear and 90F today
> 
> OK, this morning I was out in the beeyard talking about goats to a friend. We noticed a small swarm of bees in the yard. Watching them, I saw they went into an empty stack of boxes on one of my stands. I went out this afternoon and made them up a box with drawn comb and dumped them in, and moved away that stack of boxes they'd swarmed into. I must have missed seeing a queen yesterday when I did all the work swapping frames around and joining bees into the 13 good hives I had. So, now I have 14 hives, all in single 8 frame deeps, all with drawn comb. I put a feeder on this one boxed swarm today, and will go give it frames of stores from other hives that are a little overly heavy for this time of year in a few days.


Clear and about 75 or so in the yard this morning, going to get to 90 or so by this afternoon.

Checked in on that swarm, and it's about what I suspected. It has a smallish queen, definitely not a laying queen. Does not look so much like a virgin, looks more like a queen that failed to mate. No eggs seen, but three or four cells with larva, I'm betting drones. Anyway, I gave them a jar of syrup since I already had it made up. I've got one more jar made up in the fridge, so will feed it when this one today is empty. Gave them some pollen patty too. I'm not sure why I'm fooling with them, I should just pinch the queen and remove the lid and let them get robbed out and beg their way into other hives. I guess because I've already got these couple jars of syrup made up. LOL


----------



## Phoebee

Everybody seems strong, which oddly enough includes the queenless colony. We need to check again in a week to see if they really are queenless ... we may have one doing some on-again, off-again broodlaying. We don't want to combine these with another hive unless we're sure they're queenless and have no laying workers.

The big hive is doing an incredible job, already with enough stores for the winter. They even have a crop of drones about to emerge. The smaller hives may have purged theirs already, but Hive O is still making them. I suspect these new boys will have really short careers. Our grandmother bee also has full winter stores put away in her cozy nuc.


----------



## skidmld

I have 4 strong hives and today I gave each 1 a super of medium foundation. Goldenrod is getting ready to open. Small patches have been blooming for a month, but the major bloom hasn't started yet. Maybe I'll get some comb drawn.


----------



## Phoebee

For most of the summer we've been working with a hive with queen problems. It started when a ornery but successful Russian queen decided to swarm, leaving a dud queen behind. Several waves of adding brood frames with eggs failed to produce queen cells, but we finally saw some after we had a queen started in the queen castle, just after we pinched the dud queen. We thought we had removed all the queen cells, but apparently one hatched. When we introduced the new queen we had raised into the not-quite-queenless colony, murder ensued.

We realized what had happened when we saw fresh brood in the colony a couple of weeks later. But then we stopped seeing fresh brood, just scattered capped brood. And what we saw did not look healthy. As of last week my wife was pushing to combine the hive with another neighbor that could use the population. I resisted. First, they had fooled us before, and second, I had no desire to combine sick bees with healthy ones, and the other hive was picking up steam.

I was vindicated this weekend. We opened the "queenless" hive and found fresh brood including eggs. About three frames in, we spotted the new queen. She's a bit scrawny, but now has a white dot. It was fun watching the workers check out the marking tube and her when we put her back in. They were on her two deep, and we thought they might be balling her, but she came out of it OK. The paint dot was pretty dry by the time we returned her (we completed the inspection first), but evidently they could smell it and were concerned.

I've chalked this colony up as a dink ... no high hopes for them surviving the winter, but they're welcome to try.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Clear and 90F today
> 
> OK, this morning I was out in the beeyard talking about goats to a friend. We noticed a small swarm of bees in the yard. Watching them, I saw they went into an empty stack of boxes on one of my stands. I went out this afternoon and made them up a box with drawn comb and dumped them in, and moved away that stack of boxes they'd swarmed into. I must have missed seeing a queen yesterday when I did all the work swapping frames around and joining bees into the 13 good hives I had. So, now I have 14 hives, all in single 8 frame deeps, all with drawn comb. I put a feeder on this one boxed swarm today, and will go give it frames of stores from other hives that are a little overly heavy for this time of year in a few days.


Went out today and checked that boxed swarm. There was a queen that looked unmated, a small patch of capped drone brood, and no eggs or larva. I killed the queen and put the lid back on.

I made up 8 boxes of drawn, part drawn, and foundation frames, seven frames per box. In the morning I'll take that swarm hive with eight frames, and put one of the frames into each of the eight boxes I made up tonight. Then all eight boxes will have 2-3 fully drawn combs, 2-3 partially drawn plastic foundations, and 2-3 waxed plastic foundation. I'll put those eight boxes underneath the eight single box hives that are the strongest in the yard, turning them into two stories. This will be a way to store the drawn and partially drawn combs on the hives, and give the strongest ones room to expand downwards if they need it. I'll be putting feeders on them.

That will leave me 5 hives that are in single 8 frame deeps, and 8 hives that are two story. I may then decide if I want to pinch or give away the two of the five weakest hive's queens away, and join the two into the three to give me a total of 11 two story hives into the fall, with feeders on all. If over winter commercial yards move in around me in October, I'll have to quit feeding then because of robbing pressures, so feeding now to get them up to snuff is the way I should go, and try to get the bees pushed down with some brood into the centers of the bottom boxes I'm adding tomorrow and the rest of this week.


----------



## DanielD

Just checked a late split of my by far, best queen yesterday. Splitting into 4 and making 2 more splits from other hives for some of the cells made after the split. 5 new nucs made and had 100% success at laying queens. I consider that very good this late in the summer, and my first 100% success at a multiple nuc split. They all had laying queens from 7-10 days at most after emergence. One nuc has multiple frames with 3/4 of the cells in capped brood, 17 days after first possible day of emergence.


----------



## RayMarler

clear and 90F so far today.

I lifted lids on all hives to check for population strength. I found one that was weak, so checked through it and killed the queen. I used the frames from it, along with the other from yesterday, to increase the numbers of fully drawn combs in the eight boxes I'd made up yesterday (see above post). I then put those eight boxes under the current single box of eight hives, making them two story hives. I have four more hives that are single stories still, I did not figure they were in desperate need of more room at this time and I am out of drawn comb.

So I currently have 8 two story hives and 4 single box hives, all using 8 frame deep equipment, and all drawn or partially drawn combs are now on hives for over winter, so no need to store any by me.

2 hive are Fusion_power queens the hives are both two story and looking very good.
4 hives are from Michael Palmer line of queens and 2 are two story and 2 are single, also looking good.
6 hives are my own line of queens, two are in singles and four are in two stories, only one seems to be weaker than the others, but not by much.


----------



## RayMarler

It was 70F and clear this morning in the beeyard.

Yesterday, I'd found another box of drawn comb in my shed, so I went through it and removed 2 combs that needed to be melted down and put in two foundation frames, one on each outside edge of the box. Then I added that box to the bottom of one of my single box hives making it a two story.

I went through today and checked on it along with the other 3 singles that were left. Since these three were slower/smaller in population than the other's that I'd recently given a second box too, I wanted to see what was up in them and check queen status. One is pretty plugged out, only has 2-3 frames she can lay in. One other was in decent shape just low populations compared to others. One of them had a new queen, the old marked queen was gone. I marked the new queen today. She's laying a good pattern, but is more slender than I like to see laying queens be. She should last through the winter though, and I can replace her in the spring. 

I treated all 12 hives with OAD and read up on Randy Oliver's site and see that I'm not giving them a full dose. He says 5mm per seam but I'm just using a trigger spray bottle and used 16 ounces total dose spread across all 12 hives. Randy states that much should have treated 8 hives, so I think I'm doing pretty good, as I've done this several times this year so far and see a great improvement on the hives after doing it each time.


----------



## RayMarler

I went back out and sprayed the grass and weeds under the beehives, it was getting so tall it was in danger of giving the ants a route to by-pass the grease on the legs and get up into the hives.


----------



## DanielD

Finally seems to be a decent fall flow gearing up. Lots of golden pollen.


----------



## Phoebee

For the first time ever, our bees are working buckwheat. This is also the first time ever that a) the deer did not get it first and b) it was in morning sun. I expect a strong correlation.

The two weaker hives need feeding, but the two stronger hives each put on 3-5 poounds per week over the last week or two. They are working wingstem. They have had it every September, but this is the first year in which they are putting on weight with it. We're pretty sure the difference is a mysterious absence of bumbles since early summer.


----------



## squarepeg

we had a cool front pass through here last night that kicked up a line of scattered showers. we were lucky and a couple of hours of rain at the home yard, probably less than an inch, but enough to puddle up water in the driveway.

like someone flipped a switch the foragers were out in full force this afternoon bringing in nectar at the rate of several bees per second. i just passed by the yard and they are still getting after it pretty good.

curiosity got the better of me so i took a drive to the two other locations that i have hives. the ground at those places was as dusty as ever, and the bees were bearded up at the entrances the same way they have been for several weeks now.

it's pretty amazing to me how much difference the one rain shower made over here. the forecast is looking semi decent for moderation to a more fall like pattern with rain in the forecast again by mid week, and even better chances for next weekend. fingers crossed.


----------



## Ronnie Elliott

I'M GOING TO CLEAN UP MY EXTRACTING EQUIPMENT THIS MORNING, AND TAKE TWO MEDIUM SUPER OFF THAT ARE LOADED WITH HONEY TO BE EXTRACTED. I SAW MY FIRST GOLDEN ROD PLANT THIS WEEK ABOUT 15-INCHES TALL. THE FALL FLOW IS ON. RONNIE ELLIOTT, PALESTINE, TX 75801


----------



## AHudd

Last year I bought some towels made of micro-fiber, because I heard they would trap SHB. I ripped them to get them fuzzed-up nicely. I placed them in the hives on 09-09-,so far it is not working. I checked them yesterday. Out of 16 pieces distributed in 7 hives I had one beetle trapped and one walking across the rag. That one met the business end of my hive tool.








I'll be modifying bottom boards to accept oil trays.

Alex


----------



## 1102009

Today weather changes to fall. Nights are getting cold, but the days are still warm.
The bees still are out there foraging like crazy, flow is great.
I started feeding some a week ago but now I have to check the weights not to fill the brood nests.

I ended up having 14 hives without serious mite problems and thriving.
This is my second year without treatments and I´m amazed they are still there after what people told me to expect.


----------



## DanielD

I have been gone for a week and today the hives have the strong goldenrod smell from them. Fall flow seems to be going good.


----------



## vbhurles2016

Checked on my bee and found out that one of my hives absconded it was a weaker hive dont know what happened as it was going alright last time i checked about a week ago. No queen cells in the frames and last weekend i checked fire eggs and they were all through the Brood?
Well that make hive number 4 to abscond learned allot this first year. Lol


----------



## JRG13

You treat for mites?


----------



## vbhurles2016

Not yet just ordered the oxalic acid burner yesterday.
Im thinking it was because of the ants.


----------



## Phoebee

The Dink hive has lost its queen again. That's four this summer, for various reasons. Sorry looking lot ... cutting our losses on them. Curiously, they don't seem to be getting robbed out.

The strong hive put on another 5 pounds this week. They're doing this all with forage. They've had more flow in what should be the dearth than they had during what should have been the flow. They're at 150 pounds now. We harvested about 25 lbs from them in July, and we're contemplating stealing a couple more frames. They continue to selectively purge drones, but still have them.

The two indoor nucs hold our breeder queens. We checked the newer queen and she has not geared down for winter yet ... brood all over the place. That nuc has also put away enough stores for winter, although with some feeding. The other nuc has a solid medium of capped honey already and is working on a second, and was also full of brood at last check. Neither nuc has been seen molesting their drones yet.

We have another strong hive and one that's so-so but appears to be recovering after a brood shutdown during the unseasonal June dearth.


----------



## JRG13

that'll do it too


----------



## DanielD

Goldenrod is coming in strong. Looking at some of my nucs, they are drawing comb and packing it in the brood nests too. I am a bit concerned about late swarming, but also found some drones that were kicked out and hanging outside at sunset today. I am hopeful that swarming isn't a risk anymore. It's looking like the fall flow may fill them up well for winter.


----------



## DavidZ

Massive orientation flights all at once from 3 colonies, I looked out the window and thought there was a swarm happening.

































Pics don't do justice.


----------



## EvilZeg

Confirmed my one NUC was queenless, got a new one from Meadowview Beekeeping. Second NUC is doing well, building up nicely. Bees are bringing in a lot of goldenrod.


----------



## tunedin5ths

This garden spider thought he was in heaven. I relocated him. I actually appreciate spiders in my garden, just not webbing up the entrances of the hives.


----------



## Phoebee

We have one of those gorgeous yellow and black "writing spiders" near one hive. She's conspicuously corpulent, and had a honeybee wrapped up in spider silk in front of her when we saw her last.

I'm sure we manage to crush more than she eats.


----------



## Phoebee

We weighed the hives yesterday. The queenless dink lost 16 pounds since last weekend. Hive O, the largest hive, right next door to the dink, gained 15. What a curious coincidence!

Saaaaay, you don't suspect any bee skullduggery, do you? 

The wingstem that was a good forage source last weekend is all but gone this weekend. It has been very dry. The asters in the flower beds we have been watering are being worked by the bees as if they are the last flowers on the mountain, which they may be. So the fact that the dink was not already robbed out last weekend may simply be due to abundant forage.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Phoebee said:


> We weighed the hives yesterday. The queenless dink lost 16 pounds since last weekend. Hive O, the largest hive, right next door to the dink, gained 15. What a curious coincidence!


Good one!


----------



## beepro

Getting the hives ready to overwinter as we are in the early Autumn officially.
Even out the bees in the hives and ready to put in some sugar bricks. Hoping that
the last virgin from the last graft batch will get mated. If not I'll just do a combine.
Looking good so far for the hive stores.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

Finished today by requeening two hives with nucs. 7pm. Fooooooooood.


----------



## EvilZeg

Queen was released and is laying nicely. All hives are bringing in lots of golden rod.


----------



## Zephyr

Got some weird stuff going in the hive. GR is in full swing but there's no vinegar smell. Something chalky and grape smelling in there. Got lots of black eyed susans (or some similar looking wildflower) in a second bloom. They have red pollen but I'm getting a lot of grey or white pollen going in. Wonder if it's causing the grape smell. A cold front has my area in a nice chill for the next week or so. Perfect timing for me to get some MAQS in! 53 F lowest temp so far, 85 F highest, about 55-75 most days. What a break from mid 90s! Wish I could pull some frames to look for the smell source when those strips go in but the next inspection is at least 7 days from tomorrow. This new beek can learn to wait


----------



## Phoebee

The temperature was locked in at 54 F most of the weekend, with constant drizzle except when it was raining hard. We needed the rain but the forage is about spent, and two weeks ago would have been better. We still have asters but they are a soggy mess at the moment. The bees thought this was a good weekend for inside chores.

We took apart the hive robbed out last weekend. There were all of two bees in it, probably just scavenging. That hive has been kept going almost exclusively with brood donations much of the summer, so the remaining workers simply reached the end of their natural lives.


----------



## trishbookworm

Bee Culture just had something about treatment with Fumagillin helping "dink" hives that repeatedly lose queens. It may be there are nosema spores in the comb, and they can be either frozen or sun treated (sorry, N Apis is one, N Cerana is other other, and I can't remember which is which!) It is probably worth getting the bees in that hive tested for Nosema spores before you treat, but definitely worth noting on the hive boxes that it is "suspect". As far as checking for Nosema spores, if you are not equipped yourself to do so, keep in mind that any college with a biology dept will likely be able to help with checking - the preparation is so easy, and the spores so easy to identify, that it is pretty doable for someone comfortable with a microscope no matter their area of expertise.


----------



## Phoebee

I waited too late. There were no bees left in there to send in. We'd send them to Beltsville, just the other side of DC from us.

I have suspected _Nosema cerana_ in a previous failure. I had originally not thought so due to the lack of dysentery stains, but that's apparently not a symptom with cerana. What caught my attention in later reading up on cerana was that the earlier hive was apathetic. The dink that just failed never struck me that way. But their brood, when they even had any, did not look good. Spotty, off-color larvae, pinholes in caps, that sort of mess.

I have good inspection and high power microscopes, but my first time looking for spores I'd rather send them off _and_ inspect some myself. I'm told there are always spores present, and they have to be counted to make a meaningful determination.

Whatever their problem, the we have two very strong hives and two very strong nucs. We had one more hive on hand than we really wanted, so we decided to let this poor performer go. Maybe its our prejudice after they killed the queen we raised for them, but sometimes you just have to say "enough is enough."


----------



## EvilZeg

Checked hives yesterday, the new queen is laying well. 3 Hives have good weight. 1 is a goner but I was expecting it, laying worker hive that I tried adding frames of broods to.


----------



## EvilZeg

Checked hives yesterday, the new queen is laying well. 3 Hives have good weight. 1 is a goner but I was expecting it, laying worker hive that I tried adding frames of broods to. Watched a couple drones get evicted.


----------



## 1102009

I visited a beekeeper who lives in the swiss alps.
We saw this colony which bred through summer and now hangs in cluster.
He will take them and feed them, try to overwinter them.


----------



## mgolden

We're in the middle of an abnormally early snow fall.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and warm, very nice day here.

It's been a month or more since checking or doing anything with the hives. 
I've got 12, and figured that was too many for me so was trying the "Bond Method" to see how many if any survived to spring. Tipped a few lids today, didn't like what I see, greatly reduced populations and some are pretty light weight. I'm mixing up some syrup and will start feeding again.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Just what were you expecting you would see?


----------



## RayMarler

Hi Michael, well I was expecting more than just a couple frames of bees. The worst just had a couple, the best had all bars covered. That's about right I would say, weeding out the ones that won't be making it. I am improving the genetics here so far, and it is an ongoing process.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Expecting a couple of nights this week to be in mid to lower 30's. Day time temps from mid to upper 60's. Next week the forecast is for lows of 40's and highs of 50's. Should I remove my liquid feeders? Will the 2 to 1 be to cold for the bees to process? 
My four doubles deeps are loosing brood and weight but seem to be backfilling. Is this too early to lose brood? 
Also, I still have supers on and they are full. Leave for the bees? 
Should I move the supers between brood boxes so they will move the honey or harvest? If they are left on do I feed as well?
Lots of questions as this will be my first winter. 
Seemed to do ok this summer but kind of lost right now.
R2
Zone 5B


----------



## frogpondwarrior

A bit overwhelmed. My mentor dropped of my Varrox the first of the month. However, he has not had time to once come have a look at my progress or make suggestions.
He did say when the bees arrived June 17th that we could not increase # of hives and I would have no honey this year. Must be luck as we went from 3 to 4 hives with four full (36 full frames- not quite full) honey supers. Think my hives are in a good location.
Having just received my vaporizer we now completed half of my OA treatments. There were very few mites in my plastic drone frames throughout the season. So I hope my treatments are successful but the mite count is low. Then again we never saw two of our queens all season either. Maybe it's the ole can't see the trees for the forest.
First two sessions were done from the top and the last two will be completed from the bottom. Has anyone done both top and bottom and which did you find more effective?
The suppers are removed each time and treatments were just done on the brood boxes. Supers replaced later so they are not OA exposed. 
Thanks for your help.
R2


----------



## RayMarler

Nice day here again. I use inverted quart jars in a migratory cover with a small hole or three in the seal of the jar for feeding. I was out changing a few jars that the bees had emptied and got a bee sting on the side of the nose right at the inner corner of my eye! It's a good thing bee stings don't make me swell up any more.


----------



## Charlie B

Great day here as well. Bees are anticipating the great Eucalyptus bloom any week now. Still waiting for Ray Marler to come visit Odfrank and me in the Bay Area to show us how it's done!:thumbsup:


----------



## RayMarler

I'm betting it would be the other way around, that you both could teach me a thing or two!


----------



## Gazelle

I'll be there, with both ears!


----------



## redindiaink

My alarm went off this morning which caused some angry buzzing. I turn on a light and flip back the covers to find a wasp crawling across the bed. I don't know how they did it, but they found a way in to this creaky old house. I've been chasing wasps around the house for over a month. Wasps chillin' on walls, beating themselves fruitlessly against windows, crawling across the floor (and my foot!), and the dead littering the floor. 

Wasp stings: 0 

We had our first frost here, and one hive still hasn't kicked out the drones. In another hive I noticed crystals on the inspection tray and thought it might be sugar (I'm feeding) but doesn't taste as sweet as cane sugar. I also watched a few bees removing crystals from the hive over the past week. I pulled a few frames in the top deep, and found the nectar they've been gathering is crystallizing in the cell. The ivy is in full bloom making it a likely culprit.


----------



## Phoebee

The nuc occupied by our favorite old queen proved to be too heavy to weigh. The nuc is kept indoors and I could not get enough height to lift it off the table due to the ceiling and strap stretch. We'll inspect her next time, but I think her girls must have nearly filled their second medium. I think they'll make it if the old girl can last thru the winter, and weighing them at this point is not necessary.

The big hive she established, now run by a granddaughter, needed an entrance reducer. It didn't fit properly on the first try, upsetting the normally docile guard bees at the entrance. At least they nailed me on the hand with the arthritis.


----------



## RayMarler

Cloudy with sprinkles and showers this morning, forecast is the same through Monday. 

I went out yesterday and removed the feeder lids and put on solid lids for the hives. Ordered one queen last night from WildFlower Meadows, their last shipping date this year is Tuesday the 18th. I've got one hive I'll requeen with her and see if she does good into and through winter.


----------



## Charlie B

I was helping Ollie out in one of his beeyards the other day and noticed more peculiar hive stands! You gotta get over her Ray and see the stuff I'm seeing!:scratch: You too Gazelle!


----------



## JRG13

Can't see the pic, but I'm curious now Charlie


----------



## Charlie B

Here ya go JR. You need too see these things too!


----------



## odfrank

Charlie, If you want them to learn from the Master, at least publish decent pictures.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and 70F in the beeyard at noon today.

9 two story hives and 3 single story hives. All are 8 frame deeps.

Treated all hives with OAD.

One of the two stories is doing absolutely great, two boxes of bees. These are from Michael Palmers genetics. Six of the other two stories are doing well with a full box of bees.

One two story hive has a queen but very few bees so won't be making it I'm pretty sure.

Another two story hive has queen, but NO brood other than a handful of cells of open brood that looks like they are going to be drone. This hive has a small pile of dead bees out front and crawlers. I doubt this hive makes it either, but I'm hoping so treated and put the lid on as I want the genetics. They are TF bees from Fusion_power so am holding my breath that the queen picks back up laying again. I've had three days of bad weather with rains, and this hive was tilted wrong and got a lot of moisture inside. I'm hoping this is the reason for what I saw today, and have tilted it forward now so moisture runs out, not in.

The three singles are strugglers, but looks like they may still make it with winter sugar/pollen bricks, only time will tell.

One of the singles is my stock of genetics, last years queen, and I have six of the twelve hives are of that stock, so I pinched her. I have a queen that was delivered today from WildFlower Meadows apiary that I'm going to introduce here in 15 more minutes. I've just five minutes ago removed all attendants and am letting queen sit in the cage by herself so she gets desperate. Meanwhile the hive has been queenless for twenty minutes so far, so will have been queenless for over half an hour when I introduce this new queen.


----------



## Spur9

High of 85 degrees in Chattaboogie today. Good chance of rain tomorrow (first in over 6 weeks). I treated the last 2 hives that I purchased from a retiring beekeeper with fumagillin. All 6 hives got a dose of menthol pellets. Hoping the rain keeps them indoors for a bit while the vapors work. Tomorrow is the beginnng of cooler weather for a week at least. Highs in the 60's.

Hive top feeders have done their job. Single deeps are heavy and medium frames are capped. Have 4 gallons of sugar syrup that may not be used. I would like to have a few more mediums.


----------



## DavidZ

all shut down for the winter in AZ, going back to Oregon, ended the year with 4 solid hives, treated for mite since june 26th
used apivar, api life var, oav, and did a OAD today. Mite counts were at 0/300 using alcohol wash to test.
Coming back at the end of Jan 2017 to check on them. either they make it or not.

going to enjoy a few months salmon fishing at home on the Middle Rogue River and at my cabin in Agnus.
can't wait to see my boys been a few weeks since they went back.


----------



## Epreciado

Bought an established hive on Tuesday. It had two deep supers. Put it on the property with no problem. Will be inspecting it tomorrow to see how is doing. First hive ever so hope things go good. Wish me luck. My boy is looking forward to it and it's all he talks about.


----------



## Phoebee

Epreciado said:


> Bought an established hive on Tuesday. It had two deep supers. Put it on the property with no problem. Will be inspecting it tomorrow to see how is doing. First hive ever so hope things go good. Wish me luck. My boy is looking forward to it and it's all he talks about.


Welcome to beekeeping! Good luck with the new hive. Have a realistic attitude ... all your eggs are in one basket and winter is tough on bees. Hopefully you can determine if they need feeding or treatment. If this does not work, don't let it discourage you.


----------



## Epreciado

Thanks for the support. Just finished my very first inspection. Saw some capped brood but couldn't locate the queen. Looks like they have a lot of drawn comb but not a lot of it is capped so I will start feeding some syrup. Also might have to put in some pollen patties will order them and install one next week when I inspect again.


----------



## Tomcleaver

Hi all,

I live on Gold Coast Australia and I'm just getting into bee keeping as a back yard hobby. I haven't got a hive yet, but I am anticipating on buying one really soon. I was thinking about getting a flow hive but I'm just not sure because there has been a lot of bad comments about it. A few questions, 
-should I get a flow hive over the traditional hive, is it worth the fuss?
-how does the plastic affect the bees, do they care?
-how many hives should I start with? 
-should I just simply start with a traditional bee hive?
-why is there so many bad comments about flow?
-should I get one flow and one traditional hive, can I still compare them?

And anything else I need to know as a new bee keeper please tell me. Thanks

Replys would be greatly appreciated. 

Tom


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Tom,

First, Welcome to BeeSource. You will learn lots of things at this website.

Second, I would recommend that you start with a wooden Langstroth or wooden British National Standard hive for a couple of years until you learn how to be a beekeeper. After you have mastered beekeeping, then go experimenting.

Regards,
Steve


----------



## Tomcleaver

Ok, thanks


----------



## DanielD

Tom, biggest thing is that this particular thread is not really for discussing things, but for simple posting of what's going on in the apiary. There's also a flow hive thread to keep flow hive threads from flooding the forum with them.


----------



## Kuro

Attempted to harvest mostly-ivy honey from a few medium frames, but the majority was already crystalized. After hand-cranking 2-frame extractor forever, I only got 4 lb. The honey was immediately solidified after bottling, and tasted very different from my earlier crops. Next year I’ll probably let my bees draw on a few foundationless medium frames early in the season and put them in fall so that I can harvest ivy honey as comb honey.


----------



## Tomcleaver

can someone tell me where the flow chat is on this website?


----------



## clyderoad

in the equipment/hardware forum
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?307501-Extractor-less-honey-by-Flow-Hive
and
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?317311-Flow-Hive-Firsthand-Experience


----------



## Charlie B

Kuro said:


> Attempted to harvest mostly-ivy honey from a few medium frames, but the majority was already crystalized. After hand-cranking 2-frame extractor forever, I only got 4 lb. The honey was immediately solidified after bottling, and tasted very different from my earlier crops. Next year I’ll probably let my bees draw on a few foundationless medium frames early in the season and put them in fall so that I can harvest ivy honey as comb honey.


You have to spin ivy honey immediately after the flow!


----------



## RayMarler

It's been showers and rain here for the last four days.
Went out during a 1/2 hour of sun just now.
Saw a dead yellow jacket at the front entrance...
Ninja Bees!!!


----------



## VickyLynn

Today I cleaned up the bee shed. Sprayed 80 drawn deep frames and about 40 drawn super frames with XenTari. I probably didn't need to, because we have had freezing weather and it will only continue. But cleaned up each frame as I did it, and made an inventory. I weeded out about fifteen old frames to replace foundation, except a few that I am going to pitch entirely. I cleaned up all my wooden ware, scraped the edges; put the nuc equipment on one side, full boxes on the other. I feel ready for spring, lol. 

It was about fifty degrees today and everyone was out flying. So beautiful.


----------



## clyderoad

Eastern Long Island, NY
Pollen coming into the hives these last few days with mustard color, light yellow color, white, pumpkin orange color, yellow, and light peach color.
Quite a lot of it as well.
Not much can be seen blooming except some asters past prime, quickly fading goldenrod in the dividers between opposite lanes of traffic and the occasional dandelion, red clover and chicory. Sure must be something else giving up all that pollen but not a clue to what it may be.
Bees flying on all warmer days if the wind is calm. Have not had a killing frost this fall.


----------



## Charlie B

RayMarler said:


> Saw a dead yellow jacket at the front entrance...
> Ninja Bees!!!


I can relate Ray. I'm seeing a few YJs around my hives. In fact, I was enjoying an adult beverage while watching them and it's a good think I looked before I took another sip.


----------



## gww

Charly B


> I can relate Ray. I'm seeing a few YJs around my hives. In fact, I was enjoying an adult beverage while watching them and it's a good think I looked before I took another sip.


I can relate. I was drinking beer the year before last and got stung on the inside of the lip. I drank a lot more cause I had a good excuse for sluring my words.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Phoebee

We finally got a warm day to inspect a few hives.

We dug into the largest, weighing in at 153 pounds, to see how they'd configured it. We expected to find the two medium supers packed, and the bottom deep nearly empty.

The bees are smarter than we gave them credit for. The two mediums were not full, and we were able to pull empty frames and compact them down to one. We removed the queen excluder ... obviously they didn't care for it much and it needed to come off for winter anyway. There had been some brood in the bottom medium earlier in the year.

The top deep was packed wall to wall, top to bottom, with capped honey, except for a small patch of capped brood on the bottom edge of a couple of middle frames. The bottom deep had some capped brood and larvae, pollen, a little honey, and a healthy-looking queen. Population looked OK for November. So on their own, they configured with a huge store of honey above the broodnest, ready to start eating their way toward spring. And they could probably do _*two*_ winters with what they have stored.

Nice job, girls!


----------



## Zephyr

Real happy with my first winter thus far. Early Oct there was no sign of queen because the busy hive had packed the entire hive full of GR honey near 100% capped (current population too high for there not to be a queen). Took off my medium super off to winter as double deep but being near full back then, the flow was still on full blast so I gave them a waxed completely empty 8 frame deep & moved them up with 2 frames from below. Yesterday just gave them a peek. My section of AR is warm and dry. Not much GR anymore and being so warm, I've fed some to keep them from burning up their stores. Well the 3 frames I looked at were all over half way built. One side fully done and about capped, the other being filled with nectar as cells were finished. Lost 2 Apivar strips though. Had 2 in both established deeps but couldnt see my upper ones. Likely fell to the bottom but as long as it works! Ol queeny girl likes to hang out on the bottom box so thats were the most bees are anyway and being warm enough to fly, bees are moving all over the hive. Will take that over starvation and queenlessness 

Looking like a great setup. Originally planned to have just 4 hives by the time I left college but I've moved toward a more aggressive expansion. With the swarm traps & splits I've planned, might have 4 hives by the end of next year! :thumbsup:


----------



## Bdfarmer555

Made my last rounds of feeding and putting on mouse guards today. As my bottom boards aren't all the same, I made a bunch of 12" 1x2's with a shallow notch in the bottom about 3" wide and about 1/4" tall. Carried a small 3 gallon compressor and a brad gun to attach them. Could get 10 hives before finding an outlet to plug and recharge. 

Had a good amount of 1/8" hardibacker tile underlayment I used as a filler between the end of the 1x2 and the edge of the bottom board. Hope mice prefer not to chew that stuff. 

Bees in my now vacant soybean fields were working the henbit that has bloomed in the warm fall weather. 80 degrees today, 75 tomorrow, and 50's next week.


----------



## Phoebee

We cut down a pine tree that was blocking morning sun to the apiary. Afterwards the bees were curious about the chain saw. But this morning they greeted the sunshine with enthusiasm.

Inspecting a thriving hive that had a new queen this summer, we found an unmarked queen. Due to weather, we have not been deep in that hive for several weeks. This is probably a supersedure. The previous queen may not have had great mating opportunities due to all the queens in the apiary being close relatives. We'll have to check back ... this is awfully late to get a new queen properly mated.


----------



## Spur9

Yesterday I picked up my mentor and drove him to my house. We went thru my hives. Visually verified queens in 5 of 6 hives. He said that he may have missed the 6th queen, but told me to keep watch on the hive. Although there's not much that could be done at this point, he instructed me that a dead hive would need to be dealt with before spring.

Watching him work was mesmerizing. I would pull the frames out and hand them to him. He'd take them to a sunnier area to get a good look. I followed like a puppy dog. 

While he was really talking to himself and the bees, I recorded every sentence in my memory banks. Tallying frames with some brood, how much pollen was stored, estimating population. His mind is still as sharp as a tack.

For a couple of hours, I was as happy as a pig in mud. And I think that he was too. 

I am blessed.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Finished wrapping hives yesterday. Sore and exhausted. Looking forward to winter break. Just in time...6-12" snow tonight/tomorrow. Pshew!


----------



## Wosiewose

After a few cool days with cold nights (finally got our first snow a few days ago), we got a nice day in the upper 60s today. So I decided to take the opportunity to check on the bees (2 deeps and a super). Numbers seem to be pretty decent, though there are still some elderly foragers dying off in the vicinity of the hive. Took off the super (they hadn't touched it since I'd put it on in early Sept.; I hadn't expected them to do anything with it but wanted them to have the opportunity just in case they felt like it). Could NOT get any frames to look at out of the upper deep box for the life of me - they've propolized them so securely that nothing was going to budge. Decided not to mess with their weatherstripping with cold weather on the way, so just peered down between the frames to see what I could see. All 10 frames in the upper deep were full of capped stores as far down as I could see, so I just swapped out the inner cover for the insulated candy board with the notch for an upper entrance, put on the mouse guard, and closed 'er up. I didn't see the queen, but the bees were very calm and weren't acting queenless at all, so I'm hoping her majesty is present and in good health. Planning to do an OAV treatment this week or next, and other than that, they're snug as bugs in a rug... or in a hive.


----------



## Forgiven

Oxalic acid drop day, no rain for change, snow melted, +6 C (43F) or so, doubt I'll get better weather.
5 hives with 5-6 frames of bees got 20-24 ml, same with 1 hive I could not see much anyone (it was getting dark, had no flashlight, ball might have been in the lower box...)
1 hive was happily strong, all the way full (ie, 10 frames) and got the full 40ml dosage.
(15g acid, 2dl water, 200g sugar mix)
Slightly worried about that one hive, rest look like they should get throught the winter, probably.
Will do the 3 weaker hives and nuc tomorrow, brought them into old piggery for the winter earlier.

Managed to get one sting in my finger too.


----------



## costigaj

OAV'd my hive for the last time on Saturday at noon when it was 65F. Saturday night it was snowing. Forecast is much colder weather from here on out.


----------



## Phoebee

Shhhhh! Don't spill the beans, but I just bought the two breeder queens a Christmas present. They are kept in indoor nucs in the garage workshop. They've always been a pain to carry outside for inspection, especially with full winter stores. I just found a rolling wine cart on sale, nice and sturdy, just the right size for a nuc, and the same height as the bench they are on. It was cheaper than any other cart of that size I could find, and better built. 

The butcher-block top is a bit fru-fru, but they won't mind.


----------



## Wosiewose

Did my first OAV today with the new vaporizer (did a test run first to be sure it works, and it does). 40 deg F, so all the bees were in the hive. One poor little worker fell into the vaporizer pan during the treatment and perished.  But they're all set for the winter now, I hope...


----------



## PhilK

Different on this side of the world! Honey flow is going crazy, can't keep up with hives at the moment. Started with 2 last November and have 9 at home, 2 elsewhere and 2 elsewhere. Nucs building up beautifully and can't keep enough gear up to them for the amount they're growing and producing!


----------



## VickyLynn

A nice problem to have. I am looking out at my seven hives today, all covered with snow, knowing I have done everything in my power to make the winter safe (food, ventilation, insulation, large numbers). Hopefully, most will make it, so come spring, my bees will multiply like yours.


----------



## Forgiven

PhilK said:


> Different on this side of the world! Honey flow is going crazy, can't keep up with hives at the moment. Started with 2 last November and have 9 at home, 2 elsewhere and 2 elsewhere. Nucs building up beautifully and can't keep enough gear up to them for the amount they're growing and producing!


From 2 to 13 in a year? Only splitting or did you buy few more too?

Here winter is trying to decide if it is coming or not, temperatures swing from 0 to 32 F all the time...


----------



## PhilK

Forgiven said:


> From 2 to 13 in a year? Only splitting or did you buy few more too?


Sorry yes we actually bought 5 nucs, the rest were splits and a swarm!


----------



## Bee Nut

Sunny and 62 yesterday so I took a quick peak at 2 hives. They have moved into the top box. The top boxes are crammed with stores. The bottom boxes were completely empty. One had great numbers, the other- only 4 frames of bees. Spotted the queen in the weaker colony. She has capped brood, larva and eggs (only one frame). Fingers crossed they pull through. Coldest night of the winter so far tonight-38.


----------



## Charlie B

I've lost 9 out of 50 so far. I haven't treated in 2 years so not bad. All the more brood comb for bait hives in the spring.


----------



## Snapset

Cleaned dead bees from entrances. I Haven't lost any in a few weeks. Still have one super to extract, but being lazy, I might just save it to feed back early spring.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Tonight with wind chill it’s going to be -30F. I have 4 hives (3) 10’s and one 8 framed. The 10’s are all double deeps with a full med honey supers and the 8 frame is just a double deep. Above my top boxes we placed a 4 inch feeding boxes with an attached ¾ shim. In the shim we cut out an upper entrance. Sugar blocks were placed in the 8 frame feed box with burlap just above it. There is no feed yet in the other 3. We did not have any more burlap so cut up some old window screen and placed in each box to stop the added shavings from falling through. Forgot to mention I have #8 cloth built in between the shim and feeding boxes. On top of the feeding boxes I placed Mann Lake moisture boards and covered with and inner cover, then reflective insulation and the outer cover. All the hives are wrapped with roofing felt (tar paper). 
So I only have the upper entrance as a moisture escape. Should there be holes maybe at the top of the feeding boxes above the shavings or is there enough moisture wicking material to leave as is??? 
Oh, each hive is sitting on a screened bottom board with the drawer in. 
This is my first year, so one mistake by me may be their last.


----------



## Phoebee

Got up to the apiary expecting a warm Sunday morning to give us a chance to finally pull the feeders and install the quilt boxes, and fit in an OAV treatment.

Woke up to freezing temps, high winds, and precipitation varying between sleet, rain, and snow. The bees were displaying more good sense than we were, as usual, by staying inside. We took the hint and backed off.

Maybe later this week.


----------



## Phoebee

Deleted double post


----------



## jstrom4

Our first freeze in Houston was Sunday night. Monday late morning with temps around 40 my hive #1 was bringing in pollen like it was April. Had no idea they would fly and forage in the low 40s and was really surprised by the volume of foraging. 

Hive #2 on the other hand is not doing well and might not make it.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

frogpond.

I'm a bit confused with your description above in post #1314 above, but I'll try to help.

Do you have a n open lower entrance together with the open upper entrance? If not, you should have, together with an open upper entrance. 

You talk about a feeding box, but what you describe sounds more like what is commonly called a quilt box or QB. The QB commonly is about 4 inched high, has a screened bottom, is full of some moisture absorbent material such as wood shavings, and has several to many screened ~1 inch diameter vent holes on each of the four sides. These vent holes are important because they allow the accumulated moisture in the wood shavings to evaporate and thus leave the hive. The QB fits near the top of your stack usually right under the outer cover. It is generally not possible to use a QB as a feeding shim or rim. After reviewing your description, I guess the 3/4" shim you have attached to the bottom of what you are calling a "feeding box" could actually be considered a 3/4" high "feeding rim" even though it is attached to the bottom of your QB. You could easily put sugar bricks in there that were about 1/2" thick and they would provide emergency winter feed for your bees. The upper entry "notch" in that 3/4" high rim is correct and important for both ventilation and to allow the bees to exit. 

I would suggest that you: A) Re-phrase your question and post it in the "Bee Forum", because you will get many more and varied responses; B) Do a search in the Bee Forum for terms such as "quilt box" and "feeding shim"

All the best in getting your four colonies through the winter successfully. Beekeeping is a challenging hobby and we all get beat up a bit while we learn.

Regards,
Steve


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Bear Creek Steve said:


> frogpond.
> 
> I'm a bit confused with your description above in post #1314 above, but I'll try to help.
> 
> Do you have a n open lower entrance together with the open upper entrance? If not, you should have, together with an open upper entrance.
> 
> You talk about a feeding box, but what you describe sounds more like what is commonly called a quilt box or QB. The QB commonly is about 4 inched high, has a screened bottom, is full of some moisture absorbent material such as wood shavings, and has several to many screened ~1 inch diameter vent holes on each of the four sides. These vent holes are important because they allow the accumulated moisture in the wood shavings to evaporate and thus leave the hive. The QB fits near the top of your stack usually right under the outer cover. It is generally not possible to use a QB as a feeding shim or rim. After reviewing your description, I guess the 3/4" shim you have attached to the bottom of what you are calling a "feeding box" could actually be considered a 3/4" high "feeding rim" even though it is attached to the bottom of your QB. You could easily put sugar bricks in there that were about 1/2" thick and they would provide emergency winter feed for your bees. The upper entry "notch" in that 3/4" high rim is correct and important for both ventilation and to allow the bees to exit.
> 
> I would suggest that you: A) Re-phrase your question and post it in the "Bee Forum", because you will get many more and varied responses; B) Do a search in the Bee Forum for terms such as "quilt box" and "feeding shim"
> 
> All the best in getting your four colonies through the winter successfully. Beekeeping is a challenging hobby and we all get beat up a bit while we learn.
> 
> Regards,
> Steve



Part of it is terminology. What I actually made was a candy board. Didn't put a vent hole in it and also didn't like the jagged edge where I stapled my #8 hardware cloth to the bottom. So I made something similar to an Imirie shim and used my nail gun to attach. The shim has an entrance and is being used as my upper entrance. Now my 3 ten frame hives actually have a full honey super on top. Before wrapping the hives with tar paper it was decided to add these new boxes in case they were needed. Once they were on the hive I thought why not add shavings for moisture but I also have Mann Lake moisture boards sitting right on top of them as well. Inside the candy boxes a layer of old window screen was placed so the shavings would not fall through the #8 wire. Figuring if there was a need to feed later I could just ease up the screen and slide sugar blocks and or pollen patties under the window screen on the wire. When the roofing felt was placed on the hives it was pulled right to the top of the Mann Lake moisture boards and stapled up to the top of the candy boards. So now I can remove the Mann Lake moisture board but cannot get my feed down where the shim is with out deconstructing because of staples and paper. Much to cold for that now. 
My weak hive(two 8 frame deeps and the same candy board) is already taking sugar blocks. Because of the space left in the candy board a piece of burlap was folded over the sugar cakes. The bees in this hive have been all over the sugar cakes since late Nov. So I don't think it looks good for them. 
All my hives have screened bottom boards with the drawer in. They all have the bottom entrance reducers set at the small opening with mouse guards on. 
Guess my question maybe should have been should I drill holes at the top of what I had made as candy boards to enhance moisture evaporation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_WLCc21-Hk Similar candy board example


----------



## Phoebee

We finally got a day good enough to pull off the feeders and put on the quilt boxes. A month ago would have been better. We probably killed one hive with condensation ... the feeder still had syrup in it. The rest were fine.

One bee must have hitchhiked into the cabin on my suit. I found her buzzing in a ceiling light fixture. She was too tired at that point to fly, so I gave her a drop of syrup from that still-full feeder, which she lapped up eagerly. 15 minutes later she was recovered. Took her outside, where she buzzed the wings a few times, took off, oriented on me for a few seconds, and flew home.

So we probably killed ten thousand or more, but rescued one.


----------



## Cloverdale

Michael Palmer said:


> Finished wrapping hives yesterday. Sore and exhausted. Looking forward to winter break. Just in time...6-12" snow tonight/tomorrow. Pshew!


Quite the job to complete; hope your Christmas was good with your family.


----------



## Wosiewose

Yikes! High winds yesterday, and I don't know why I hadn't thought to put a brick on top of the hive before. We were in Colo. Springs yesterday for the family Christmas celebration at my baby brother's, and by the time we got back it was pitch dark (of course). Looked out the window this morning and the hive's top cover was tipped up, the edge of one side resting on top. I threw on my coat and boots and ran outside to check. Mercifully, the insulated candy board had not moved, so the inside of the hive wasn't exposed. I straightened everything out and put a brick on top, which I should have done earlier!! Checked the 48-hour weather observations, and the temp hadn't gone below 25 deg F, so I'm crossing my fingers that the bees are okay......


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and sunny here today, with 48F degrees temp.

Put my winter mix patties on the hives today. 

I've not taken care of the hives properly this late summer and fall from physical health issues, no feeding or treating has been done, and it shows in the conditions of the hives. 

One dead-out, it was from my old stock of bees. 4-5 hives with less than one seam of bees, and only a couple with 2 seams or so. Hopefully some of them pull through into spring.
Nine going at this time, and hoping half of them or more make it to spring. This next year is going to be a year of building back up.


----------



## clyderoad

RayMarler said:


> Clear and sunny here today


I hope you're on the mend RayMarler. Take care of yourself so you'll be able
to enjoy the bees later on.


----------



## RayMarler

clyderoad, thank you, I've been on the mend for a couple to three weeks now. I've been taking care of myself instead of the bees the last half of this year, so hoping next year is a good one. Hoping you have an excellent year yourself, thanks again.


----------



## costigaj

Took some time today with the unusually warm 55F weather in southwest PA to add some sugar bricks. The bees were flying, foraging and cleaning out the dead bees. At one point they were bearding. When I approached them they were all over my suit; being very gentle and inquisitive. Put some sugar water on my gloves and they were loving it. A cold front is coming in now and they are all back in the hive.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Wosiewose,

You might try an old gallon paint bucket full of sand as a dead weight with a handle. Works well here in COS with 40 MPH winds.








Hope you get your girls through winter OK.

Steve


----------



## EvilZeg

My Father in Law let me know that the bees from my three hives were flying today. Woo Hoo!


----------



## Cyan

Over the weekend I gave each hive a shot of OAV, taking advantage of the brood break. While doing so, I noticed that the 2 late summer swarms I had trapped were not active on any level, so today I opened them up.

Both had obviously passed away- no surprise there but i was hoping that they could be saved. The surprise though came with finding a queen cell in the smaller of the two.


----------



## clyderoad

57 degrees today.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Snow on the 22nd and rain on the 23rd. Sanded driveways on the 24th. Light snow turned to sleet on the 26th with rain early on the 27th. Sanded driveways on the 27th. Going to buy the girls skates.


----------



## Nordak

clyderoad said:


> 57 degrees today.


Nice. If you'd posted that in June I'd be super impressed. Some healthy bees you got there.


----------



## Norcalkyle

Going to put bag feeders in the hives tomorrow as we are expecting 65 here all week. I will be doing 1x OAV as well this week. Our area has been moderately cold with regular rain for the last 2 months, so I have not had a chance to crack the lids for quite some time. Hoping for no suprises and good numbers. Always hard in the winter when you don't get to look often.


----------



## rolftonbees

Put syrup bags on my hives today. It was about 63. Took a peek beneath super on most and was surprised to see much larger clusters than I had anticipated. 

It was interesting to see some new cappings on one super. I guess that group packed the sugar away for later, a good sign I hope.

I will put another bag on them in about three weeks if there is a nice day for it.

I am not as worried about loosing most of them as I was, but we will see.


----------



## SS Auck

I tossed some winter patties into the hive for a Christmas present to the bees. It was in the mid 40s. The bees were not clustered, or the cluster is the size of the top deep.  Seem to be doing pretty good so far. One hive was so happy they sent a few bees out to thank me with their stingers. I have started the count down to the maple bloom only three months away. might need to start building deeps.


----------



## jstrom4

After the 3-day cold snap before Christmas (highs around 45 and had our first freeze), we're very warm here in Houston. Just set a record of 5-staight 80* days in December, which is crazy warm (hot) even for down here. Bees are foraging like it's March...

Christmas weekend I found my hive #2 to be dead. I knew it was headed in that direction, and I could tell they were dwindling. It was a combination of SHB and robbers, but was probably weakened due to not mite treating until it was too late. I cleaned out the hive, froze frames, found SHB/WM larvae so put them on ant piles, sprayed the others with BT, and stored. Put a few (hopefully) un-contaminated honey frames onto Hive #1. OAV treated Hive #1 12/24 and am due for another treatment this weekend, probably Monday 1/2.


----------



## Norcalkyle

Very active hives yesterday in 65 degree weather. Cracked all lids and checked on sugar blocks, and added about 1/2 gallon of sypup in zip locks to the hives. Very pleased with the population size, and I actually put a medium on a few hives because they seemed crowded and I expect some small flows to start in the next few weeks. Lots of orientation flights and orange pollen coming in.


----------



## Forgiven

NUC wellbeing is bit worrysome, (not that I ever had very high hopes, it's more of an experiment than real attempt to overwinter, bought one more queen than I needed and decided to give it a try.) a lot of dead bees at the bottom, but at least some alive too still (by buzzing when I scooped out the dead ones).. Possibly the mouseguard has prevented them from cleaning up, it looks bit 'tight' ..

Gave them bit of driedup apifonda, as I have my doubts about how that nuc is supposed to ventilate anyways, and it felt bit moist last time I opened it up, maybe that'll suck up some moisture and give them bit of something to eat too (over 32 F today, 4 C, too lazy for exact conversions) as I only gave them 5 frames of food to begin with when I created the nuc, and they might have eaten a bunch of it in autumn already...

Rest of the hives seem ok, well, the ones indoors, haven't gone to the ones that are outside recently.


----------



## Briarvalleyapiaries

Put together 25 medium hive bodies this afternoon.


----------



## Phoebee

We went up expecting temperatures in the mid-50's but when we got there the temperature was 41 F and with high winds. The cold front got there first. We deferred to the wishes of the bees and left them alone. The plan had been to inspect a suspected deadout, and move its stores to a light hive if the were as dead as suspected.

The bees said "Go Away", and we figured they know best.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear with a slight breeze, 57F here today.

Took a walk around the hives, orientation flights and foraging going on, some more than others. Tipped lids and see they've been eating the patties I put on back Dec.26th. I'd added to three of them last week before this last set of rains. Now those three plus three more need more patty soon. I'll be making up another batch in the next few days. I didn't pull any frames, just tipped lids is all. I'll do real inspections sometime in February on a nice 60F+ warm day. Was really nice to have a little sunshine today!

OH, so far only 1 die out. Had 10 and now 9. Today looked hopeful that the rest will make it but two do still look weak on bees. Not too bad considering my lack of management last late summer and fall.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Did a quick lid check just before dark. Seeing a few hundred dead bees in the snow. lots of bee poop on the outer covers of the hives. Not so much on the snow. Wax pattern on the screen bottom boards show clusters running front to back near middle of the hives. Small 8 frame hive have a few hundred bees on the sugar blocks in the feeder. There was a heavy rain last night with +6c degrees today. Suppose to be +8c tomorrow with rain again. Had one moisture board wet on one side but not the shavings below. Turned it wet side up.


----------



## Bee Nut

Hive checks today went great. It got up to 72 and the bees were toting a pale yellow pollen. Most had 3-4 frames of brood and plenty of stores. Very excited about the upcoming season because I finally have drawn comb to give for expansion and honey. Not sure if the pollen is wild mustard but that's the only thing I have seen blooming. Still no maple here.


----------



## DanielD

It got just warm enough for the bees to stir a little bit. All the hives are still alive at this date. It's good to see at this point. The nucs in the old abandoned house all have life in them as well.


----------



## diymom

Haven't posted in a long while,
We have had so much rain in southern California for the last month and getting more, so many wildflowers and clover blooming everywhere since nobody can cut their lawn in between such frequent showers. So many things are blooming early on the big bushy lawns. It's a whole different neighborhood. All the dead park strips are shocking green and finally filling out with something living.
I got a new hive the 13th of december that was a cut out and both my backyard hives are boiling right now, in between rain showers and if the sun comes out it's like a cloud of bees erupts from the hives. They fly during the rain too, but not in large numbers. So much pollen is coming in. It's spring in January and if we keep getting more rain we are in for some great forage and hopefully some honey for me.
I set up another cutout hive I got down in my satellite apiary at my dad's 80something miles south...blooming like crazy there too. Checking on them Monday.

I'm still in my first year beekeeping and I can't believe how different the so cal weather is and bees here are in comparison to elsewhere with actual winter. Bees apparently don't stop here.


----------



## Newbee116

Warm out today so I cracked the cover and the girls are still working from the 2nd box. Haven't even started on the 3rd box, (went with 3 deeeps).

Looks like I'll have a good bit of honey frames left over to make splits with


----------



## wertzsteve

have two hives ,60 degrees today one hive lots of bees flying around 10 o'clock, the other weaker one, thought it might be dead could hear bees finally saw a few bees come out about 11:30. we will see if it hangs on, still a lot of winter to go


----------



## clyderoad

Jan 12 56*F partly sunny calm


----------



## RayMarler

High of 49F and cloudy all day. 
Not much beehive activity.
Tipped lids and one is not going to make it.
That makes 2 down out of original 10.
The rest are eating patty, some have more bees up than others.
Made up more patty today, half or more of them are going to need it soon.
Probably will get out tomorrow to replenish patty on the ones that need it.


----------



## wertzsteve

Good news the weaker hive had just as much activity as the stronger one today at 12:30. Interesting the weaker hive workers were bring in pollen (1 in 4 or 5). The stronger hive workers, I saw no pollen. I am thinking the weaker hive has some brood to keep warm, I believe that's why it was hours later and warmer before they started coming out, don't know, just guessing new(bee)


----------



## Charlie B

Now that the rain has stopped, there's a Eucalyptus fest going on. Good news as I'm behind on my spring yield!


----------



## Delta 21

Its been single digit temps for over a week.. I am reading "The Thinking Beekeeper" by Christy Hemenway and enjoying staying warm inside. 

Wed-Thur was in the shop working on my third hive. I am working off the Golden Mean hive plans but this one is 43" deep inside. I havent computed the volume yet.














Made out of 5/8 plywood with a layer of 3/4" pine on the outside.







Spent today making 65 top bars. Enough to cover this hive and my 2 new nucs.


----------



## Cloverdale

Hi Delta 21, the hives looks good! If you look in the archives here search for "Golden Mean Hive from Backyardhives" there is a thread there that talks about the hive you are building. Someone mentioned a problem with the roof they made and has other tidbits of info in there. Check out Wyatt Mangums books. Anyway, I had the privilege of attending a Club meeting where C. Hemenway spoke. I have langs and one top bar which didn't do very well; it was newly made by a friend and I coated the inside with melted wax, propolis and honey ( for that "homey" touch) I put a package in and they superseded the queen. It was a small hive but is still going now. I am reading up on a Lazutin hive which is extra deep and set up like a long lang. The book I am reading is Keeping Bees With a Smile by Fedor Lazutin. Good luck and have fun.


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> Jan 12 56*F partly sunny calm


Up here in the western Catskills not as warm as you are. My smallest hive which is a top bar was flying, but very little of the others. I did get to peek in so they are doing good so far.


----------



## Joebrad

My last remaining hive out of the 2 started in 2016 is working hard. They are bringing in a ton of yellow pollen but I don't know what it's from. Here in the Piney Woods of East Texas everything looks dead. I also worked on building 6 SBB's that I designed from 2 x 4's and 1 x 4's. They came out pretty good. I will post some pictures of them soon. I'm sure someone else has done the same thing I just have not seen them. Yesterday it was about 70 degrees and cloudy but man was it nice outside!


----------



## Barhopper

Made the first split of the year today. Bees seem to think it's gong to stay warm and nice judging by their numbers.


----------



## Delta 21

Woke up to 1/2" of ice covering everything. Prolly be 3-4" of snow before nightfall.

Cloverdale - Thanks for the thread on Golden Mean hives. The print I have only had a 26" inside length! Crazy small and they have a seperate flat cover then the gabled roof fits over that....I just made it all one piece. When the top is closed up the bees seal the top bars completely, a lid and a roof seemed doubly redundantly excessive.  and there was plenty of room to put an inch of R-5 insulation board in the attic (also one beneath the solid floor..)

The ice is melted/not formed around the entrances, you can tell the hives are breathing warm air out of the entrances.


----------



## Bowfinger

Pronounced another hive as dead. There were about 40 bees and a queen left. Yellowjackets and robbers stealing feed. Some dead bees in the bottom. In in early fall I thought this hive would make it. They had honey and a new queen. I treated with OAV and strips. They brought in a fair amount of pollen. Oh well. I curiously saved the queen and some tenders with her. I have to do a "small" cut out tomorrow if weather permits. Perhaps I'll use the queen and split the cutout bees. Purchased this queen in September. There was a small patch of brood 2X3 inches.


----------



## tful24

Coming into my first spring as a new bee keeper and have a question. I'm in Nashville TN and did my hive check today (3) all looks good but looks like pollen coming in??? Can anyone confirm?







Thanks


----------



## Cloverdale

I heard on another forum that a beekeeper from TN was seeing pollen coming in but not sure from what.


----------



## Yukon Bees

it was -40C today... I hope my hives make it through this cold spell. They've survived that last 3 cold spells in the -30s... But today was the coldest.. photo shw winter setup before winter started back in October.


----------



## Michael Palmer

That is cold. 

Nice hardwood fence.


----------



## Cloverdale

Yukon Bees, What kind of animals do you have up there that would bother your bees?


----------



## Yukon Bees

Mostly bears (grizzlies and blacks). I have an electric fence surrounding the yard. The pallet fence is more for a wind block and creating a micro climate.


----------



## Cloverdale

What kind of plants do they forage on and what time of year is that approximately?


----------



## Yukon Bees

Mostly boreal forest (Willow/Aspen/soaperries in early spring, dandelions/wild flowers early summer, fireweed mid to late summer - mid July/early August, best honey yields are areas near roads where invasives (sweet clover, alsek clover, alfalfa and other non native flowers). I am experimenting with white clover, phacelia and sainfoin on my property to get later summer/fall forage (frost resistant). I do need to feed in spring (brood rearing) and fall to make sure I get at least 100lbs of "honey" in the hive before winter hits. I place an extra medium on top to hold my extra emergency feed and extra top insulation.


----------



## Yukon Bees

We are very similar to Fairbanks Alaska but our goal is to over winter vs restarting every year.
Forage cycle is on page 11. 
https://www.uaf.edu/files/ces/publications-db/catalog/anr/ABM-00230.pdf


----------



## Swarmhunter

Wow and I thought -25 F. was cold. Checked on all of my hives this week. Weather has been in the 30's and cloudy. 22 out of 23 doing great. Most are starting to eat the fondant some. Looks like they'd really like to get out and poop though. Maybe we'll get a warmer spell in a week or so. Right now I'm as delighted as I've been since I started 4 years ago. This really is long learning process. I'm really indebted to everybody who adds their years of information and shares it with the rest of us. Thank-you!


----------



## frogpondwarrior

It has been very damp here for the last two weeks. Found moisture in 3 of my 4 hives yesterday. Dried moisture boards out and drilled more 5/8 inch vent holes and placed the boards back in the hive. Took a quick peek between frames and still see clusters. Not sure I would as I found 2 to 3 cups of dead bees on the bottom boards. Cleaned them all out but saw no queens. Maybe there is hope yet. 
Expecting ice and rain on Tue then several days in mid 40's. Will check on my feed then and adjust as needed.


----------



## Yukon Bees

Happy to say all 3 are still humming... still in the -20sC but calling for +3C on Thursday.... I'll have a quick peak then to see how the cluster is doing.


----------



## Cloverdale

Yukon Bees said:


> Mostly boreal forest (Willow/Aspen/soaperries in early spring, dandelions/wild flowers early summer, fireweed mid to late summer - mid July/early August, best honey yields are areas near roads where invasives (sweet clover, alsek clover, alfalfa and other non native flowers). I am experimenting with white clover, phacelia and sainfoin on my property to get later summer/fall forage (frost resistant). I do need to feed in spring (brood rearing) and fall to make sure I get at least 100lbs of "honey" in the hive before winter hits. I place an extra medium on top to hold my extra emergency feed and extra top insulation.
> View attachment 30308
> View attachment 30307


I notice in your hive boxes that they are insulated with double walls? and do you use an upper entrance during the winter? and how do the bees access the extra sugar in top?


----------



## Yukon Bees

Cloverdale, the poly hives have the same inside dimension typical. The wooden insert fits inside and I use 1/2" hardware cloth underneath with newspaper to hold the hardened sugar (I spray it with a mister with a Honey-B healthy mix after every 3/4" of sugar to harden when it dries). bees can fits through the mesh and I have a small cut out at the front for moisture and bees to reach the top. I no longer use top entrances. I put a piece of burlap to suck moisture on top of that blue styrofoam and leave my top feeder (styro foam) as extra insulation (bee can't get in though). I get less condensation and I get less ice build up at the front entrance. I use a piece of plywood at 45deg to keep the main entrance snow free and protected from the wind.


----------



## SpratMan

tful24 said:


> Coming into my first spring as a new bee keeper and have a question. I'm in Nashville TN and did my hive check today (3) all looks good but looks like pollen coming in??? Can anyone confirm?
> View attachment 30288
> 
> Thanks


Surviving my first Beekeeper winter as well. I had bees coming in on the 20th with stuff too. Don't know what it was. I don't see anything blooming. Some I have asked suggested something they are picking up from Bird Feeders or possibly Corn dust from Silos???? Maybe there is some sort of cover crop that is blooming???


----------



## rolftonbees

Goog news. Went to feed and do a quick look in the brood nest as it was in mid 60's. 

Was nice to see several did not use all of last feed and others were still with frames of honey left. Did not notice any signs of distress like mildew on inside of covers etc.

All still have a nice amount of bees. 10 for 10. I will relax through this next batch of cold weather. I will only take a few bags with me next time not 10. I may not need any more feedings we will see. Two are iffy. 

I hope I dont need to feed this coming year. It would be horrible to go without rain for months again.


----------



## frustrateddrone

-40:no:........ "THAT's NOTHING!" We had 84 degrees here Tuesday!


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Another wet day. 4C Slid open the tops and added sugar cakes. Saw clusters in all 4 hives. Funny my weak hive I gave them a pollen patty on Dec 1st. Now on warm days they have as many flying as the other 3 hives together. Then again the others all have full honey supers so maybe the girls just have the feed bag on and no reason to go for a stroll.


----------



## Yukon Bees

Checked the hives today to see if they were ok and how much sugar they had consumed (0C, sunny but gusty). They were actually out of their cluster eating sugar around the edges. Newspaper/sugar was wet (good - intended purpose) and some of the sugar in the outer edges was eaten. They are using the cavity above the sugar to get rid of dead bees. Next year I will use a deep box on top instead of a medium so I can have a larger moisture quilt. The weakest hive going in to winter has the most moisture. I topped off the edges with new sugar which will help absorb extra moisture as well as get softened up for easier processing by the bees. It was too windy/cold to do anything but a quick top inspection.


----------



## RayMarler

Sunny calm day at 58F here today in the afternoon.
Bees got some flying in, small amounts of snow white, and yellow pollen coming in occasionally. Added to some of the winter patties on top of the top bars.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Small amount of girls flying today. Not liking that as temp with wind chill was -2c. That will be my high for the next two weeks with the low of -18c. Spring seems like next year and winters going no where.


----------



## Kuro

It is 49F here and my bees are bringing in a little bit of pollen, probably from the hazelnut flowers nearby.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

Still freezing here today, snow is crusted so hard that I didn't even need the snowshoes. One hive doesn't show much activity, no bees in the snow around it. Still too cold to open them up. Some have bees milling around at the top entrance, others can't be seen.


----------



## Nordak

Mid 50s today and the bees are going nuts hauling in pollen. I'm surprised by the size of populations from all outward appearances, and don't remember them being as robust in previous years. This is both a relief and a worry as my guess is Winter probably isn't through with the bees yet. I'll have to keep a close eye on stores as we get to a point where the weather is consistently warming up. Over all, I'm elated at the sight of all the hives coming through the worst part of our winter typically speaking. Good day to be a beekeeper.


----------



## BradC

Mid 50s here in Georgia. Had a rough late season last year. Down to one have and a Nuc from 6 hives and 2 nucs. Swarms and splits did not survive. I believe this is due to poorly mated queens and lack of experience seeing this. The hive is busy doing its thing. Opened it up briefly to have a look at brood and saw at least three frames in mid box with mostly capped brood. The brood areas were packed with bees and beetles. The outer frames had a few bees, but I believe the population will be booming by next week. May have to add a super next weekend. This warm weather is too early. 

The nuc has a very small cluster of capped brood, but it looks like there are more bees in it compared to my last inspection. I downsized this hive into a nuc earlier this month. Hoping to save it.


----------



## memphistigerjeb

going to be clear and mid-60's in southwest Tennessee tomorrow (1/31). had 7 hives in October and I still have 7 hives with good activity on nice days so that's good. going in with oxillic acid drizzle tomorrow. mixed up 10 pounds of pollen patties to go in in a few days weather willing & we will be rotating brood boxes in about 30-45 days.


----------



## 1102009

Nordak said:


> Mid 50s today and the bees are going nuts hauling in pollen. I'm surprised by the size of populations from all outward appearances, and don't remember them being as robust in previous years. This is both a relief and a worry as my guess is Winter probably isn't through with the bees yet. I'll have to keep a close eye on stores as we get to a point where the weather is consistently warming up. Over all, I'm elated at the sight of all the hives coming through the worst part of our winter typically speaking. Good day to be a beekeeper.


:thumbsup:
Good luck to you, Nordak and a good start into season.


----------



## gww

I don't see anything coming in but I see they are still hauling out my sugar block.










My picture taking makes it hard to see but there is sugar down there.
Cheers
gww


----------



## wertzsteve

Bedford Virginia, mid 50s bee flying, put about a 1/2 cup of soy flour at the entrances of my to my two hives bees. this is the first time I have done this. the bees love this, I watch them for 45 minutes drag in the soy flour to the hive. some of the bees finding natural pollen. also feeding a snack of sugar water with my chicken waterier. they wont be out will be tomorrow (cold) and it looks to be Monday before they will be out again.


----------



## Bee Nut

You could say things are getting off to an early start. Found an active queen cell today in a double deep that is booming with bees. They have found the maple and are packing it away. The upper is nearly full of honey with new white cappings. Added a box of drawn comb and tore the cell down. Hopefully, they will refocuse on filling their new box. Out of the 8 hives I checked today, there was only one like this. Reversed most of the others. Should be time to add another box in a few weeks- if this weather keeps up.


----------



## jimmyzshack

Checked on my two as they have been super active lately, they are doing well must be bring in from all the Dandelion growing by the bayou's. Put out my first swarm trap yesterday.


----------



## Joebrad

Jimmyzshack, I was thinking about setting out a swarm trap this weekend too. 3 weeks ago mine were bringing in pollen form the cedar I think. Going to be in Houma next week visiting Hose Source which is a new Hydraulic Hose shop. Hope to get some good food while I am there and pickup some frog legs to take back from a friend of mine!


----------



## Spur9

Watched bees for a bit yesterday. More and more are beginning to return with pollen.


----------



## EvilZeg

Checked my hives today after returning from a 2 week business trip in Europe. I think I may have lost 1 of my 3 hives. It was a double deep 10 frame. Still has plenty of weight. Bees being bees maybe I have a small cluster hiding in the bottom box. My other 2 hives are 5 over 5 Nucs. Saw some bees in the MC sugar in both hives so I added some more sugar. All of my hives have quilt boxes.


----------



## gww

It is a balmy 53 degrees out today. The bees have started hitting the chicken feeders. The trees in the yard have the start of blooms and have the color but no bees on them yet. The hives are busy orienting at the entrance of the hive. You can not sit anywhere with out a couple of bees checking you and everything else out. Nothing coming into the hive that I can see. My camera never shows the bees in the pictures unless you have one heck of a zoom but here goes anyway.

Suposed to get cold tomorrow for a few days.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Nordak

Warm enough today to inspect, so I cracked open one of my smaller hives containing my oldest queen to see what was going on. Lots of stores still. About 4 combs with softball sized capped brood both sides, some young were emerging. I spotted eggs and some larvae. A little bit of nectar is being stored. Lots of pollen. The queen is looking a little worse for wear, pretty tattered. I hope she can make it to Spring so I can get some more daughters from her. I don't think she's ready to quit quite yet, but I know her days are probably numbered.


----------



## Wosiewose

Gorgeous day today, at least 60. There were about 10 bees outside the hive flying around. I put a couple spoonfuls of pollen in a jar lid and set it next to the hive for a snack - didn't even take them five seconds (literally) to discover it. Now there are about 50 of them having a Super Bowl party in that lid.  I set a bowl of water on top of the hive with a wood chip "raft" floating in it, in case they decide they need some water, but so far all the interest is in the pollen. Happy, happy, happy!


----------



## GSkip

Split a 5x5x5 hive into two 5x5's today. Have plenty of drones around so I will let them make their own queen. Have several others that will be ready to split in the next week or two. Other hives also have several frames of new nectar and plenty of pollen.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

-12c earlier warmed up to -9 with the high expected -8c. Wind chill -14 right now. Used my infrared thermometer and the outside of the hives are 3c+ something in various spots and 4+c something in the area of the upper entrances. first hive let me know when the laser hit the vent hole they wanted to be left alone. others were silent. last I checked they were all there but now some might be in trouble...or they are just lower in the boxes. Too cold to open right now. Maybe a few weeks to get warm enough to crack the lid. encouraging that they were all about 14c degrees warmer than the air temp.


----------



## Phoebee

Temperatures were in the 50's at the apiary today. We've had some warm days this winter, but this is the first time we've managed to get to the apiary when it was warm.

The bees were active. No pollen was coming in, but they were working the compost pile and other sources of moisture and minerals like fiends. Buzzing everywhere. We put out some corn for the deer and several were on it trying to figure out how to carry whole kernels (we saw this last year as well).

Everybody got pollen sub patties, and the lightest hive got some sugar candy.

Most gratifying, the hive we thought was probably dead was alive and well. Last time I put in a clean bottom tray to see if any cappings were being dropped. What was in it this time looked like cracked corn, probably the leftovers from the deer corn feeder.

Tonight it will turn cold again and we expect 5 inches of snow.


----------



## VickyLynn

All seven hives had bees flying today. It was the first warm day in quite a while, up to 45 degrees and sunny, at least in the morning. I checked the supply of sugar bricks - they were being chowed down, but I can't refill them until the bees start to cluster. There were a lot of bees festooning when I peeked under the inner covers. One of the homosote boards underneath the telescoping cover above a quilt box, was very wet. I exchanged it for a dry one, and repositioned the stick I have propping up the cover so there was even more ventilation. I sat and watched them for a while, coming out for cleansing runs.

This beautiful day is short lived. Tomorrow eight to twelves inches of snow is forecast.


----------



## VickyLynn

All seven hives had bees flying today. It was the first warm day in quite a while, up to 45 degrees and sunny, at least in the morning. I checked the supply of sugar bricks - they were being chowed down, but I can't refill them until the bees start to cluster. There were a lot of bees festooning when I peeked under the inner covers. One of the homosote boards underneath the telescoping cover above a quilt box, was very wet. I exchanged it for a dry one, and repositioned the stick I have propping up the cover so there was even more ventilation. I sat and watched them for a while, coming out for cleansing runs.

This beautiful day is short lived. Tomorrow eight to twelves inches of snow is forecast.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

"Punxsutawney Phil’s 2017 prognostication, forecasters are predicting winter weather will linger into spring across much of the United States" In the northeast it's not only going to be late it may not get here until next year. :scratch:

Put the plow back on yesterday.


----------



## Gypsi

Well Texas is different. It's winter again tonight, temp dropping to 40 degrees F, above zero that is. I lit a fire in the woodstove. Got my local forecast. 40 at the airport. 33 by me. 
In the apiary yesterday when it was 80 degrees I opened my smallest hive first. The queen was part of a removal or swarm, got a nuc from a young beekeeper while helping him look at his bees last fall, and merged my smaller nucs and swarms and attempted splits with them. (My big hive has this aggressive robber deal and wiped out more than 3 nucs and small hives last year) Anyway with all those combines they had a lot of full honey comb and were in a deep with a medium on top, got in there and they were putting nectar in a couple of the medium frames and the broodnest and bottom stores only took up 5 of the bottom frames. Moved them into a deep nuc with a medium nuc on top, didn't open the broodnest up, moved 3 frames at once so as not to roll that queen. but I saw capped and uncapped worker brood. And they must be packing in dandelion, although some of my trees and shrubs are about to bloom. 

Big hive is in a deep with a pair of medium. Not a whole lot of capped honey left but they are putting up nectar in both mediums and part of the deep, and there are plenty of bees to cover it. I did check all frames on it, watching for drones so I can do a split. Queen has a beautiful laying pattern, nice solid deep frames of worker brood. If we get a hard freeze I will be defending the open screen with a sticky board on these.

Fed both fondant with pollen sub in it, they are still taking some pollen sub from my open feed on it. Boy it was a nice day


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

VickyLynn,

I would say that if you have to have a homosote board above your quilt box, and there is moisture in it, the quilt box is not designed correctly. Also you may not have both a lower entrance and an upper entrance for adequate ventilation. My quilt box is four inches high, #8 screened on the bottom, filled with four inches of wood shavings, and an upper entrance in the front bottom. There are three screened one inch holes on each long side and two on each side plus an open lower entry plus and open screened bottom board. Lots of ventilation and never had any moisture accumulation. 

Try providing more opportunity for air flow and you should not require the homosote board. Too much moisture will promote disease development.

Good luck with your bees.

Steve


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Snow, snow, snow in the forecast.

Thur. 12 + inches
Sat. 1 to 3 inches
Mon. 8 to 12 inches
Wed. 5 to 8 inches
Thur. 1 inch
Plus we had the snow rain mess the other day. Lucky we missed the freezing rain which was a big plus.


----------



## jonsl

Yesterday was almost 70 and the bees were flying. Today 30 with 6+ inches of snow overnight. Perparing to go out and sweep the snow from the front entrances.


----------



## Scotty P's Bees

Swarm traps getting heavily scouted. They should come within the next few days.. Honey flow is almost here.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

By the time I came out of work tonight the snow was above the hubs of my 4 wheel drive. There was just a couple inches at 6. Must have up to 2 feet in some of the places that I plowed. My wife told me at one time this evening we got 7 inches in just one hour. Snow cover is just about average right now but 2 more accumulating storms are due in the next week and a few lesser ones mixed in. Nice......


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

frogpondwarrior said:


> By the time I came out of work tonight the snow was above the hubs of my 4 wheel drive. There was just a couple inches at 6. Must have up to 2 feet in some of the places that I plowed. My wife told me at one time this evening we got 7 inches in just one hour. Snow cover is just about average right now but 2 more accumulating storms are due in the next week and a few lesser ones mixed in. Nice......


Me and the bees are buried, plow truck wouldn't start yesterday, woke up to sub-zero temps this morning...it's 1,000 feet to the road...more coming...

:ws:

Going to have to torture the wife's Jeep to see if I can get out to the road so I can get a new starter for the truck...if I'm lucky, maybe I won't slide off the edge of the drive into the gully...

...and then I'll get to change out the starter in this frigid cold and raging wind...I'll bet it's too cold for my compressor and air tools to run...which means doing it all by hand...I just love [expletive] winter here...

To the guy in TX: I feel for you, but I can't quite reach you...40* here would be a balmy Spring day, I wouldn't mind working on the truck at that temp.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

I know for sure the 7 I plow in the family only total about half your 1000 feet. Hope you have a garage or barn to work in. It's just 9 here but wind chill is -6. I'm on the other side of down east or I would try and plow you out. good luck. 
My niece is wining in Fl today. It's only 60.


----------



## Zephyr

Well this is ridiculous: Couple days ago, had the ladies fanning all over the reducer and landing board. The next day, mildly clustered. Today, fanning again! Arkansas needs to decide if it's spring or winter.

Almost spring though. Lots of redbud/dogwood in bloom with hawthorns starting to show. My veil busted in November  cant start the second year without it! (Getting stung. Not enough of a fan) Bout time to get an excluder, go set the super out and invest in some extracting equipment. The hawthorns are when I think we start around here. By the time they go, the blackberries are just weeks from opening and thats the honey type I'm targeting.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> High of 49F and cloudy all day.
> Not much beehive activity.
> Tipped lids and one is not going to make it.
> That makes 2 down out of original 10.
> The rest are eating patty, some have more bees up than others.
> Made up more patty today, half or more of them are going to need it soon.
> Probably will get out tomorrow to replenish patty on the ones that need it.


That one is still kicking, so only one down out of ten so far. It's in very poor shape, but still going so far.

Partly cloudy and close to or at 60F today in the beeyard.
Went through all nine hives and reduced them down to single 8 frame deeps.
Scraped clean all bottom boards, and stacked removed boxes as swarm traps.
All queens laying, 2 or 3 are better than the rest, and 2 or 3 are worse than the rest.
Mixing up some OAD now and will treat tonight at sunset or tomorrow morning.
Need to get patties on them again after the OAD, I'll be mixing them up this afternoon.

The ground is soggy and rains coming again towards the end of this week coming up, so am glad of this little break in the bad weather. This is the first full check I've done on the hives since winter started.


----------



## Charlie B

Nice Ray. My loses this year are much higher. You're sending Ollie and I some Yuba County Honey right!


----------



## RayMarler

OK, went back out there and equalized some stores between a few hives. Took one frame of emerging brood and put into THE weakest hive. I have another hive or two that's pretty weak too, but no more hives are strong enough to rob brood from.

Everything looking OK, as good as I can expect since no treatments were done in the late summer and fall. Spring is in the air, and with continued feeding of patties they should all build up decently by the end of March. Also an OAD this evening or tomorrow morning should help to perk them all up as well.


----------



## Charlie B

Ray? Yuba County honey?


----------



## Barhopper

Made the sixth split today. Found a new laying queen in the first split also. Was a good day.


----------



## RayMarler

Charlie B said:


> Ray? Yuba County honey?


If I get any Charlie, most years I don't get enough to spread around. Rice fields with burned levies, and dry grass fields, and county sprayed ditches, do not equate to much honey. Most years I'm feeding a LOT of sugar! I'll see what develops this year.


----------



## Matt903

All hives brooding up nicely and pollen coming in, checked stores, and looked for the first drone comb..not yet, but it feels like an early spring here. You Northern Beeks have my respect and admiration.


----------



## frogpondwarrior




----------



## GSkip

Checked today my Feb 6th 5x5x5 split has six queen cells and still full of bees. Hope to do the rest with the Taranov method next week. Checked several drone cells for mites, none yet! Lots of drones out in north Florida.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

frogpondwarrior said:


> I know for sure the 7 I plow in the family only total about half your 1000 feet. Hope you have a garage or barn to work in. It's just 9 here but wind chill is -6. I'm on the other side of down east or I would try and plow you out. good luck.
> My niece is wining in Fl today. It's only 60.


Snow just let up enough that I can just about see the hives, but only because of the black wrap. I can barely see the trees on the other side of the field.

Yeah, you're a bit far away to come plow. But, I finally got it finished about 3AM...and I gotta say, that was absolutely the WORST starter I have ever replaced ('02 GMC 1500 4x4). What the heck were the GM designers thinking? That thing is jammed up in there bass ackward, tranny lines in the way, oil dipstick tube in the way, axle mounting bolt in the way, oil level sensor in the way, wiring harnesses wrapped -around- the starter, almost no clearance to move it, the leads can't be reached to disconnect them beforehand and they are so darn short that you can barely get them off -after-...and you have to take 'em off and put 'em on by -feel- (and then, trying to cut the stud loose from the cable, because it was so corroded that the nut wouldn't come off and the whole stud just snapped out of the solenoid). Getting that thing out was worse than trying to birth a baby...and then, you don't have to try to shove the baby back in. Ya gotta get one arm wrapped around the frame to get a couple fingers on the back end of the starter, and reach up with the other hand to get ahold of the front, then twist, turn, pull and shove until you find the secret combination that lets you get the nose of the starter finagled into the bell housing (and it's a good thing I have skinny, piano-player hands, a guy with big hands would never be able to do it). This was my first GM truck, and very likely my last...and don't even get me started on the frame and differential corrosion issues, welded shock mounts and torsion bar mounts snapping off...yada yada yada. I'd like to get my bloody hands on the engineer that thought this up...probably the same one that designed the Yukon Denali in a way that you have to take the whole nose off just to change a headlight.

Fortunately, for the first time ever, I've been parking it with the nose in the garage...with the plow on and the motorcycles in there (along with the workbench and air compressor) only the cab makes it inside. But, that was enough, at least I could get it jacked up a little and was mostly out of the wind. It would have been a total horror show if I'd had to do it outside in the snow without being able to jack it up, not to mention losing tools and nuts and stuff in the snow. At least the temperature came up into the teens, if it had stayed sub-zero I wouldn't have been able to do it at all.

OK, I'm done ranting. Gotta run the plow around again, then find the snowshoes so I can clear the hive entrances after the snow lets up.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

BadBee,

Enjoyed your rant. I can associate with it from when I lived in AK.

Steve


----------



## frustrateddrone

Got stung on the ankle. No socks or boots just sneakers. My bee stand is 32" off the ground, so I don't have to bend over. Bees were VERY PISSY today. I had a reaction of very strong defensive bees that was near that of Africanized bees. A strong concern of that hive has an attitude. The bees did follow me quite some distance indicating another trait of Africanized bees. What to do....... What to do! Gotta see how they are the next couple of times I open them up. Need to get a queen excluder in and see where the queen is in 2 weeks. Isolate that box and then search for the queen. Called my "GO TO" bee help and immediately we had a discussion on the matter. In March this individual will have queens available for me. 

Living in Africanized bee zone is a challenge evidently. It's possible that I didn't have a mated queen that I got in August. We'll see if the queen has a white dot in 2 weeks. I'm only wanting to have gentle bees.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Frustrated,

Some suggestions,

You are a beekeeper, dress appropriately !
Bees do get moody this time of the year.
Move slowly and meaningfully.
Use minimal smoke
Create the least amount of disturbance.
Is the queen present?, Is she a drone layer ?
Is the girl's pantry empty? If so, fix it.
Are there eggs ?, larva ? (evidence of a live Q ?)
If you find the Q and she has no color, she may have been replaced or the attendants may have cleaned her up.
If you find an unmarked Q, mark her with day-glow orange (its easy), reinspect in a couple of weeks. If necessary order a replacement Q or combine colony.

All the best! We all have our challenges.

Steve


----------



## frogpondwarrior

I think there is a car under there. 
Cleansing flights.


----------



## Newbee116

Calling for 54F on Saturday & 60F on Sunday. Time to get a good look at my last remaining hive out of 3.

They were still kicking as of a few weeks ago and were still in the second box. Top box was full of yummy when we went into waiting season.

Hoping they come out strong so I can make splits. Fingers crossed.


----------



## Swarmhunter

55 F- 60F this weekend. Checked on 12 hives at home yard. 8 strong feeding, cleaning house, some needed feed. 3 weaker- hopefully this weather gives them a chance to rearrange their lives for a few days. A few of the stronger hives needed a little more sugar. I hope they don't brood up too much this early. Only going to be in the 20's and 30's next week. 1 dead- didn't dig into it. Closed it up. Will check it closer in March. Going to use this yard as my Nuc yard. Learned the hard way last August about trying to keep Nucs in the same yard as your production hives. Most of these hives will be broke down into Nucs, using the strongest hives to raise Queens cells from. I got some ankle biters coming in May also.
12 other hives in two different locations- they were all strong in mid January. Will be checking this weekend.
I'm looking forward to this Spring
Jerry
Would love to be TF- tried it for 3 years- Now I treat when needed.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Around 60 today with lots of snow on the ground. Found one hive dead. It was a double 8 frame deep that was a split last Aug. They were lite going into the winter and have had sugar cakes on them since Dec 1st. I placed sugar cakes on the other 3 in Jan. They all had plenty of honey but put the cakes on just incase of prolonged cold weather. 
The hive that died the bees were taking cleansing flights earlier in week. Then we had a -23C with wind the next night. Worried about nosema even though I used essential oils last fall and a bit of fumagilin-b. 
One of the things I wanted to do today was put a jar cap inside the hive with water mixed with fumagilin-b right on top of frames near cluster. Figured that because of the small size the hive temp would keep it from freezing plus medicate the bees. 
Will wait for snow melt and warmer temps before I pull the deadout apart to figure out what happened.
Have to say none of the girls were happy to see me. I did not open the hives completely but rather removed the top and cracked the moisture and quilt boards then slid in their supplies. 
All hives have upper entrances, and at least two vent holes in quilt boards. 
Long way to spring here.


----------



## Phoebee

Sunny and 52 F today, and the bees were out. The nuc with Grandma queen had polished off their pollen sub patty from 10 days ago. The others had just nibbled a little of theirs. We're wondering if Grandma has one more spring of brood in her. Hope so.


----------



## clyderoad

62*F Sunny and calm. Bees flying, pollen coming in from grey alder, witch hazel and maple.
No dead outs.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Checked 12 other hives. All 12 doing great. 60F- unbelievable! They've eaten 1/3 of the sugar put on in Jan. They're out cleaning house. Unbelievable busy bees. I did not look deeper than the top. I'm sure they're making brood-I'm hoping not to much. 30F on Thursday. No pollen in this area yet. 
Jerry
I treat when I have to-


----------



## Wosiewose

Sunny and 56, bees flying and rejoicing in the pollen dish, so I popped the top for a quick peek inside to check their food supply. Everything nice and dry, no condensation. They've hardly touched the candy board and still have all 10 frames in the top deep full of (I'd like to say honey, but it's most likely sugar water) stores. Managed to get one frame out of the top box to confirm that the frames are still full all the way down - my bees are very good at weatherstripping, and I don't want to mess up their work too much, especially since next week's forecast is pretty chilly. Looks like they have plenty of food yet. They're so enthusiastic about the pollen dish, I figure they must be making at least a little brood, but it must all be in the bottom box since all the top frames are solid capped "honey". They're also spending a fair bit of time at the water bowl. Hopefully everything's ticking right along as it should...

Wosiewose


----------



## dixieswife

Temporarily not rainy, about 50. Made up some sugar bricks for the four surviving hives and put them in there as the bees were going through what we'd given them before. Got nailed on the hand a couple times before I returned with gloves; they didn't appreciate a sugar brick appearing over the cluster. Ingrates. Got in and out as fast as I could since it's still cool, just pop top, place brick, replace top. 

So much rain lately, kinda tired of it. I mean we need it, but we don't need it all at once for days on end!


----------



## RayMarler

Mostly cloudy, 55F+ today in the afternoon. No Rain today!!!

Went through all the boxes I'd pulled off ten days ago, for frame management. Separated the good from the bad so I'd be ready with boxes of good looking drawn comb when the hives get crowded enough to need room.

One hive had eaten through all the patties I gave ten days ago and was making comb in the feeder space under the top lid. I scraped off the comb. Another was close to being all through their patty too. So I put on the rest of the patty mix I had made up on all hives to get them up to snuff again as rain forecasted again by this weekend. Not many fly days in the last two months so they are gorging on the patty mix I give them.

Everyone is in single 8 frame deeps. The best has 6 frames of bees the worst has 2 frames. With all this rain and very few fly days since the first of the year, they've not built up very fast. All look better than last time, I think the OAD 9 or 10 days ago was a good thing for them.


----------



## Zephyr

I think we're in the clear for year 2! (Hallelujah!) The hawthorns and some sort of small white meadow flower have been going for a solid week or 3. Dogwoods with it and red bud & henbit is just starting. It's been warm and the ladies were fanning so I gave the first check of "spring". I had such a perfect brood frame in my upper most box it'd make yall shed a tear. Got an absurd pollen surplus and a decent amount of capped honey in the frames I checked. They lean on the light side though so the syrup will probably come out in a bit. By the looks of the landing board, all these flowers are mostly pollen. I knew it was time because I cant breathe for nothing. Hive population is about to spike up so my last available box went on to get ready for the split. Hive is currently 3 deeps and a medium. It looks ridiculous. They're still mean so I'm thinking I'll have to pinch the queen when the split becomes queenright.


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> 62*F Sunny and calm. Bees flying, pollen coming in from grey alder, witch hazel and maple.
> No dead outs.
> 
> View attachment 30958
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 30959
> 
> 
> View attachment 30960


We won't get any pollen up here in the Western Catskills till the crocus start blooming....all 8 hives are doing well; one is going through winter patties fast, it's a big hive. Have to keep my eye on that one.


----------



## Nordak

> They're still mean so I'm thinking I'll have to pinch the queen when the split becomes queenright.


If I'm understanding you correctly, I'd make an initial small split and move the queen with 3-4 frames from the hive. When cells are capped (around 11 days from split they'll be safe to move) in the hive, make another small split (or two) and include a couple of queen cells in with your split(s). If something goes awry in the main hive, you've still got back up queens with the option of pinching the mean one or combining what you don't want. Options are always a good thing.


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale said:


> We won't get any pollen up here in the Western Catskills till the crocus start blooming....all 8 hives are doing well; one is going through winter patties fast, it's a big hive. Have to keep my eye on that one.


weird. crocus is broken through the soil but none are blooming yet. the trees bloom here before the "bulbs".

snow is gone except where it's been piled up. one or two more warm days and the willow trees will begin to bloom.
checked some of the bees today and they look good. keeping my fingers crossed.

50's tomorrow and Friday, maybe Saturday but I have a market, so building frames and painting boxes while the weather lasts. still early for consistent good weather.
What's going on in the Catskills?


----------



## Newbee116

Queen started laying the other day, lots of food, drones are present. Can't wait to start making a few queens/splits


----------



## rv10flyer

clyderoad, try some Snowdrops. Mine have been blooming for two weeks. Some Ironwood or Hophornbeam catkins getting ready to be worked.


----------



## Zephyr

Nordak said:


> If I'm understanding you correctly, I'd make an initial small split and move the queen with 3-4 frames from the hive. When cells are capped (around 11 days from split they'll be safe to move) in the hive, make another small split (or two) and include a couple of queen cells in with your split(s). If something goes awry in the main hive, you've still got back up queens with the option of pinching the mean one or combining what you don't want. Options are always a good thing.


Thats why I was going to keep her in one of the hives till the other is queenright. Never go a period with no queens! I do like me my options: if there's multiple QCs, make nucs and sell them at the next association meeting! I only have 4 hive boxes so making a bunch of splits for myself will have to wait. I need to sell some stuff first and invest in equipment. But trust me I'd very much like to have the 4 hives I planned to have


----------



## Delta 21

I tried to take advantage of last weeks warm weather. I finished up hive #3 with the internal feeder and SHB/wax moth trap thru the bottom board. I transferred a colony into it , cleaned up the hive box, retrofitted it and moved my other hive into it. Hopefully my management will be improved by this.







Both hives have 2 full frames of capped brood, larva and eggs but i didnt spot either queen. They are really ripping the wax cappings and trailing them out the front door. There is Maple and Juniper pollen coming in.

I was a bit surprised at the mess on the hive floor. Its easy to see how other critters could get their start in the mess.








It looks like I had some water trapped behind the entrance reducer....and the remnants of the varroa destructor that hammered this hive last fall.















My 3rd hive will be ready by the end of this week.

I crushed and strained all the bits and pieces and broken comb I collected the last 6 months. I have 1 1/2 quarts of yummy honey and 3 of pollen/nectar laden heavy that I will feed back as soon as it warms a bit.


----------



## Jason A

The wife and I went into the boxes yesterday. The temp was about 73 and cloudy here in Texas - at least on my little farm. The bees were aggressive and would follow us after wards. All ten colonies were strong with drones, brood, nectar and pollen. We only saw a few queen cups - no queen cells.


----------



## Swarmhunter

43F-the 2 weak hives didn't make it. Should of combined them last Sept. Still got 21 doing great. Some needed a little more sugar. Should be good for a couple of weeks. Supposed to be in the 40's next couple weeks. That would be ok with me- slow them up a little. two of them had a little comb made in the feeding rim. To early for Spring!! No pollen in this area for a month yet.


----------



## Sunday Farmer

First graft today. 300. Coast of NC


----------



## Cyan

Moved my hives last weekend (during the warmer weather) to make some changes to their stand. I noticed that I lost another colony, making my total losses at about 60%. &#55357;&#56862; They became broodbound during the last cold snap and starved out. Small cluster sizes on those 4 losses, but 2 were last summer splits, 1 a swarm, and 1 a spring nuc I bought. 

Remaining are 2 Carni/Italian hives and one local Italian hive, which is the largest and most prolific of the 3. I have plans to split that Italian colony and perhaps requeen the carnis, but won't be purchasing more bees until some time after we can relocate.


----------



## Buzzed

I went into my three remaining hives. I lost two too starvation over the " so called " Winter we had here. The three three are all full of bees. All are deep and a medium set up. I don't go deep into my hives unless I see a problem. Once I find plenty of brood and things look ok I close it up and let them be. I did add a pollen pattie and sugar syrup to help give them a jump on Spring they, seemed happy about it. I also added a medium to each hive. I guess one of the good things about losing a hive is you have drawn comb to help you with your other hives.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and middle 60's today, maybe even upper 60's, a very nice day indeed.

4 hives had only traces of patty left on the top bars, so removed it and put in a drone comb in each. Put in a drone comb in a 5th also, it still had some patty but it had 6 frames of bees so had space to slip the drone comb in beside where the patty was.

Most hives are 2-4 frames of bees, they'll slowly get to the drone comb as they expand. I'm not feeding anything any more. It's first of March and after all the rains we've had, if they can't find forage to gather now, then maybe I shouldn't be trying to keep bees here any more. I'm tired of all the feeding each year.

I'm using the drone combs for the first round of drone brood to be removed as mite control. The second round, I'll try raising a few queens off the best hive. Hopefully by then I'll have some hives strong enough to make a few splits.


----------



## Spur9

55 degrees and sunny. 

Had to take a 1/2 day from work to fix a water leak in my main line. Took a break and went up to the watch the bees. Saw drones flying for the first time. Big, bold, & beautiful! 

Girls are still bringing in pollen. Starting to see variations in color from greyish to dark orange. Went ahead and removed my mouse guards again to alleviate some congestion.


----------



## Tom1617

Went out to have a look at the bees today... 56 degrees today after an extended cold snap... looks like 50's for the next week at least. Today was the first day I saw the girls bringing back pollen. It was mostly white some bright yellow. Want to open the box but scared it is too early to disrupt them. They look strong, they are carni italian mix. What to do?


----------



## frogpondwarrior

-27C Sat morning with wind chill. - 20C today and -22C Monday morning. That's after a week of + 3 to +9. Scared they didn't scramble back to clustering. Will know mid week when it's +7 again.
3 out of 4 still going but this feels bad.


----------



## GSkip

Found a swarm in my yard 12 foot up on a pine limb. A brood box with a comb of brood/honey and an eight foot step ladder and a few minutes later they were all happy in a new home. They covered six frames once housed. Not sure if they came from one of mine or not. All of mine seem to have normal activity but will check them tomorrow for Queen cells.


----------



## diymom

Finally went into both my hives in my back yard, mid morning has been looking like the apocalypse back there so I thought they could be full up. Holy cow they were topped off, I checked for eggs and found plenty coupled with great brood patterns everywhere and tons of capped drone brood. Unfortunately in my cut out hive the new frames were foundationless which caused them to create comb over to one side of the frame, protruding into the in between frame space making removal a pain. Most of the issue is they built the comb like that and then filled it with drone brood making it all much more pronounced. Overall they are fine.
As of yesterday I have used every bee box I own my original hive is now stacked three mediums high and the cutout hive I got in December filled the rest of their deep and the medium and got the only box I had left, another deep. We will have to see how that all works out. I can't believe their build up in the last two months! 
It's been such a great rainy year, everything is blooming early and profusely and my newer hive is full of bees who work my yard too! Last year my original hive didn't do much in my yard despite the blooms.
My neighbor's Valencia orange is mostly white with blooms, so many it's like living in a perfume bottle, it's crawling with my bees.
I am so astonished at how great this year is going in terms of build up and weather, I am looking forward to honey in the fall and splitting my successful hives. I am very grateful I have not had a colony loss yet.


----------



## Cloverdale

diymom said:


> Finally went into both my hives in my back yard, mid morning has been looking like the apocalypse back there so I thought they could be full up. Holy cow they were topped off, I checked for eggs and found plenty coupled with great brood patterns everywhere and tons of capped drone brood. Unfortunately in my cut out hive the new frames were foundationless which caused them to create comb over to one side of the frame, protruding into the in between frame space making removal a pain. Most of the issue is they built the comb like that and then filled it with drone brood making it all much more pronounced. Overall they are fine.
> As of yesterday I have used every bee box I own my original hive is now stacked three mediums high and the cutout hive I got in December filled the rest of their deep and the medium and got the only box I had left, another deep. We will have to see how that all works out. I can't believe their build up in the last two months!
> It's been such a great rainy year, everything is blooming early and profusely and my newer hive is full of bees who work my yard too! Last year my original hive didn't do much in my yard despite the blooms.
> My neighbor's Valencia orange is mostly white with blooms, so many it's like living in a perfume bottle, it's crawling with my bees.
> I am so astonished at how great this year is going in terms of build up and weather, I am looking forward to honey in the fall and splitting my successful hives. I am very grateful I have not had a colony loss yet.


That is wonderful and very exciting. Good luck to you, Deb


----------



## Phoebee

We got up to the mountain apiary today, where the temperature was around 55 F and breezy. The bees were out and bringing in some pollen.

Our oldest queen is now approaching her 4th summer. We had low expectations for her surviving the winter, but the hive is very active. Pulling the top cover, I found condensation on the inside top cover, and the quilt (a pillowcase filled with cedar shavings) was damp. A wave of heat rolled off the hive when I pulled the quilt, as hundreds of bees stared up at me thru the screen. Between the warm, moist air rolling out of the top, and the abundant brood cappings all over the IPM board, I have no doubt what they've been doing with all the pollen sub patties they've consumed. 

We'd better watch it, or the old girl may swarm on us. Last year we found her nuc full of queen cells as we transferred her from her winter nuc to a full sized hive. She was still there, so she went straight back into the nuc where she kept laying brood like a new queen. It is possible she can't fly any more.


----------



## Cloverdale

Cheers to the ol' girl!


----------



## Phoebee

We are 130 miles from our apiary today. I was out back scraping old brood boxes to prepare for repainting. One of the boxes was heavily crusted with old propolis, bad enough that it was hard to seat frames. I scraped it off outdoors, and took the box back inside to sand.

A few minutes later, my wife called me outside. A bee was gathering the propolis eagerly. Ben, your bees are welcome to all they can carry!


----------



## RayMarler

Clear, mostly sunny 69F in the beeyard today.

Pinched two queens and joined their two frames of brooding into a third hive that had 4 frames. That hive is now my strongest with 8 frames of bees.

Another hive that over wintered the strongest and has always had the most population of bees, I see a nice large cell cup started, very little to almost no eggs or youngest larva, and did not see the queen. I'll be checking it next week. 

I'll be evaluating for the rest of the month to choose a queen mother to make daughters from, but can't start queen rearing until they get some drone combs drawn and full of sealed brood. I have a single drone comb frame in each hive, the green plastic ones, they need to be drawn and filled with brood. It's going to be a late start for me this year.


----------



## 1102009

Phoebee said:


> We are 130 miles from our apiary today. I was out back scraping old brood boxes to prepare for repainting. One of the boxes was heavily crusted with old propolis, bad enough that it was hard to seat frames. I scraped it off outdoors, and took the box back inside to sand.
> 
> A few minutes later, my wife called me outside. A bee was gathering the propolis eagerly. Ben, your bees are welcome to all they can carry!


Why don´t you make some propolis tincture out of it?
Mixed with wax and olive oil it will be the nicest hand balm.


----------



## AR1

Did NOT open up a hive today. After the last week of warm weather, I was planning to get in on my days off, but it turned cold and blustery all the sudden. I spent the day working on a few boxes. I cut them from old barn wood. That barn was built in about 1918, so this is some pretty old wood, but still solid, and an honest inch thick.


----------



## diymom

I hived a massive swarm yesterday out of a nearby neighbor's avocado tree about nine feed high. Yes, it came from my hive, I should have gone through the whole hive when I went into it a few days back and looked for cells instead of only adding another level. I'm really glad I caught it, well, my husband and I did. We finally had a reason to buy a stand alone ladder after putting it off for years! It was worth it just for that. 

The swarm was so huge, it was about 20" long and about 6-10" wide. It weighed a ton.

I was lucky to have one last 10 frame medium box that I hadn't moved to my 10 frame satellite apiary yet, I had to make a lid and base fast. I pulled out some brood and honey from their hive they had just left put it the old ten frame and my husband held up the box while I brushed off the clumps of the swarm.
They all went into the box by nightfall. I am taking them to my satellite apiary Monday. The neighbor was thrilled to watch us work and see all the bees, he told us he finds us very entertaining. We are so lucky that's how he feels about everything.
Now my husband is thrilled about swarm capture! This is my second swarm I've hived.


----------



## gww

Well it is not quite 40 degrees and my bees are out flying like crazy. We just went through two cold days with the lows around the 20 dgree mark. They must have enough bee coverage for the brood as I didn't see them hauling any brood out and if they are flying they must have more then they need for just covering the brood. Seems good.
gww


----------



## Charlie B

Now that all the rain has finally stopped, I'm happy to say that some of the hives I thought were not going to make it are booming. A pleasant surprise when you roll up and see bees going crazy when you were anticipating collecting dead out equipment.

Now to finish setting swarm traps because when it starts, I have a feeling it's going to be glorious!


----------



## frogpondwarrior

It a good day today I think. Clear, sunny and 5F. That's about 20 degrees better than last night. Spring went straight back into winter!!!


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

Up to +24 here, but watching that storm that's tracking this way. Might have to put the plow back on the truck...which will suck for driving to work, it's all back roads that are in very poor condition with frost heaves and potholes. On the one hand I'd like to see the storm blow out to sea, on the other hand, a couple more feet of snow-pack on the ground will be good for the water content so that stuff can grow. Too dry last year meant no honey crop to speak of.


----------



## subsonic

68 Fahrenheit here in the south of France and blazing sunshine. The weeping willows, bay trees and evergreen oaks are all flowering and the bees are bringing in masses of pollen. Looking good today.


----------



## Wosiewose

Sad day  For about a week and a half we hadn't seen any bees flying, although the days were warm (nights were cold though). Today I opened up the hive and found a tiny cluster of dead bees, maybe a softball-sized group on one side of a honey/syrup frame. They were right on the capped stores and had eaten some, so I don't think they starved. Mites? Maybe, but I didn't see any evidence of that. It looks as if they just dwindled until there weren't enough of them to keep warm during the frosty nights. Did not see the queen, so they may have gone queenless and simply dwindled away.

Hubby says, "Don't give up. We'll get more bees." No way am I going to give up! I'd just bought the boxes and equipment for a second hive, for which I was going to split this colony before I found they'd died out. There's still time to order bees, and I'm going to do so... but I'm curious to see if I can also catch a swarm before the order arrives. We've got the room now... and now we also have drawn frames, which we didn't have last year when we started.

So maybe we'll do better this year, starting off with more resources...

Forward!

Wosiewose


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Another hive that over wintered the strongest and has always had the most population of bees, I see a nice large cell cup started, very little to almost no eggs or youngest larva, and did not see the queen. I'll be checking it next week...


Partly cloudy partly sunny, low 70's in the beeyard.

Checked out that hive, had 3 small queen cells started and no queen. Checked out the hive I'd joined last week, they are doing good and have a queen. I destroyed queen cells and joined those two hives together using the newspaper join method. This gives me one good strong hive with 2 boxes of bees. I'll check in on them in a few days.


----------



## gww

It was 13 degrees last night. I caught the bees doing orientation and close to two pm today and all seem to be alive anyway. One hive has some dead bees in front and I don't know if maby a skunk is around or maby just old bees. It doesn't look like they are carrying a lot of dead brood out or anything. My peach and pear might have got beat down for this year. I can not tell for sure but know a lot of the peach that were opened did get nailed. not sure about the buds that werent open yet. I did see a bee on one peach bloom. The henbit seems to do better after a cold spell and I did see bees on it. It was only about 40 degrees. I did see lots of bees in the grass and I am assuming they were carrying water and so are probly going though stores in the hive pretty good.
Each hive acts a bit differrent and they smallest hive going into winter seems to be the most active although they all are fying pretty well. 

I think we have ten days of above freezing coming and 50s and 60s during the day. If it doesn't change of course. 

I only have three hives
Cheers
gww


----------



## Bolichsbees

7 of my 9 hives coming out of winter are strong. 4 of those 7 are very strong. Looking at our weather forecast for the next week, which seems to always be haphazard, looks favorable here in middle TN. The 4 strong hives have 8+ frames of brood in various stages, so I made my OTS splits today on those 4. I moved the new spits to my second bee yard and began feeding them. Our honey flow hasn't started here yet, but we are probably getting close. I've been feeding 5/3 syrup and the bees have responded well. Hope to split the remaining haves in the next few weeks, almost certain the other 3 strong hives next weekend. Hoping...


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and sunny, 64F in the shade. Going to get to 75+ later today.

First time this year I've gone through all the frames in the hives.
Added a box to one hive. This one will probably be queen mother this year.
Another hive will need a box in a week.
The two above hives have drone brood, will be capped in a week.
Three others are still weak, I don't think they are going to amount to much this year.
The last hive was the join from from yesterday, removed the remaining newspaper on it. No fighting had been done. I did not go through this one today.


----------



## gww

It is about 64 degrees here also.

Think my entrance is to small on my smallest hive? Only about 30/40 percent of the bottom box is drawn comb.









My two bigger hives with all boxes drawn comb.








Anyway, they are bringing in pollen if you can see it in my picture. Still white it seems.








Cheers
gww


----------



## AR1

They're alive! I had two hives going into winter, and found one dead a few weeks ago that was alive last month. SO I was very worried about my last hive, but a cold snap kept me out of it. Warmed up to 54 today so I cracked it open.  More bees today than last month, and they were so calm that I got my nose right down and looked them over very carefully from about 2 inches away. No sign of odd wings or mites, and I looked at a lot of bees one by one.
These are very dark bees, black butts and a ring or two of lighter greyish-yellow bands. No idea where they came from/background. They are usually pretty mean. Even in mid winter if I popped the top several would zoom out with intent to kill. Today it was pretty windy, and they just sat there and held on. I put in a couple of frames of food to replace empty frames, and closed them up. happy day.


----------



## AR1

delete double post


----------



## EvilZeg

Check my hives yesterday, 2 out of 3 still alive. It was about 44F, some bees were flying.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

BBK took my plow off today. You?
Looking at a low of 10f Wed night with teens over the weekend. Thought I lost a hive last week but they were all flying today. Surprised because last week the others were all flying and not one eyeball was peeking out of any of the entrances my most eastern hive.


----------



## Epreciado

Conducted a hive inspection been in the mid 90 all week. Saw some queens cells in preparation for swarming. Destroyed them and added a honey super. Hope that keeps them from swarming.


----------



## Jason A

Made a couple splits from swarm cells. Hopefully saved another weak nuc by adding a queen cell from another hive. There is a flow going on because my mean hives weren't nearly as mean.


----------



## DavidZ

Dropped 14 OTS splits yesterday evening, installed 13 nucs,
Acquired a new outyard out in Wimer, OR
and there is a heavy mini flow, already have 3/4 capped mediums of honey.


----------



## Bolichsbees

Weather great here in Wilson County, TN. Next 2 weeks looks favorable also. Both bee yards look good, made 3 OTS splits last week and will make another 2 Splits tomorrow. Hinbit and other weeds blooming, but I'm gonna feed for another week. 

Spring is here in Middle TN


----------



## tunedin5ths

Did my first spring inspection of my one remaining hive today. Two of the 3 hives I had going into winter succumbed to mice. My fault for not putting mouse guards on last fall. Learned my lesson. 

Anyway, the one remaining hive is doing well, 2 deeps full of bees, and some remaining stores. Queen appears to be laying well. Saw some capped drone cells so I went ahead and made a split. Will check next weekend for queen cells. 

70 degrees today. Dandelions blooming profusely now. I set up 7 swarm traps today.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Four inches of snow today. No bee work yet.


----------



## clyderoad

Don't feel bad, no snow but no bee work here yet either.


----------



## Bolichsbees

Made my OTS splits last week on 3 hives. Got in today, 8 days later, to find the bees have not only drawn out queen cells where I notched, but built cells in other places. I broke down all but two cells, leaving those close together. In another week they should emerge. 

It's a busy time of the year, but rewarding. Anxious...


----------



## Swarmhunter

I'm about to go crazy waiting. High of 44 F today. All week - wet and cool. Looks like it's going to be that way all next week. So I guess I go out and check feed supplies tomorrow and wait another week - and so this crazy year goes.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Cool and wet in the 40s no bees flying. Forecast for the week is looking good some sun and hopeing to reach the 50s. The bees that made it are looking good.


----------



## Phoebee

After an abnormally warm late winter, buds were running early and the bees were active. Two weeks ago, we left on vacation. The forsythia was already in bloom, and many trees were getting that "ready to bud" glow. But the night we left, it turned cold and snowed. 

Upon our return on Friday, the forsythia were still in bloom, and those same trees had that "getting ready to bud" glow. It was hard to spot any changes at all. Everything was on hold.

And so it was with our bees. All four hives pulled thru OK. The old green-marked queen had brooded up heavily, and her girls were chowing down pollen patties, but inspection yesterday (75 F) showed no eggs or larvae. The hive was bursting with bees, but no queen cells. We expect she just took a break due to the cold snap (but at her advanced age, she may just be "done"). We moved her from a nuc into 8-frame. The other hives all had all phases of brood present, but they're way behind the old girl in population. Everybody had adequate stores, including an abundance of pale green and pale yellow pollen. We saw all four queens.

The old girl's hive was the only one that already had drones. The mix of drone cells to worker cells looked normal.

Three of the four hives, including the old girl, showed no evidence of mites in their inspection trays, so the December OAV treatment must have worked. The fourth hive had a moderate number of dead mites present, so we'll probably hit them with an alternative treatment.

Ah, and I almost forgot ... the bees got a big laugh when I got careless lighting the smoker and burned a hole thru the screen of my veil.


----------



## Delta 21

Swarmhunter said:


> - and so this crazy year goes.


Great Wx last week let me get into my weak hive. I harvested 3 bars of honey they didnt use and spread out the brood nest with empty bars. Swiped an empty comb to make my 3rd hive look more appealing if anyone is looking for a nice place. Barely got everything buttoned up and the temp dropped 20 degrees. My #2 hive has probly 2x the bees as #1 and they are chomping at the bit. It will be chilly and raining all week. I hope I can get them spread out before they decide to swarm. This hive bearded heavy last fall but didnt swarm. This queen lays high numbers! If they swarm I hope they just move in to the vacant hive 4 ft to the east.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Checked an apiary yesterday. First of the very delayed spring. Forty more to go. Another 4" of snow Friday night. No pollen yet. Of 25 colonies, one dead, four got fondant, all got sub. Nice looking clusters. Looks like a week of rain/snow coming. Ah, come on already.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Rained most of the day then as I was watching the news the sun came out. Went out by the bees and they were flying I think they got the itch as much as us.


----------



## Charlie B

You poor snowbirds up North. I'm already extracting!


----------



## Swarmhunter

Finally got in the 50's today. Bees were out . All my hives were bringing in pollen . Some yellow, some grey. The next three days back to rain and cold. At least they got one day of house cleaning.


----------



## Zephyr

My young and developing bee instincts are tingling... 

I still have the swarm who killed their queen yesterday or the day before. They're just 2, barely 3 frames of bees so waiting on them making a queen was really eating away at me. I asked yall about grafting but said to hell with it, we're gonna do it, it's time to learn. Established hive has over 15 cells, my logic is that they could spare a few so I dont have a virgin massacre however poetic that may be. Was searching for QCs to donate but noted all the honey and nectar. Our major flow isnt really going yet and the new capped honey tastes a bit like goldenrod but not very strongly. Hadnt fed enough to have that much either. This hive was on verge of starvation last week and now it's on path to be honey bound? Them Italians are probably robbin' the same poor soul I got the swarm from. (Swarm queen had been marked) The only hive I know of besides mine belong to family. I ought to go check them. They were lighter than my hive going into winter; whouldnt be surprised if they were in trouble right now and a prime target for my bees. (and Id like to keep them alive to have drones for these virgins!) 

Oh well. I got a real good frame of food for the swarm, a few capped QCs, an open one, and a bit more brood into the nuc. I feel lied to about swarms being comb making machines. They've barely touched the waxed frames I gave them. This swarm is looking more like a hive split now :scratch: But what do I care I'm getting the second hive I've wanted since I started!


----------



## pink bee man

I'm in KY it's a pretty nice day,53 the temp. Bees have been start ing 2 make comb,they were going out win temp. Was 35 ,getting redbuds and plums,peaches. Had a 18 degree nit few days ago , but it's coming around ,had drowns second week of Feb earliest I ever seem them hope 4 good year .


----------



## RayMarler

71F and partly cloudy. Still though, maybe a tiny breeze if any.
Has been 20mph+ sustained and up to 38mph gusts of winds the last two days though.

One single box hive had queen cells on two frames, they were packed with no room to lay. Made 2 splits out if it into 4frame nucs, leaving the queen in the original hive spot. The splits were a frame of sealed brood with 1 or 2 queen cells, a frame of stores, two frames partial drawn but empty. 

One hive, a two story, had one queen cell but queen was there so I destroyed the queen cell. I probably should have pinched the queen, but, I may be coming into some good queen cells here in three weeks, so pinched the cell instead. This hive had chalk and has a little more varroa signs than the other hives, that was why I thought about pinching her instead of the cell, but I don't want her genetics in the yard so pinched the cell for now instead.

One hive was a single, I added a box of drawn comb.

One hive was a 2 story, the bottom box was mostly pollen and a couple frames nectar, I moved two frames of brood down to the center of it and moved two mostly empty but with some nectar up to the second box.

One single box hive I could not find a queen, and they had 3 queen cells. One cell had been drawn down to close to the bottom board and tore open as I lifted the frame. The other two cells looked old and not tended, but I left it all as is and marked it to check in a week.

One single box hive I could not find the queen, and she's marked too. She was there a week and a half ago. No queen cells, and had eggs, larva, sealed brood, so marked it to check next week.

Took me 2hrs and 45mins to do it all, I'm a slow beekeeper any more. Had to take several breaks, but got it all done. Will check back on them all in a week.


----------



## RayMarler

Went back out this evening, too many bees had left the new splits, so swapped them with the original hive, so now they have bees enough. Checked on them just now, they doing good now.


----------



## gww

Ray.....
Hey man, I understand all about taking breaks. Good report and good fix.
gww


----------



## RayMarler

So glad I spent the time hive managing yesterday, as today is once again colder NNW winds, 22mph with 38mph gusts.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

Checked the yard yesterday evening, 38* and cloudy with a brisk wind (weather man just said this is going down as the coldest March on record...hey, Al Gore, where's my freaking 'Global Warming'? I want it, NOW!). With the single exception of the one hive that got dead in December because the beekeeper was stupid, all are doing great, some had surprisingly large populations.

I had loaded the sled up with sacks of sugar and wasn't about to drag it all back, so I gave it to them whether they needed it or not (except the one hive that I left an extra super on), the wind made it somewhat difficult to get the sheets of newspaper on top of the frames, as did the large numbers of bees wandering around (yes, insulation makes a difference here in the Great White North, and bees *do* heat the hive if it is insulated) and hanging off the moisture board, but I got it done. I canceled my order for nucs, I don't need to buy bees again this year- this will be the third year of not buying bees. I will [probably] buy some queens later, to get some more Italian blood in the mix. I may even be in a position to *sell* some nucs this year, depending on populations a month or so from now, there was no money from honey last year so I don't want to lay out any cash for more equipment and will limit expansion to equipment on-hand.

Maples are showing red and poplars look ready to bud, so if the weather holds the bees should be able to forage for themselves soon...hopefully...but who knows, April can be a real [female dog] around here...aw, crap, weather man says maybe more snow on Saturday...darn it, this afternoon was so nice I thought about taking the bike to work tomorrow, but it looks like the weather will be deteriorating by the time I get out of work.


----------



## BDT123

Hey BBK, here in the real Great White North I had bees bringing in bright yellow pollen yesterday! Rain all day today! Never would have believed it, pollen in March up here!
WTH? Big hive is still rockin'
115W 53.5 N
PS - first snowdrop (Galanthus) bloomed yesterday! A first for here!


----------



## Zephyr

BadBeeKeeper said:


> Checked the yard yesterday evening, 38* and cloudy with a brisk wind (weather man just said this is going down as the coldest March on record...hey, Al Gore, where's my freaking 'Global Warming'? I want it, NOW!).


We got plenty for ya. Almost every month thus far have been well above average. Several 80's since Feburary. Got them bees and trees working hard and early  (and in come the hard frosts outta nowhere; RIP everything)


----------



## Cloverdale

So there's hope.....:banana:


----------



## clyderoad

A couple of hives in my Vineyard apiary. 3/30/17.


----------



## Bolichsbees

Well, today was exciting, stressful, and everywhere in between. 

In the throws of Spring splitting. Most of my hives are split and (hopefully) the remainder will be tomorrow. Only 3 left. It would be so much easier if every colony progressed the same and the weather didn't interfere with colony management. :no:

Over the next 4 weeks I'll be knocking down queen cells, checking for laying queens, feeding nucs, feeding pre-honey flow, prepping supers, smashing hive-beetles, and biting my nails. ...in short, the funnest time of the year!!


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> A couple of hives in my Vineyard apiary. 3/30/17.
> 
> View attachment 31889


No snow! :thumbsup:


----------



## Newbee116

I made , grafted, 6 queen cells yesterday. My first attempt. If I can get 2 I'll be happy.


----------



## Yunzow

*Honey!*


Hurray success! 
I attempted my first thorough inspection today and I found honey on accident. I was breaking up what I think is a burr comb, and honey came oozing out. It was several combs in, so that is a good sign!


----------



## Dan the bee guy

*Re: Honey!*

48 degrees sunny and the bees have pollen in their basket.


----------



## BadBeeKeeper

BDT123 said:


> Hey BBK, here in the real Great White North I had bees bringing in bright yellow pollen yesterday! Rain all day today! Never would have believed it, pollen in March up here!
> WTH? Big hive is still rockin'
> 115W 53.5 N
> PS - first snowdrop (Galanthus) bloomed yesterday! A first for here!





Zephyr said:


> We got plenty for ya. Almost every month thus far have been well above average. Several 80's since Feburary. Got them bees and trees working hard and early  (and in come the hard frosts outta nowhere; RIP everything)


Yep, crazy weather...but, it was crazy 50+ years ago, too, when I was a kid. I remember some Winters that were frigid and we had massive amounts of snow, followed by others where the grass was still green at Xmas and I was out riding my new bike. And there were crazy weather patterns 100 years ago, and 200, and 500, and more. This craziness is nothing new, the only thing that has changed is mass media and instant communications, and any idiot with a brain fart can spout nonsense and have it repeated _ad nauseum_ world-wide like it was gospel truth. There are morons who will believe the most ridiculous things, just because somebody else says it is so, and in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary. I've seen green grass in January (here in the north) and snowstorms in the last week of May. Nothing has changed...except we have so many more Chicken Little idiots screaming "The sky is falling!" and so many more who will hear them and believe it.

Sometimes, I just wish all the stupid people would just fall down dead...but then, who would I get to deliver my pizzas? Oh, wait, I live way out here in the sticks, there ain't no pizza delivery out here anyway.inch:


----------



## Cloverdale

BadBeeKeeper said:


> Yep, crazy weather...but, it was crazy 50+ years ago, too, when I was a kid. I remember some Winters that were frigid and we had massive amounts of snow, followed by others where the grass was still green at Xmas and I was out riding my new bike. And there were crazy weather patterns 100 years ago, and 200, and 500, and more. This craziness is nothing new, the only thing that has changed is mass media and instant communications, and any idiot with a brain fart can spout nonsense and have it repeated _ad nauseum_ world-wide like it was gospel truth. There are morons who will believe the most ridiculous things, just because somebody else says it is so, and in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary. I've seen green grass in January (here in the north) and snowstorms in the last week of May. Nothing has changed...except we have so many more Chicken Little idiots screaming "The sky is falling!" and so many more who will hear them and believe it


Well said! That is the best evaluation of the current times I have heard yet. :applause::shhhh:


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Badbeekeeper did you put your plow back on? Downeast in Calais it's just calling for an inch but sometimes that's good for a foot. Tue is a little bigger. 
Checked top of hives today. Lots of bees flying but nothing for them to forage yet. Some hives looked like they were doing orientation flights. Others had bees peeking out of upper entrance but looked a little scared.
They still had some sugar but what I had put in for winter patties were almost gone. Did put a full pollen patty on each hive today. Lifted honey supers( still had good weight to them) up and placed them all on top of second deep. Some hives had lots of bees there and others were in the feed box above. Saw some comb I don't recall last fall at the top of the second deep effectively filling in the space between several frames. Will be interesting to see what that is about when it warms up a bit. 
Early in the week we had lots of sun and warmish inside the fencing around the hives. Lots of bees flying. Still had some Bee-Pro from Mann Lake in the greenhouse. Took a large cap full and put some on a piece of chip board between several hives. Not one bee landed on it during the 15 min I watched. Lots flying over it but not one put down the landing gear. Was it a bust or should I have put just a drop of lemongrass as a wakeup call??


----------



## Cloverdale

I watched where they were flying before our 3 feet of snow and that is the location I put it; on a lid on the ground and sprinkled some on some dead flower branches and on the grass. They took it all and added more.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Wonderful day outside - 58 F - sunshine - no wind - Wow. Started going through my hives, reversing, cleaning up bottoms and pushing honey frames to the outside. A lot more honey left than I would of guessed. Bees are bringing in pollen like crazy. Got 5 of them done only one little mishap. One was in a deep bottom with frame arrangement that I knew was going to be a little funky. About half of the frames where put in directly from a swarm trap last August. During the rearrangement I saw a small cluster of bees on the boards down at the edge of hive. Panic at first then I thought I could scoop them all up at once (I just knew she was in there). No I didn't want her running, so I just reached down into the cluster-moved the bees around a little- there she was! I just grabbed her around the middle, put her on top the frames of the top box and she scrambled around a little and ducked down between the frames. Halleluyah! Got to be a little more careful. I'm not sure what kind kind of bees these are but they wintered in a small cluster and didn't eat much of the fondant I put on in Nov. Beautiful small dark bees. Going to make some Nucs out of her to put into the my system. Russians maybe?
Got another dozen hives to do yet. Hope the weather holds. 
Sometimes a guy gets lucky!
Jerry


----------



## Cloverdale

Sounds like a good start to the season.


----------



## JoshuaW

Went through and arranged frames so brood is all together, placed empty comb on outside of broodnest, forgot empty frames for Drones so I'll have to drop those in later this week. Outer frames packed with pollen and nectar. Queen excluders and a box of foundation on some hives; drawn comb on others, and the Carnis aren't ready for any of that, yet. Right now my main setup is a medium under a deep, then another medium if they can use the room; I'm thinking later this week that I'll put the deep on the bottom, pull any extra frames and close the space with a follower board. Broodnest nice and tight, nectar stored up top, sort of lining up with some of Bernhard's management techniques... We'll see how it all works out. If the bees build swarm cells I'll definitely be rethinking some things...


----------



## EvilZeg

Checked my hives today. 2 out of 3 still alive. Bringing in yellow pollen. 

https://youtu.be/GIJzm-uktng


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...One single box hive I could not find a queen, and they had 3 queen cells. One cell had been drawn down to close to the bottom board and tore open as I lifted the frame. The other two cells looked old and not tended, but I left it all as is and marked it to check in a week.
> 
> One single box hive I could not find the queen, and she's marked too. She was there a week and a half ago. No queen cells, and had eggs, larva, sealed brood, so marked it to check next week...


Checked on a few hives today.
The one with missing queen and a couple queen cells now has a virgin queen. She's light straw colored, no pattern. Solid broom straw or dried oat straw color.

The other one that I could not find a queen, she's there, saw her today, added a box to it.

Made a split off another hive today, they just not building up and spotty brood, but wanted the genetics so moved the queen away into a nuc, leaving eggs/young larva behind.


----------



## Dangerousdave26

I assembled 4 deep brood boxes and 21 frames. I have 19 frames to assemble tomorrow. 

Then it's painting time.


----------



## Cloverdale

Here in the western Catskills we had a somewhat nice day here. For the first time no winter losses in the home yard! All six made it through including the top bar. Hopefully that means they will continue. Most of the snow melted and there was a tiny cluster of crocus near my backdoor and there was a honey bee on it. My two grandkids, 8 and 6 laid on the ground next to the pollen sub I put out and covered their hands in it so the bees would take from their hands.  Warms my heart.


----------



## Reef Resiner

April 4th: Finally seen drone comb here in Oregon. Wheather is back on track to its old ways. Expecting it wet until July 4th.


----------



## Forgiven

Snow is gone (bits of ice still in shady places) nothing blooming yet.
Making hive bodies, 









Finding starved bees,









And building windblock out of hay... having second thoughts about that location, it really is very windy...








...there's a lake to the 'left' and I'm not sure the willows are worth it.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Forgiven,

Tell us more about the apparent boxes in photo one. Ate they what we would call supers. Do they need to be assembled? There appear to be more than 30, you must either just be getting started in beekeeping or you are expecting a very productive year. Foam supers are not very common in the US yet, but I did see some in use in a commercial operation last summer i Denmark.

Have a good productive year !

Cheers,
Steve


----------



## Forgiven

Hm, yes, sort of what you'd call supers, or rather just mediums, I use them for both brood and honey. I'm expecting to expand, yes, 2nd year now, hopefully I can get from 9 hives to somewhere around 30. 

Some assembly required, but pretty easy one at that, just glue the 4 sides together, add plastic 'strips' to the spot where frames will hang from. And painting the outsides is adviced for longer lifetime. I can try to remember to take few more pictures of the assembly today, I got some left.

Here's one for 4 frame ones, the bigger ones are 10 frame, but basic principle is the same.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Forgiven,

Looks like a very slick system and I assume that it is pretty cost competitive. Thank you for the photos.

Steve


----------



## Forgiven

Bear Creek Steve said:


> Forgiven,
> 
> Looks like a very slick system and I assume that it is pretty cost competitive. Thank you for the photos.
> 
> Steve


11,81 €/box 24% VAT included (and bit of a bulk discount)... so, hm, yea, I guess it's not too bad.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Forgiven,

That's a fair price, and you get the benefit of higher insulation value. I'm at about 2,300 meters and since my hives are starting to brood and the night time temps are below 0 C they are still covered with ~5 cm of foam. But I'll be removing that soon. If I were starting out from the beginning again I would consider boxes like yours. That's hindsight though.

Steve


----------



## AR1

First warmish day in weeks, and first dry, sunny day. 50s. I expected some flying but no, the bees are all clustered in the top box. They have two deeps and a medium, and still lots of honey left, but not a lot of bees. I didn't dig in to look for a queen or brood.

I collected several old boards from my dad's unused old barn to use for making some more deeps. Measured out and cut a few lengths.


----------



## snl

AR1 said:


> I collected several old boards from my dad's unused old barn to use for making some more deeps. Measured out and cut a few lengths.


Were the boards in the barn? Or are you dismantling your dad's barn? 😎


----------



## AR1

snl said:


> Were the boards in the barn? Or are you dismantling your dad's barn? &#55357;&#56846;


I am taking apart the old livestock pens and reusing the wood. The barn itself is in decent condition for not being used for 30 years. It caught fire in the 1990s but the firemen saved it, but a lot of the mow floorboards got cut up and tossed about. Some of those I have replaced and others I used for beehives. That is interesting wood, a full inch thick and very rough cut, some very heavy dark-colored pine.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> One single box hive had queen cells on two frames, they were packed with no room to lay. Made 2 splits out if it into 4frame nucs, leaving the queen in the original hive spot. The splits were a frame of sealed brood with 1 or 2 queen cells, a frame of stores, two frames partial drawn but empty.


This queen that I'd moved away is missing with queen cells present. Pinched several leaving the best three in place.

Pinched queens in two other hives, they just not building up well. I will see if they make decent daughters.

I've got one hive has chalk and EFB it looks like, and two others have chalk. I've never had EFB before in any of my past and haven't had chalk in 6-7 years. Very disappointing, it's going to be a year of cleaning up a messy beeyard for me. I've never had a beeyard look like this ever. Quite downhearted over it. I'm blaming it on the genetics I've imported from the northeast and southeast, The weather and overall climate and environmental factors are just too different here than back there. I should have just kept working with what I'd had, which had been doing pretty good for the two previous years. Live and learn.


----------



## Michael Palmer

First pollen today. Oh happy day...


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Put triple high nucs into full size hives and saw the first maple pollen today. They have been bringing in pollen since the last week in March only 2 flying days in the last week of March.


----------



## PeterP

Michael Palmer said:


> First pollen today. Oh happy day...


There was joy in my yard as well.


----------



## Bowfinger

been too busy for weeks with other things than bees. Now in the last week I've caught 5 swarms coming out of my hives and NONE have stayed. Frustrated.


----------



## Cloverdale

Yesterday and today did all six hives, brood in all, eggs, saw one queen. Once I see eggs I don't look any further. To my surprise all had new nectar; as Michael Palmer says put those supers on and get the maple flow. Done.


----------



## Newbee116

Put out three swarm traps today.


----------



## Cloverdale

Newbee116 said:


> Put out three swarm traps today.


That's tomorrow!


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Caught a swarm on somebody's camper. Bout a 4 pounder. Gave them a frame feeder, 8 combs, 1 gal of syrup and we are right we are off to a good start.


----------



## Zephyr

Moved my little hive from a nuc to a full box, Opened that lid and bees unexpectedly leaked everywhere. Population exploded but I didnt pay attention to how much capped brood went in when I grafted QC. Queen though is already laying in every cell she can get into. Gonna watch her progress; have high hopes for this one.

Other hive not doing as well. Still stable but no eggs despite all virgins emerging. They have till next Friday before I call them a loss and disassemble that hive.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> I've got one hive has chalk and EFB it looks like, and two others have chalk. I've never had EFB before in any of my past and haven't had chalk in 6-7 years. Very disappointing, it's going to be a year of cleaning up a messy beeyard for me. I've never had a beeyard look like this ever. Quite downhearted over it. I'm blaming it on the genetics I've imported from the northeast and southeast, The weather and overall climate and environmental factors are just too different here than back there. I should have just kept working with what I'd had, which had been doing pretty good for the two previous years. Live and learn.


One of the wettest years on record here. Large commercial migratory operations close by me (400+ hives 1.75 miles behind me, for one). Change in treatments to OAD from apivar. New genetics brought in. Lack of management last late summer and fall due to health reasons (lack of feeding and treatments). Smallish clusters over wintered in double deeps. And not the best location for raising bees for other reasons such as Ag chemicals and mosquito spraying (related to rice growing) and lack of forage.

All things combined, I have most hives with Chalk brood and one with EFB. I've used dry ice to kill off the one with EFB yesterday, but saved the queen to a nuc the week before and she's still there. When the weather warms (lower than average temps for March and April as well as lots of rain in March) I'll be recyling combs. Melting down anything questionable and throwing any questionable frames into the kindling pile for next winter. I'll be purchasing new wood frames with plastic foundation as needed. Hives will be shook into new foundation and good looking partial drawn in a couple months, after the queens I've gotten started already are mated and established, and after any honey that can be salvaged has been pulled.

By late summer/early fall I should have a clean beeyard again and will make splits to over winter in smaller 8 frame single box deeps. Bought 100 pounds sugar yesterday also, am going to need feeding to get new combs drawn this year. It's going to be cooler weather for a couple more weeks still, but will get to work on all the clean up as it clears and warms up here.


----------



## gww

Ray
Bummer and good luck.
gww


----------



## RayMarler

Thanks gww
The hard part is I just melted down all my old combs 4 years ago. Now I'll be doing it again, and it takes a lot of sugar in this location.


----------



## gww

Ray
I was given 350 lbs of sugar and right now unless I catch a swarm or two it looks like I won't use any till fall. Wish I was you neibor, I would help you out. 
Good luck
gww


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Light rain last night and this morning then my brother inlaw calls that a bear knocked over some hives then he said it's the good over wintered nucs I just put in the full size hives. The bear must be a wimp cause he only destroyed one frame. I had to back off after I put two hives back together. Best estimate on the stings minimum of couple dozen. If the queens survived the hives are still good. Good thing I don't swell to much from the stings and glad more damage wasn't done.


----------



## Jason A

Went through one of my apiaries. Harvested four frames of capped honey


----------



## AHudd

Sunday, I split a mean colony, killed the Queen and added a frame of eggs to the one hive that I thought had no eggs. I checked for Queen cells today, but didn't find any in either hive. The one I gave the frame of eggs to seems to be ignoring them. Both colonies were still so mean I decided to split them again to weaken them further. These bees follow and try to sting for at least thirty minutes or until I get in my truck and leave the area.

I am going to wait four days before checking for Queen cells, destroy them, add eggs and see what happens.

Long day, perfect weather though, for such a task.

Tomorrow, I think I will put QEs under the brood boxes to trap the Drones. I want to keep as many of them out of the gene pool as possible. I scraped a lot of the Drone comb Sunday and today as well, but I'm sure I didn't get it all, as I was in a hurry because of the cloud of angry bees.

Alex


----------



## Gypsi

Today in the apiary - I put out 4 gallons of syrup in a no spill bucket feeder (inverted 5 gal lowes bucket with holes drilled near the top) about 4 hours before I wanted to mess with the hives. I think this was an excellent strategy. We are in drought / dearth for nectar. Pollen's good but there won't be spring honey unless something changes radically. 

First I went through the split I did on March 20th, I'd given a frame of eggs initially, had a couple queen cells on it 6 days later but not nearly enough bees had stayed with the split, so I'd given them a new frame of eggs and moved them to where the mother hive had been. That worked, but after robbing started I'd closed them in. Opened today and oh, they have a lot of bees, Uncapped brood. I opened the front door so the queen could go mate a couple of weeks ago and I believe she was successful. 

Mother hive still has their queen and plenty of bees, they are in a deep, I had given them a medium with foundation after the split, but they were not drawing it so I removed today.

Nuc combined of several cutout feral colonies, wintered in 2 nucs (deep on bottom medium on top) doing ok. found uncapped brood. 

No one has any capped honey, each was putting up the syrup I put out. I will be putting feed jars back on them, as I have the open feeder out and I am once again working at getting the feral diesel tanks trapped out, which reduces their available bee-power to rob my hives. 

It was wonderful to get to see my ladies, I'd been gone to work too much. Normally I try not to have more than 2 colonies here because of a shortage of forage. I have a couple of remote locations to move bees too. I believe the mother hive of my split is strong enough to move out next week. Yay!


----------



## EvilZeg

Checked on my hives on Friday. Transferred my 2 5 x 5 Nucs into single 10 frame bodies. I found capped brood, eggs and larva in each hive. Disassembled my dead hive and gave my other 2 hives some frames of cappped honey. The hive appeared to have starved out. I believe that it happened during a cold snap in January where they weren't able to move onto more food. They are bringing in plenty of pollen. 


https://youtu.be/ElNyvboSt-s


----------



## RayMarler

Yesterday was a nice day, or decent enough. Saw some small amounts of pollen coming into the two splits that had queen cells and another queenless hive as of March 29th, so thinking queens have mated and laying is starting. I'll be checking them the end of this week or next weekend as the weather will be nice again by then.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Looked at hive I thought was queenless- had drone brood and scattered brood- laying worker? Put in frame of brood and young brood and eggs, we'll see if they make Queen cells. 2 weeks off from splits- I think- We"ll see.


----------



## RayMarler

Off and on Clouds, Clear and warm in the sun, was sweating wearing a sweat shirt.

Walking through the beeyard, it's soft and mushy ground from the rains, saw a swarm on the fence around the beeyard. Mixed up some sugar water in a spray bottle and got them into an 8 frame deep with drawn and partly drawn combs. Sprayed the frames with sugar water, sprayed the bees and scooped them into a bucket and dumped it on the box I'd made up and put an upper feeder on them. I'll just let them sit now. I'm going to check all the hives this weekend if the ground has dried out some by then.


----------



## RayMarler

Checked thru some hives and nucs today.

Marked 2 newly laying queens and one virgin.

Could not find virgin or laying queen in one that should have a new laying queen any moment. Not a good sign that I could not find her. Joined that nuc with the one swarm I boxed yesterday as it seemed queenless for whatever reason. It was runny and loud, so joined them. I'll check that join in a couple days, if it still seems queenless, then I have a queenright nuc I can join into them, the nuc needing more bees.

Everyone dry, need to get feeders on, I'll be making up syrup now and already brought the feeder lids up from the barn, so they all get feeders today. There goes any chances of a honey crop this spring or early summer because the weather has been terribly wet for weeks at a time all spring and this month too. Hopefully we done with that noise now, summer will be here before I can turn around and it'll be hot and dry. So, looking forward to another year of feeding... yeah!... NOT


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Pinched queens in two other hives, they just not building up well. I will see if they make decent daughters...


Went through these two just now, both were two story 8 frame deeps so I split them both up. Now I have four single deeps with at least one good looking queen cell in each.


----------



## gww

Ray
You better watch it, that is how you end up with 2000 hives.
Cheers
gww


----------



## gnor

Snow! I'm going to send it back!
I unwrapped the bees the other day. Two colonies had about 2 or 3 cups of dead bees, cappings, etc. laying on the bottom boards. It was all pushed to the back of the bottom board so the entrance was clear, but in the other two, the bottom boards were nicely cleaned off.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Ugh had more rain over night lawns look like swamps. Bees are colecting pollen whenever they can fly haven't seen any drones. Put more syrup on the hives this morning. Going to OAV tomorrow it will be round two. Have three hives that I want to raise queens from two are home grown queens I made last year one is from beeweaver.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Went through these two just now, both were two story 8 frame deeps so I split them both up. Now I have four single deeps with at least one good looking queen cell in each.


Gave one of these splits another box of drawn comb. They were too crowded for my comfort level concerning swarming with two queen cells.


----------



## RayMarler

Found and marked the 4th new queen, she's just started laying.
That gives me 4 hives with new queens, 2 hives with last year queens, 4 hives should have virgins now. Mixing up syrup now for six that could use it.


----------



## Zephyr

I'm so close to a first honey harvest with my dying hive it burns. I was planning on emptying it out by now but I instead opt'd to let them dwindle down into nothing and hope I can squeeze out a bottle or 2 of honey. First I took off their 3rd deep and medium that were being drawn in anticipation of a halfway split. 3 days later, amount of nectar nearly doubled. That was Wednesday last week. Today there's even more with a handful of capped cells. Took out the 2 edge frames and left them out for both hives to clean. At this rate, I'm hoping to pull out 3 frames tops within a week or 2, then give the rest to a split. Hive 2 is coming along much better than this dying one did as a nuc last year so it's not a huge loss. These old rotten boxes need some serious work, otherwise I'd probably try to revive them. What kind of person just paints untreated timber? Peeling & rot everywhere and theres chunks missing where boxes meet :/

Storing frames in my house is fun... I think there's already some wax moth larvae but all I have are some threads, sawdust looking stuff, and tiny mouse turd looking stuff. It's gross but cheap and easily monitored.


----------



## JRG13

Was a decent weekend here for bees except it would get overcast and cooler in the afternoons. Yesterday I was doing yardwork and walked back into the backyard to see one of my Purdue based queens from Swamp Hunter hitting the trees. Guess they're kind of swarmy, just checked them a few days ago, didn't seem too crowded. Dug around in what's left, (5X5 nuc), had 2 open cells and one capped cell in the bottom box on one frame..... oh well, I think they moved on by evening but and I had plenty of empties around for them to occupy but such is life at times. I'll see if I split what's left down to 2-3 nucs. Also checked on my hives in Loomis both days, made a few splits, introduced some virgins to some queenless splits and checked to see how the rest of the colonies were doing. I bought these bees last year and I guess they're swarmy too, not used to dealing with swarmy bees as the rest of mine don't swarm. But I guess most of them hit the trees at some point in the last month but I did capitalize on it making about 17 splits with capped queencells. I found one of my new queens looking good, except she had a big black blob or something attached to her hind leg sticking up. It took me a few seconds to stare at it and try to figure out what it was, then it finally occurred to me, it was a bee face attached to her leg via mandibles. Not the whole head either, just the black carapace of the face, I wanted to take a picture but didn't feel like grabbing my phone, but perhaps it's still there next time but I thought it was kind of cool, maybe one of the virgins that lost or maybe a worker didn't like her at some point but it was cool to see.


----------



## Charlie B

We're getting a few breaks from the rain now and the supers are filling up, finally! Extracting today. 

Odfrank and I are still waiting for a visit from Ray Marler and Gypsi! :thumbsup:


----------



## subsonic

I picked up 3 Dadant nucs from my beekeeper last night. Closed the entrance vents and loaded them in my Land Rover. Drove off. Noticed a few bees in the truck after a bit so stopped to look. A vent had opened and those bees were mad, bees are not happy at night. I had my suit on so just flipped up the veil and a bee was in it. Stripped off by the side of the road much to the amusement of passers by. Eventually got the vent closed and got them installed here. Didn't get stung which was amazing. Rainy today so they are just staying in by the look of it. That gets me up to 4 hives plus my split which is looking ok so far, I'll check on the 5th may to see if it has a laying queen. But I'm hoping things turn out well. I'll feed the nucs once I transfer them to my hives until all extra frames are drawn out. But for the moment I'll leave them be for a few days to settle in till the weather is warmer.


----------



## Bolichsbees

subsonic said:


> ...bees are not happy at night. I had my suit on so just flipped up the veil and a bee was in it. Stripped off by the side of the road much to the amusement of passers by.


lol!!! I feel your pain. Was in a strong hive that I was in the process of requeening yesterday when I discovered a bee in my suit. I have the Ultra Breeze, which is a very secure suit, yet as we all know, bees defy any rules. One little angry bee got in my suit and was bumping around my nose and eyes. It must have been a comical sight to any who might have been watching my reactions. It's a miracle that I didn't get stung....

Oh the joys of beekeeping.


----------



## Newbee116

Hived two packages yesterday.
I also siphoned off some bees to start two nucs with the two extra queens I bought with the packages 

Oh yeah, I also marked all four queens.


----------



## subsonic

Finally got my hive stands sorted. When I had 2 hives it was ok, but now I am up to 5 the mish mash just looks, well a bit 'pikey' as we say in the UK. The mish mash of bits was replaced with concrete blocks to get the hives about 2ft of the ground. I used to have a few oak benches at my house in England that I brought here. Made of 5ft lengths of 4x2 inch oak. After 14 years of sitting outside they are just a bit grey, the oak is solid as. So two of those on top of the blocks either end. Made 3 stands, each good for 3 hives. Cost me about 15 dollars in US money for the blocks. Stuck a very slight angle down for the hive entrance so any water in the hive from rain or moisture can drain out. Pretty pleased with the price and the look of it.


----------



## EvilZeg

Check my hives today. 1st hive has a small patch of eggs, capped brood, and Larva. Hopefully the queen will get a move on. My second hive's queen is a machine. Lots of eggs, larva, and capped brood.


----------



## Zephyr

RIP Hive 1. I took off the lid & turned the top box to not align. We'll be getting a lot of rain over the next 3 days and a cold front so hopefully they abscond soon. Nothing but workers and some drones, nary an egg in sight. They had crawlers earlier so they probably have a higher mite count that weakened them quite a bit. Been really hitting them hard in the other hive. I'd like these old workers to scram and die with their mites far from this place ;-; Then I get to disassemble, clean it up and do my first walkway split with some fresh, less burdened bees.


----------



## subsonic

Got my 3 nucs installed in the hives. A nuc here seems to be 4 frames of brood, pollen and honey plus 2 empty frames. I wasn't sure if I could have left the nuc longer but as everything was ready and the weather good I just got them all installed in the hives with a feeder on top of each. I then took the opportunity to measure up and draw the nuc before I give them back to my beekeeper, in case I ever want to make any. Seem pretty simple.


----------



## Spur9

Added additional supers with plastic foundation to all my established hives. They've already pulled and capped their winter food in the supers added a month ago. The rest is mine.

Checked my 6 hived swarms and they are progressing along. Saw eggs and capped brood in the older swarms from 2+ weeks ago.

Only negative was the 2 splits that I made on March 24th. Still no sign of a queen or eggs anywhere. They have filled up the brood box with nectar. Bees were still calm and very active. I gave them a frame of eggs from another hive and removed 2 frames that were full of capped honey/pollen. Added frames of plastic foundation for them to draw. Will check in a week or so to see what is going on.


----------



## GSkip

Found two swarms in my yard this week. Was able to trap both. I have seven hives in this yard, stared this spring with three, split them in March into four more. Suprised at the swarms, but not Sure they were from my hives. I'll go through them this week and check for marked queens.


----------



## Charlie B

Once again, I was able to lure two of Tank's Bees swarms in my strategically placed apiary in San Mateo. One was at least a 6 pounder while the other maybe 4 to 5 pounds. Although fun, nothing can beat my luring the first swarm of the 2016 season, (Odfrank's bees) in the same apiary.:applause:


----------



## tanksbees

Charlie B said:


> Once again, I was able to lure two of Tank's Bees swarms in my strategically placed apiary in San Mateo. One was at least a 6 pounder while the other maybe 4 to 5 pounds. Although fun, nothing can beat my luring the first swarm of the 2016 season, (Odfrank's bees) in the same apiary.:applause:


Well, i've got plenty of bees to spare.


----------



## Phoebee

Two of our hives have put on substantial weight over the last two weeks. The main source is probably autumn olive. Our fingers are crossed that we've finally got a decent May-June nectar flow coming. We have four thriving hives just itching for the good stuff to bloom.

After a soil test showed us why clover would not grow, we limed and added K and P mineral fertilizer. The clover in the treated areas is going nuts, especially where it is fenced to keep the deer out. There's too little of it yet to constitute a major source, but enough that the bees are all over it. They like the crimson better than the Dutch white. The Dutch white blossoms are an inch across.


----------



## Phoebee

I forgot to mention the best part. After an OAV treatment in December, we are nearly mite-free.

A few weeks ago I spotted no mites in the trays of 3 of the 4 hives. One tray had maybe 18, but the tray had been there for maybe 2 months.

This time, a different hive showed 4 mites after 2 weeks. That hive has had drones earlier than the rest. None of the others showed any mites after 2 weeks, including the hive that had some 2 weeks ago. I note that the hive that formerly had mites now has a lot of capped drone brood. We put clean trays in for a 2-day drop, and I saw no mites on any of the 4 hives.

I won't say they're extinct, but the mites seem, at the moment, to be endangered. And just in case, I just got a fresh order of MAQS.


----------



## buckrub58

New to the bee keeping world and caught a swarm this past week. What should a person expect for honey production from a new colony caught the last week in April ? I want to be sure the bees have enough to winter through ok here in western Pa. Is it still possible to harvest a couple frames ?


----------



## Phoebee

buckrub58 said:


> New to the bee keeping world and caught a swarm this past week. What should a person expect for honey production from a new colony caught the last week in April ? I want to be sure the bees have enough to winter through ok here in western Pa. Is it still possible to harvest a couple frames ?


Have low expectations this first year, then be delighted if things work out well. The bees you caught were, after all, working on what passes for optimism among insects.

The first thing a swarm needs to do is draw comb. This is an energy-intensive process. They might even need to be fed to help them draw comb. Most people would assume they will leave anything the bees gather the first year for the bees, although you could feed in the late summer, early fall if they're short. Yes, you might get away with harvesting a couple of frames, and feed them to make it up.

Anyway, good job catching a swarm right off. Now, educate yourself about bees, and develop a really harsh attitude toward varroa mites They'll need this as much as honey to survive the winter.

And welcome to BeeSource!


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Hives looking good but will I see them again.
Taking the minimal rain forecast for the next 10 days it equals 116mm. That's 4.56 inches of rain and that is the minimum!!!!


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

frog, 

And my average annual rainfall is only 16 1/2 inches. No wonder I can't make any honey.

Steve


----------



## Spur9

Have 6 hives swarms ranging from 1 week to a month old. They all are pulling wax and some are brooding up. Supposed to be rainy and cool the next few days. So I went ahead and gave them all a protein patty and the 2 youngest a gallon of sugar syrup in case there isn't much foraging due to weather.

Also found a hive in one of my neighbors red oaks trees. It is dead and he plans to have it cut down due to the proximity to a gazebo. They are at least 30 feet up. I might suit up and take the chain saw to them once the tree is down.


----------



## pink bee man

Seams to be swarm explosion for last two weeks ,got 4in a matter of 5hours . The flow is at hand and bees are making comb as fast to fill its,a complet opposit from last year . Thank you Mother Nature .


----------



## Wosiewose

Opened the hive for a quick check, 6 days after bringing home a package. Retrieved the queen cage, which was empty and had all the candy eaten out of the hole, so although I didn't see the queen (I only looked at a couple of frames and scraped some wonky comb, not wanting to disturb them too much while they're settling in) I'm hoping she's in there and happy and hopefully beginning to lay. Not feeding them so far, as they have multiple full frames of honey/syrup in there from last winter's deadout to eat and make room for brood. Hope I'm doing it okay... this is only my second year beekeeping and the first package I've ever installed (last year I bought a nuc)...


----------



## Forgiven

After two weeks of cold weather in april, this week has finally been bit warmer, hitting peak of 17C today (next week looks to be between 5 and -5 again... sigh). Bees flying alot, seeing a lot of pollen coming in from willows, finally got to check the hives properly after winter, and happily all those that survived (did not starve) also have a laying queen in them, some brood patterns weren't perfect, but that could well be because of the cold period giving them problems after the unusually warm march. Got my first two stings too of the year, made me consider starting to use smoker again, or if this keeps happening with that particular hive, at least I'll requeen it.
Also gave them third medium for expansion room, didn't really need it yet, but since I'll be busy farming next few weeks I won't be around to give it when they do need it... And luckily the SHB is not in these parts yet.


----------



## yukonjeff

Forgiven, That sounds a lot like our weather here. Good luck.

I just got back from climbing the 80 yards up the hill to my two hives to heat the syrup like I have been doing every morning since I hived them on April 8. It was 27 degrees and sunny and the bees were already out on the face of my black hives soaking up the sun. Should warm up to near 50 soon in the next day or two, we have willow pollen coming in on May 1.


----------



## GSkip

GSkip said:


> Found two swarms in my yard this week. Was able to trap both. I have seven hives in this yard, stared this spring with three, split them in March into four more. Suprised at the swarms, but not Sure they were from my hives. I'll go through them this week and check for marked queens.


Well caught a third swarm from this yard, Same tree the other two were in. One hive had one of my marked queens the second was unmarked. Checked the third swarm hive today found eggs but did not see the queen. Checked the original hives found one with queen cells and no eggs. I know where my queen went!!


----------



## Phoebee

Black locust is blooming in abundance at our WV apiary! We've never seen more than a scattered bloom in our valley, and usually none at all. although the trees are numerous. 

The hive in which we spotted queen cells last week had even more this week, and they were clearly swarm cells. We got very lucky and spotted the queen this time, her body trimmed down and ready for a flight. We transferred her to a new nuc with some stores, workers, and comb. No brood was available that was free of queen cells.

The following day we went in to see if we could harvest queen cells, and they were gone except for a few being torn down. None of these had been apparent a week earlier.

This particular queen is one we hoped to breed. We have three daughters in the Queen Castle and a nuc. Glad we saved her.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Worked bees all day..... It was a great day


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Pinched queens in two other hives, they just not building up well. I will see if they make decent daughters...
> 
> and then a week or so later...
> 
> Went through these two just now, both were two story 8 frame deeps so I split them both up. Now I have four single deeps with at least one good looking queen cell in each.


2 queens failed, as far as I could see, a nuc of bees in each, so joined them into a 8 frame deep and set them on top of the single box hive next to them, installing a queen excluder that was modified to give an upper entrance between the two boxes. Shook all the bees out of the top box 20 feet away and let them fly back to the join.

Another looks like a failure, I'll check back on them. No queen no eggs, it's been a month, so will check in on them Friday.

One of the four looks good, nice large black beauty queen laying a good pattern. No sealed brood yet, but she's looking good. Marked her while I was at it.

It may be that the one next to her, if it failed, then I'll join the two together, Friday or sometime after the weekend.

............................................................................................

I have a 2 box hive doing pretty good, installed a queen excluder that gives upper entrance to it between the two boxes. Queen below, still has two frames in her box to lay in. Blackberry has started a week ago and privet is just starting now, maybe I'll get a box of honey off this one.

Feeders going on three, the rest are doing good.

I'm blaming the failures on the weather, a valid excuse this year.  Weather is looking good now, hopefully it won't jump up too hot too quickly now.


----------



## gww

Ray don't feel bad, I now have 6 hives that I don't know my queen status on yet. It is a nail biting time.
Cheers 
gww


----------



## RayMarler

Hey I don't feel bad at all. I'll end up with 6 queen right hives it looks like, and that's just fine with me! They'll be easier to take care of than 10 or more for sure. So long as I have 3-5 or even up to 7 I'm happy.


----------



## Wosiewose

Hived a package a week and a half ago, into a new box next to last year's deadout (I'd cleaned up and spritzed the deadout several weeks earlier with Swarm Commander in hopes of attracting a swarm before the arrival of the package, but that didn't happen). About half the package decided to move into the SC-spritzed hive, so today I gave them a queen of their very own. Hope there will be enough bees to go around till both queens are in full swing. Gave each hive a piece of pollen patty, as we were POUNDED by a hailstorm yesterday (some of the stones were between golf ball and tennis ball size) and I'm sure most of the flowers in the area are toast. Crossing fingers that everybody will be okay - talk is that there'll be more hail tonight.........


----------



## m0dem

Caught a small swarm of a little over 1000 bees (>1 side of a deep frame) tonight. With some TLC hopefully I can get them strong before winter. If there is a shortage of nectar right now, robbing will be a *pain* since a commercial beek has +150 in range.
Wish me luck!


----------



## JWPalmer

Checked on the swarm I hived this past Sunday. I had put the leftover comb full of nectar on top of the inner cover and put a deep over it, then the top. Darn things had eaten the nectar and were building on the comb. Appears that they have drawn out most of the frames in the 10 deep already so I ended up putting on another deep full of foundation for them to work. This is day 10 since I first saw them in the trap and only day 4 since they were hived.


----------



## dtrooster

Swarms are the shizzle. Just cool, doing the wax thing, minding their own business


----------



## Phoebee

Checked the Lavender Lady's hive today. She's our 3-year old matron. Amid the beautiful frames of capped brood, the dreaded swarm cells, mostly capped. She was nowhere to be found.

Which reminded me we wanted to add a cotton ball of LGO to the upwind swarm trap.

An hour later we heard buzzing in the tree tops ... looked like a large swarm on the move. Hope they get the message. LL may be old, but she ain't done yet.

We harvested 6 queen cells for the friend who gave us this queen. He was hit hard over the winter and is trying to build up. 

We captured and marked another daughter of this queen, laying nicely, from the queen castle. This one goes to our mentees from last year.

Locust is blooming like mad, and tulip poplar, too. No major weight gains yet but the weather just broke from cold and rainy.


----------



## memphistigerjeb

went in my 4 backyard hives today. my 2 over wintered hives are double deep supers stacked and full of queenly goodness and each has 1 medium super of capped honey and 1 medium super of drawn out comb about 60% capped or wet. my 2 captured swarms are doing well, one already has drawn a medium super and started to lay in wet and some capped. took a top feeder off one today and will remove an internal feeder on the other next time in

i'll check my 7 hives over at the farm park tomorrow. I think I may be ready to lay on a medium super or two there.

Germantown, TN zone 7a


----------



## Zephyr

I think bees are worth nerve damage  I use a frame grip and nearly dropped a heavy populated frame. Gave it a death grip and caught it from slipping but a little area in my thumb has tingled since. No loss of ability so I think it's just a surface nerve. On the flip side, my hive who's been queenless since ~Febuarary just had their queen marked today! Might be a little small but she's already laid a couple frames of brood which is more than what the last one managed! Also made sure to mark her more than usual to drown a varroa on her thorax. Despite the lack of a queen, there's been a bit of capped honey in there. Left it for the dearth coming at the end of May but man what a harvest I missed! Only been "sampling" here and there. I started keeping in hopes of raw honey helping my allergies so I'mma sit and suffer till next year ;-;


----------



## Rydalch

MariahK - That is dang funny! Thanks for giving me a good laugh :applause:


----------



## Rydalch

MariahK - that is dang funny! Thanks for giving me a good laugh :applause:


----------



## EvilZeg

Raccoon tipped over one of my hives last week and after a few days I confirmed the Queen was gone. Luckily I was able to get a new Queen from Wild Creek Bee Farms and installed her today. The Bees rushed up to her cage. They started fanning and I was easily able to brush them off the cage with my finger. And upon closer inspection I could see them feeding her. So things are looking good so far. 


https://youtu.be/rT_qfryxdvE

https://youtu.be/AcYhewHP5oE


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Found and marked the 4th new queen, she's just started laying.
> That gives me 4 hives with new queens, 2 hives with last year queens, 4 hives should have virgins now. Mixing up syrup now for six that could use it.


Clear and 80+ in the shade in the beeyard, going to get 90+ before end of day.

That last queen I marked, it was queenless today, so set it on top of the one next to it with queen excluder between the two boxes. There's an upper entrance on top of the excluder as well. Just smoked both boxes and joined them. Hopefully queen below stays as she's a good new layer with great pattern, she's my solid black queen. That hive has stores, the rest need syrup, which I'm mixing up now.

I've another hive with excluder, went thru it and raised sealed brood up above excluder, moving drawn empties down.

6 hives, two are 2 story with excluder, 2 are 4 frame nucs, 2 are single 8 frame deeps.


----------



## Phoebee

At last, an honest flow!

With black locust in prolific bloom, plus some tulip poplar, and a week of decent weather, we've been wondering if the bees were finally doing what they're known for. This is our 4th summer, and for one reason or another, we've been skunked for May-June flow in previous years.

Hive O logged 43 pound of increase between Sunday and Thursday! Hive Z, right next to them, increased 19 pounds in spite of swarming. The dink lost a few pounds but does not look robbed. We have another large, strong hive that we did not weigh.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Weather is looking good now, hopefully it won't jump up too hot too quickly now.


It was 96 yesterday, going to be 99 today, and 100 tomorrow, in the forecast!

I sorted through some combs today (it's almost 3am so that was yesterday), melted down 3 boxes of comb yesterday and have two more to do today. I also re-waxed a box of green plastic drone comb frames.

I also got the Intex swimming pool unwrapped from it's winter wrapping, and just in time for the heat wave too. It sure felt good to take a dip yesterday afternoon!


----------



## base128grep

I caught a small feral swarm on May 17th, hived it about two weeks later and reset the swarm trap in the same tree above the new hive. Yesterday the swarm trap had bees all over the place, the hived swarm below the trap was bearded and its occupants were getting kicked out...dead bees and little fuzzy nurse bees all over the ground. Didn't realize that I should keep my swarm trap some distance away...guess I can say goodbye to my fuzzy new swarm queen, had some nice capped brood already....I messed up. I'm bummed out about it but the new occupants seem to be a lot stronger, will have to wait and see if they stick around.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and sunny, 82 at the moment going to 89 today in the forecast. Somewhat breezy.

Went through more combs, pulled four more to be melted down. I've not finished that comb melting process yet.

Found enough good looking combs to add a second story to my 2 four frame nucs. Also added a second story to 2 eight frame singles. They didn't need the room per say, but I wanted the combs protected. Will keep feeders on these to get more combs being used and will put on pollen patty to try to boost brooding. I have syrup mixed up now, will let it set a couple hours and then refill the four feeders on the hives worked on today, and am planning to get pollen on them by the end of the week.


----------



## RayMarler

Clear and breezy mid seventies.

Two hives are 2 stories with queen excluders giving upper entrance, with lower entrance, both entrances reduced. One week ago today, I'd moved sealed brood above the excluder in both hives. I checked today, destroyed queen cells that they'd made in the upper box of each. One of the hives, had a queen cell that had emerged. The timing doesn't fit, and I could not find a virgin, but she may be in there. Either that's an old queen cell, or I missed it as I moved frames up a week ago, IF it had already started a week before that. So, check it weekly and see if eggs start upstairs. Hopefully they don't swarm if there is a virgin upstairs, I'm betting this late in the spring with a lack of good flows, they won't swarm if she's up there, she has her own entrance and might end up with a 2 queen hive. I thought about leaving a queen cell in both hives upper boxes to see if they'd mate and make 2 queen hives, I think the chances are very good it would happen that way, but I didn't want to risk the old queens below swarming away.

Gave pollen patty, very small because of wax moth threat, to the other four. Gave syrup to all six. Going out now to continue melting down combs.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

I've been waiting for the weather to clear up and I've finally seen some good weather for the next week. So time for splitting hives . Only going too do one at this time the queen is in her bottom box with a new box of drawn comb above so she can get right to work laying eggs. The queenless split has been notched next week I'll see how many good cells they have made.


----------



## ryanbekke

Checking on the bees today and they are doing great, My swarm capture looks wonderful. But my young fruit and flowering trees that I planted for them are not doing so well. I have planted a grove of flowering & fruit trees of all kinds for my bees but I see that the deer have been in and eating the new leaves down to the branches again. I have tied some rags to the support posts about two feet high and sprayed the rags with some Honey Robber (butyric acid) as a deer deterrent. Has anyone ever had any luck or tried doing this to save their trees from deer forage. I planted these trees for my bees not for the deer, and if they can't ever get new growth on them they will never get big enough to flower or fruit. They are 5-6' high now but in the 2-4 feet range is just shredded down to the branches from the deer. I literally have about 1 foot of new growth up on top where the deer cannot reach it. This is the second year in a row that the deer are eating my new growth off of my trees. The area is way to big to fence off. I even have some pie tins clanging around and a fake coyote near the posts too. 

Any advice is welcome here.

Thank You -Ryan


----------



## MaynerdOllie

My nuc is taking off


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Two hives are 2 stories with queen excluders giving upper entrance, with lower entrance, both entrances reduced. One week ago today, I'd moved sealed brood above the excluder in both hives. I checked today, destroyed queen cells that they'd made in the upper box of each... I thought about leaving a queen cell in both hives upper boxes to see if they'd mate and make 2 queen hives, I think the chances are very good it would happen that way, but I didn't want to risk the old queens below swarming away...


78F and clear in the beeyard today, might get up close to 90F by the day's end.

I checked these two hives today, they still had some sealed brood in that upper box. I added a frame with eggs and brood to each, into the center of the remaining sealed brood, to see if they make queen cells again. The frames I added were one each of my best two queens, one in one hive top box one in the other hive top box. If they make cells again, I'll make some splits in a week.


----------



## m0dem

Good activity at the hive front. Lots of yellow pollen coming in. Maybe Russian Olive... or some other plant I haven't discovered yet.


----------



## soarwitheagles

After catching nearly one swarm a day for a couple of weeks, the swarm catching has slowed way down...darn...now we are making new nuc boxes, 10 frame deeps, tops, bottoms, and maybe that inner cover too...


----------



## m0dem

Caught a swarm! Very happy! It was right near my house and I saw the queen. Good times!


----------



## Sunday Farmer

When your boss is chill a.f about you bringing a family of kittens back to the shop...


----------



## Phoebee

We came back from a couple of weeks of Alaska vacation to see what mischief the bees have been up to. (I keep trying to tell the wife that May is not an ideal time for a long vacation ... maybe after the mayhem just before the vacation, she'll take me seriously now.)

The two hives that produced swarm cells before the vacation do not yet have brood, but are otherwise healthy-looking. No panic yet ... but if none by next week I'll start thinking about giving them a frame with eggs. 

We expected both sides of the queen castle would be broodless. We'd gotten one queen but thought the other apartments had failed, but we combined them with the frames we had taken a queen from. We came back to find that side full of brood with a fat and sassy new queen. She's now marked and in a double deep nuc. 

The breeder queen that we saved from one of the swarm cell hives is alive and producing a little brood, but taking her own sweet time getting back in the game. 

Our black locust flow is over but the bee flight patterns and tree blossoms suggest they're working tulip poplar. We harvested a few frames of capped honey to make room for more. Lots of frames are half-capped and can be pulled soon.


----------



## Phoebee

(Double post deleted)


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Them durn bees only wanted to split one hive up but they had other thing on their mind. So instead of 4 splits I got 9. I still have 4 nucs that are empty but with 3 more hives that could be split that's not enough unless they can wait till I put the first ones into full size boxes.


----------



## JRG13

Snapped this pic today grading the first nucs of the season.


----------



## EvilZeg

New Queen in my Nuc is laying very nicely. And the queen in my full sized hive is a machine. Happy Bees. 

https://youtu.be/B84EROePr30


----------



## soarwitheagles

JRG13 said:


> Snapped this pic today grading the first nucs of the season.


Looks like an A+ JRG! Nice job!


----------



## m0dem

EvilZeg said:


> New Queen in my Nuc is laying very nicely. And the queen in my full sized hive is a machine. Happy Bees.
> 
> https://youtu.be/B84EROePr30


Nice looking hive there.

Happy bees. Happy beekeeper.


----------



## vbhurles2016

Just got back from checking in on the bees, not to happy, had three hives leave there deeps as i think the ants drive them crazy i need to go were wack tomorrow and put out a ton of any bait.


----------



## EvilZeg

m0dem said:


> Nice looking hive there.
> 
> Happy bees. Happy beekeeper.


Thanks, definitely a Happy Beekeeper. She is a second year queen from a walk away split from my most productive hive last year.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Unseasonably cool here lately with rain yesterday! All hives are booming. I hope to look at two new nucs, believing for laying queens...and I hope to look later today...will post pics and results...


----------



## m0dem

I was just watching all the bees coming and going quickly with pollen and stuff... and then in a flash something swooped down and pounced onto the bottom board. I caught a glance of a dragonfly grasping onto a bee and then it flew off as fast as it had come.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> 78F and clear in the beeyard today, might get up close to 90F by the day's end.
> 
> I checked these two hives today, they still had some sealed brood in that upper box. I added a frame with eggs and brood to each, into the center of the remaining sealed brood, to see if they make queen cells again. The frames I added were one each of my best two queens, one in one hive top box one in the other hive top box. If they make cells again, I'll make some splits in a week.


Cloudy today, mid 70's when I was working the hives.

One hive had cells started, but not on that frame of eggs I'd given, so suspect drone queen cells or something odd. I gave a frame with eggs today, and replaced the queen excluder with a solid board with front entrance.

The other one had no cells, so did the same thing, gave it frame of eggs and a solid board to replace the queen excluder with front entrance.

So those two, top box is separated from bottom with solid board with their own entrance, with frame that had eggs.

Pinched the queens in two different hives, and split each one up into single deeps sitting side by side. So I've got four singles needing queens now, and hoping the other two give me some for these four.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Good job Uncle Ray!

Today I was able to inspect about half our hives. I thought the flow was over, so was expecting no more honey. Pleasantly surprised and also a bit challenged when hive after hive had large amounts of honey in the top supers...Never had to move supers this heavy before in this locale.

I think I figured out why so much honey...even though most everything looks dead here now, I discovered what appears to be a hundred acres of irrigated white clover in full bloom a little over two miles from our bee yard. Last year, I saw an irrigated clover field of over a thousand acres several miles away from us [too far for our bees]. It remained in bloom all summer long and I remember wishing I could place of my hives there...

Said a short prayer, that God would make a way for me to place hives near a clover field...how funny, He doesn't always answer they way we think he should...instead of me moving our beehives, he moved the clover fields...how nice!

On the not so brighter side of things...looked at two nucs we made up a couple of weeks ago, but they didn't look so good. One nuc had only a frame of bees left...and a runty lookin' queen with no eggs or fresh larvae. The other nuc had massive bees, but I could not find any eggs, larvae or queenie. I placed a new frame of eggs, larvae, and worker bees in this hive...

Anyone have any suggestions as to what else I can do to obtain healthy nucs? Is it too late for that nuc with only one frame of bees and the runt queen?


----------



## Gazelle

Had a buddy call who manages lots of wood duck nesting boxes. He said bees had moved in on 4 boxes. Took a night time ride on our quads and brought them home. While out there I noticed my 2 swarm traps were full of bees! 6 new colonies for free.


----------



## m0dem

Gazelle said:


> Had a buddy call who manages lots of wood duck nesting boxes. He said bees had moved in on 4 boxes. Took a night time ride on our quads and brought them home. While out there I noticed my 2 swarm traps were full of bees! 6 new colonies for free.


Nice, you must be excited!
Happy beekeeping.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Gazelle said:


> Had a buddy call who manages lots of wood duck nesting boxes. He said bees had moved in on 4 boxes. Took a night time ride on our quads and brought them home. While out there I noticed my 2 swarm traps were full of bees! 6 new colonies for free.


Congrats Gazelle!

We were catching nearly one swarm per day here for a couple of weeks, then, after local beeks moved large numbers of hives away, our catch rate went to zero...

I am wondering if you have some large scale beeks nearby?

Your post makes me think swarm season is still on here in California, but conditions such as local hives has a lot to do with the success of catching swarms of honeybees!


----------



## Gazelle

soarwitheagles said:


> Congrats Gazelle!
> 
> We were catching nearly one swarm per day here for a couple of weeks, then, after local beeks moved large numbers of hives away, our catch rate went to zero...
> 
> I am wondering if you have some large scale beeks nearby?
> 
> Your post makes me think swarm season is still on here in California, but conditions such as local hives has a lot to do with the success of catching swarms of honeybees![/QUOTEe
> 
> 
> 
> 
> N
> Ya, there's hives everywhere right now. I suspect they will all be going to Wyoming and Oregon for alfalfa soon. Crazy year, I overwintered 11 and now have 48!


----------



## soarwitheagles

vbhurles2016 said:


> Just got back from checking in on the bees, not to happy, had three hives leave there deeps as i think the ants drive them crazy i need to go were wack tomorrow and put out a ton of any bait.


VB,

Have you considered building Charlie's world famous ant-proof beehive stands? They work perfect! Here's a couple of pics of mine:


----------



## soarwitheagles

Gazelle said:


> soarwitheagles said:
> 
> 
> 
> Congrats Gazelle!
> 
> We were catching nearly one swarm per day here for a couple of weeks, then, after local beeks moved large numbers of hives away, our catch rate went to zero...
> 
> I am wondering if you have some large scale beeks nearby?
> 
> Your post makes me think swarm season is still on here in California, but conditions such as local hives has a lot to do with the success of catching swarms of honeybees![/QUOTEe
> 
> 
> 
> 
> N
> Ya, there's hives everywhere right now. I suspect they will all be going to Wyoming and Oregon for alfalfa soon. Crazy year, I overwintered 11 and now have 48!
> 
> 
> 
> Awesome increase! Good job!
> 
> Today, in our bee yard, I did clean up and organization. Second, I finished building more of the Migratory Beehive Covers for our new nucs. Last, I nearly completed framing a livestock watering device that both our sheep and our bees can share...
Click to expand...


----------



## Forgiven

First queen raising attempt started well enough...










Now I just need to figure out where to go from here (there are about 17 cells in the bottom row, no way am I going to get all of those cut out intact though...), I do have a vague idea but I now realize I've been way more focused on getting the first part done than what comes after, still, at least I got the boxes for mating nucs in store...


----------



## m0dem

Forgiven said:


> First queen raising attempt started well enough...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Now I just need to figure out where to go from here (there are about 17 cells in the bottom row, no way am I going to get all of those cut out intact though...), I do have a vague idea but I now realize I've been way more focused on getting the first part done than what comes after, still, at least I got the boxes for mating nucs in store...


Good job!
Were the 17 cells in the bottom row mixed with drawn comb?


----------



## volare71

Today promised wind so I went into my Mesquite forest apiary early, around 7:00AM.
First, I put hive I brought from New Mexico in a new 8 frame deep brood chamber. They are actively working 7 of 8 frames but are light with little honey stores. I will watch them to see if they need some top feeding.
I then expanded two 8 frame deep hives by stacking 8 frame mediums on top and transferring full frames from the 5 frame medium nuc supers that were there. One hive had filled two frames with capped honey and the other three were capped brood with a halo of honey and pollen. The other one had the same pattern but the nectar was uncapped. I added three frames to each super and checker boarded them.
My third hive on that stand had bees working the center three frames in the super so I left them alone. 
These three now deep medium two high hives started this spring as nucs and are very healthy. I sampled a cluster of drone brood and found no evidence of mites.
I will be stacking medium honey supers as we have a huge Mesquite bloom this year. Mesquite honey is pale yellow and very tasty.


----------



## Forgiven

m0dem said:


> Good job!
> Were the 17 cells in the bottom row mixed with drawn comb?


As in did they connect the cells with eachother with sort of a comb? yea there was some of that.

I just realized the main difference with top row and bottom row probably was that I cut the top row just 'one cell wide' (+half the neighboring cells) but because of how annoying it was to attach that one, I cut the bottom one a cell wider (so 2) to have wider base against the frame...
Probably should have stuck with the one row wide, if that's what results, could of course just be that it was closer to the center which caused them to make more queens in the bottom row?


----------



## m0dem

Forgiven said:


> As in did they connect the cells with eachother with sort of a comb? yea there was some of that.
> 
> I just realized the main difference with top row and bottom row probably was that I cut the top row just 'one cell wide' (+half the neighboring cells) but because of how annoying it was to attach that one, I cut the bottom one a cell wider (so 2) to have wider base against the frame...
> Probably should have stuck with the one row wide, if that's what results, could of course just be that it was closer to the center which caused them to make more queens in the bottom row?


I couldn't tell you why they liked the lower ones better. Unless you did the lower bar last? (after having a bit of practice grafting)


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Cloudy today, mid 70's when I was working the hives.
> 
> One hive had cells started, but not on that frame of eggs I'd given, so suspect drone queen cells or something odd. I gave a frame with eggs today, and replaced the queen excluder with a solid board with front entrance.
> 
> The other one had no cells, so did the same thing, gave it frame of eggs and a solid board to replace the queen excluder with front entrance.
> 
> So those two, top box is separated from bottom with solid board with their own entrance, with frame that had eggs.
> 
> Pinched the queens in two different hives, and split each one up into single deeps sitting side by side. So I've got four singles needing queens now, and hoping the other two give me some for these four.


Partly cloudy 73F

Squished all cells started in the four single deep splits. Went to the one mother hive that had a cell on each two frames, they were capped and looked good so gave both frames, one each to the weakest of the four splits. Cut out cells from the other mother hive and gave to the other two splits. Removed the horizontal division boards and replaced with a plain steel queen excluder with no upper entrance on the mother hives.

So, each split has at least one cell, and each mother hive is back to two deeps with queen excluders between their two boxes.

Will check back in 3 weeks (after 4th of July) for eggs in the splits.


----------



## Forgiven

m0dem said:


> I couldn't tell you why they liked the lower ones better. Unless you did the lower bar last? (after having a bit of practice grafting)



Ah, no, I did not bother to learn grafiting yet, these were just cut strips of eggs(/ few young larvae) that I moved to a cell starter colony. The the easy, dirty method. And if it works this well I may never learn to graft really.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Nice job on those queen cells Forgiven! I hope your queen hatch and mate and bring you many new bees and hives!

Here, it is beginning to warm up. We are expecting a major heat wave as in temps 103+ for 4 or more days...not sure what effect this will have on the bees? Anyone care to comment?

I was given the wonderful opportunity of seeing a swarm fly in and land on one of our swarm traps, then move to another of our swarm traps in the next couple of minutes. It was fascinating to watch.

My wife and I stayed up late so we could pull the trap down, box the bees, and let up their new 5 star Hilton. I added a partial frame of honey, but did not have time to look for some frames of eggs/larvae to add to this swarm.

Anyone have any suggestions? Shall I pull some larvae tomorrow from other hives and install them in this recently caught swarm?

Please help me out if you can.

Thanks!


----------



## Forgiven

I hope so, though now that I cut them out and made the mating nucs I have a feeling the cells were terribly small... but we'll see.

Temperature wise I wouldn't really know, never gets that hot in here... they'll be looking for a lot of water to evaporate I guess.

Giving eggs and larvae to the swarm is mostly to ensure they stay in the hive I think? If you are not picking them from next tree branch in the morning, not sure if it's necessary anymore, might be, might not, what do I know, never had the pleasure of catching a swarm. (One frame should be as good as many for that)


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Soarwitheagles,

Congratulations! That's a beautiful swarm catch.

In answer to your question, YES, the addition of a frame of wet brood and capped brood to your newly captured swarm is a good safety precaution. It will help insure that the bees stay "fixed" in that location and don't abscond. It is not absolutely necessary, but it will put your mind at ease. I have had a brand new 3# package introduced on drawn comb abscond the following day and had I included a frame of wey/capped brood they likely would not have absconded.

Steve


----------



## soarwitheagles

Bear Creek Steve said:


> Soarwitheagles,
> 
> Congratulations! That's a beautiful swarm catch.
> 
> In answer to your question, YES, the addition of a frame of wet brood and capped brood to your newly captured swarm is a good safety precaution. It will help insure that the bees stay "fixed" in that location and don't abscond. It is not absolutely necessary, but it will put your mind at ease. I have had a brand new 3# package introduced on drawn comb abscond the following day and had I included a frame of wey/capped brood they likely would not have absconded.
> 
> Steve


Thanks for the info Steve! I would like to begin adding frames of wet and capped brood in every swarm we catch. Right now the problem is I cannot find the time to do it. I have been simply overwhelmed with other projects. I like your idea of adding brood. Anything and everything that increases the success rate is a good choice to me.

Today, I worked on building more ant-proof beehive stands. It is becoming easier and easier now after building a few of them. I also finished up another six new nuc boxes with tops and bottoms. I am thinking of trying something new here: attach 10-20 nuc boxes to trees, spread out all over the property...I was hoping the queens would then have better success in finding their hive! Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Oh, when I checked out our beeyard today, I found another strange surprise...

A few weeks ago a friend came over and inspected out hives. He is really good at it. We found one drone hive with 100% drones if I remember correctly. He suggested to let it die out.
So I did not touch it for a few weeks. Today, discovered a good size bee beard on it. I think it may be a swarm that took over the hive or is hanging on the outside of the hive...

Should I place them in a double deep or leave them alone?

What are your thoughts on this?

Here's some pics!


----------



## Cloverdale

Soarwitheagles said: "Today, I worked on building more ant-proof beehive stands. It is becoming easier and easier now after building a few of them. I also finished up another six new nuc boxes with tops and bottoms. I am thinking of trying something new here: attach 10-20 nuc boxes to trees, spread out all over the property...I was hoping the queens would then have better success in finding their hive! Anyone have any thoughts on this?"


I think the queens will find their hive just fine without all the nuc boxes everywhere. If you're thinking about using them for bait hives they are probably too small; read Tom Seeley's book Honey Bee Democracy, he gives dimensions on bait hives and has studied this extensively.


----------



## RayMarler

I agree, I think the ideal sized swarm trap box would be a deep 8 frame box, or even a ten framer. The 4 and 5 frame nucs are too small for some of the larger swarms. I also think they might be looking for cavities they could build into for a decent over winter nest, so a bit larger than a 5 frame nuc might be better. It's all conjecture though, so whatever floats your boat. Soar has done very well this year catching swarms, so why change what's been working? More around the property may be a good thing, gives the bees more choices, so perhaps a few 8 or ten frame boxes would be good as would give more variety of choice to the swarm bees.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Thank you Ray and Cloverdale!

Well, the reason I was thinking of spreading out the nucs wasn't for swarm traps, but, rather, to place brand new splits in nucs. Are you guys saying we would still have the same level of success if I placed all the new nucs in the bee yard near each other?


----------



## Cloverdale

soarwitheagles said:


> Thank you Ray and Cloverdale!
> 
> Well, the reason I was thinking of spreading out the nucs wasn't for swarm traps, but, rather, to place brand new splits in nucs. Are you guys saying we would still have the same level of success if I placed all the new nucs in the bee yard near each other?



Soar said:"attach 10-20 nuc boxes to trees, spread out all over the property...I was hoping the queens would then have better success in finding their hive! Anyone have any thoughts on this?"
I thought you meant something else by the above statement and hence the answers Ray and I gave. Spreading hives out is a good idea.


----------



## JWPalmer

Interesting idea. I never considered spreading the nucs around like that. It would certainly make it less likely a mated queen gets offed because she entered the wrong hive upon return. My only concern would be getting them into regular hives later. If you move the nucs that magical 2 plus miles away first, them move them back and hive them, I guess it would work fine. I'm getting ready to make summer nucs over the weeend of July 4th. Might try putting one or two separate from the others.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Today in the Apiary...

Worked in 103F weather, making more of the ant proof beehive stands. Nice thing about it, used scrap wood that I obtained for either free or pennies and I figure the material cost of each stand without paint or PVC end caps is less than a dollar. So for $1, I feel I really did well.

I am still debating on if I should use the new stands for the nucs or try the setting of nucs in trees throughout the 15+ acres. I thought of a super fast and inexpensive way to set them in the trees. I would auger two 1.25" diameter horizontal holes 12 inches apart in each tree. Then slam the 1.25 pipe into the augured hole, setting the nuc on top of the pipes, securing with a tie down strap.

The other option is to set the nucs on these new stands, two high, facing opposite directions, sixteen nucs per stand. But my concern is the nucs would be so close together...would I lose a bunch of queens like I did last year?

I am attaching pics of my nucs and stands from last year when I lost 90% of my nucs. It was a total disaster. I am also attaching a pic of an unfinished beehive stand I made today...

So the question is...nucs on stands, or nucs in the trees?

Please help me out if you would.

Thanks!


----------



## JWPalmer

I see two problems with last year's setup.

1. The nucs are all facing the same direction.
2. They are all painted the same color.

I don't think bees can count, so third box from the left isn't going to mean much.

Experiment time. Put 10 nucs in the trees just the way they are. Paint the others different colors and put a geometric design on the front, like squares, triangles, hexagons, etc. Then turn every other box facing backwards. I bet your sucess rate will be closer to 95%. Might want to set a plastic owl nearby to help keep the birds away. Getting eaten right after mating would be a real bummer.


----------



## dtrooster

Had a pollen explosion going on earlier with the square hive. Every other bee with full sacks, a few hundred a minute, it's settled down to normal foraging thank goodness. At that rate they would have packed things up in a day


----------



## soarwitheagles

JWPalmer said:


> I see two problems with last year's setup.
> 
> 1. The nucs are all facing the same direction.
> 2. They are all painted the same color.
> 
> I don't think bees can count, so third box from the left isn't going to mean much.
> 
> Experiment time. Put 10 nucs in the trees just the way they are. Paint the others different colors and put a geometric design on the front, like squares, triangles, hexagons, etc. Then turn every other box facing backwards. I bet your sucess rate will be closer to 95%. Might want to set a plastic owl nearby to help keep the birds away. Getting eaten right after mating would be a real bummer.


Thanks JW for your insights...but I think I already tried some of them...all to no avail.

Before the virgin queens went on their mating flights, I placed some of the preschool designs up front. Still lost just about every queen. Ray believes the robber screens had a lot to do with the loss.

And I hear you on the birds. We have a type of bird here that has bees on its main menu. Perhaps we can thin them out...

I like your idea about facing every other hive a different direction...we will do that for sure. And someone told me to make a type of horse shoe configuration with the hive stands. Have you any thoughts on this?


----------



## Cloverdale

I think the horseshoe set up or round is the way to go. Great idea. I tried the straight line of facing hives front and back but had a problem with inspecting; always seemed to be standing in front of a hive. My yard set up won't let me do that but I do space them and turn them slightly. 
As for the identifying paper on the hives you should use something permenant and bold.


----------



## JWPalmer

I've never read anything that would suggest a robber screen would keep a returning queen out. In fact, they are recommended for mating nucs due to their lack of guard bees. Instead of a horseshoe, maybe cluster them in smaller groups with a fair amount of space between groups. Pure conjecture at this point, but if you are willing to try differnt things...


----------



## soarwitheagles

At this point in time, considering all the failures I have experienced when attempting to raise queens and place them in nucs, I am willing to try anything!

I would like to succeed where in the past, I have experienced a 90% failure rate...


----------



## JRG13

What you really need is a second location to move them too, drifting bees back to the parent colony is creating an issue as well.


----------



## JWPalmer

I agree a second location would be ideal. I have to shake a lot of bees into the nucs because the foragers return to their hive after a few hours. Even so, the few hundred bees that were left in one of my splits managed to produce three queen cells. You could also try screening the opening for several days to keep everyone home. By the third day when you remove the screen you should have a few cells started and the field bees should stay with the split.


----------



## Phoebee

T'was an interesting weekend. We combined the remaining bees in the Queen Castle with a dink hive. This is an ungainly stack: ten frame over eight, but the top boards from the castle have feeder holes ... put them on the bottom with newpaper underneath and they should figure it out. There's a tiny medium nuc back where the castle was to collect homesick foragers. We'll try to do this same shake-out thing next week. Meanwhile they have some old comb to clean.

The more interesting case is the big hive that we stopped from swarming. The old queen is in a nuc, supplemented with frames from the queen castle (they're thru the newspaper already). The big hive that made her finally has brood (eggs and larvae, no capped brood yet), but there's a catch. Due to their size and activity, we gave them a couple of supers about a month ago, and we put a queen excluder in. Now we have brood on both sides of the queen excluder. We can't spot the queen(s). But both sides also have queen cells. We suspect this is a two queen hive and I need to scare up a double-screen board to make it official.

Both this hive and another that swarmed a few days later have produced queens but then immediately made queen cells. I read here that it is not uncommon, but it is a first for us. We had a strong flow in May.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Phoebee,

Lots of action in your yard and i like that. Did I understand you correctly that you placed a ten frame box a top an eight frame box? I am not so sure I understood your words. Please help me understand.

JRG, Ok, another yard...second location...please permit me to ask: how far must it be from the present yard? Thank you!

JW, you give me a lot to think about! Thanks for posting.

Today in our apiary. Caught 3 more swarms. They are smaller swarms, but swarms they are for sure. This evening I baited and hung the swarm trap that we used to catch that larger swarm a few days ago. I always wait a few days before returning a swarm trap to its location...I do this out of fear that the swarm might try to move back to the swarm trap if I replace it too soon in the same exact location...not sure if I am thinking correctly on this.

109F this afternoon. Yesterday, we placed plywood with spacers over the top of the entire line of hives. So we just eliminated a huge amount of direct sunlight hitting the tops of the hives.

My discovery last week: when placing my bare hand on top of various hives, the metal topped hives were so hot it burned my hand. White painted wood covers were way cooler.

Finally, trying to finish up a few more ant proof bee hive stands... and having fun while doing it, but wish it wasn't so hot.

PS Somebody recently moved 50+ hives about 300 yards away from us...


----------



## Phoebee

soarwitheagles said:


> Phoebee,
> Did I understand you correctly that you placed a ten frame box a top an eight frame box? I am not so sure I understood your words. Please help me understand.


You read it right ... it looks weird. A queen castle is a single 10-frame deep with several removable partitions to make 4 2-frame chambers. The bottom board has 4 entrances. The top inside has 4 narrow boards, one per chamber. I have cut feeder holes in the 4 inside top boards.

To configure this 10 over 8, I moved those 4 top boards to the bottom of the 10-frame box, blocking off the outer feeder holes. I left the two center holes open so the bees could chew thru the newspaper and join the hive below. An inside top cover and telescoping top cover grace the top. The whole ugly pile is strapped together. The hope is these homeless bees, left over from raising a couple of nucs, will join the weak hive under them and not go back to the queen castle location. Hopefully any bees in that top 10-frame can be shaken out next week and just re-enter the lower entrance.

You've been asking about mating nucs ... that's what we're using the queen castle for. One box gives you four 2-frame starter nucs, and one small entrance per side. We've had good luck with this thing so far. On the last run, we got mated queens in 3 of the 4 chambers (although we lost one, maybe in a botched inspection). As you harvest queens, you can remove partitions to consolidate the chambers. We have decorated the entrances with Disney princess stickers. The bees do seem to look at these during orientation, but will return to the same spot regardless of movement of the box once they are used to an entrance. The princesses help us keep track of which chamber is which.

JW Palmer, the research I've seen suggests that bees can count to about 4, and understand right versus left and above versus below. Rows of hives greater than 8 have more problem with drifting to the outside hives.


----------



## Phoebee

Regarding distance of a nuc yard from the main apiary, the ideal arrangement is a _*minimum*_ of 2 miles (further is better) from the main apiary. That distance is supposed to be enough to keep foragers from drifting back to the location of their original hive.

We've never had a suitable location to do this. This is why we're inventing crazy new ways to get homesick foragers to accept a new location.

We do have a neighbor about 3/4 mile away where we raised a very strong nuc a few years back. He tried keeping bees before and was eager to have them around. The distance was not enough to keep foragers from drifting home, but it _*was*_ enough to stop the parent colony from robbing the nuc. That had been a problem for us when we set up a queen rearing nuc right next to the parent colony.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Thank you Phoebee for the clarity. Wow, that is quite an adventure you are on!


----------



## JRG13

Snapped a pic finally. I told a story about this queen at some point, here's a photo, I'll let you guys figure out what you're looking at if you don't recall.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Ok JRG, I give up! What are we looking at?


----------



## JRG13

Look at the black thing attached to her leg. Another note, today I introduced my new Harbo II breeder via push in, boy, i really hate push ins, but felt I would give it a go. Never really have issues with a standard candy introduction with II queens so I hope this works out. Also, moved 11 nucs to the outyard from the house, only 10 more hives to go.... LOL.


----------



## RayMarler

Was out in the beeyard by 8:15am it was already hitting 80F
We are in a bit of an extended heat wave!

Moved my two 4x4 nucs into single 8 frame deep boxes. I can manage single 8's a bit easier than 4x4's as don't have to lift a box off to do inspections, just lift the lid and there's all the frames accessible. That's very nice for me. Removed one frame of sealed brood from each, without adhering bees, and gave them one frame each to two of my mating boxes that were somewhat shy on bees. The mating boxes are 8 frame deeps, singles. Saw the queen cells had emerged, did not look for virgins, just gave them the boost and got out of there.

It's 103F right now at 2:45pm and forecast for a high today of 108, with 111 tomorrow. 100+ through the weekend. With these temps I do very minimal hive inspections. Seems to be stores enough and saw queen cells emerged, they seem to be doing OK in this heat wave. Brooding has slowed way down, it should pick up some when temps get to being down under 100 again.


----------



## Delta 21

Getting a jump on things this morning. In the bee yard and smoking before the brutal heat, just to check progress on 5 or 6 bars at the end of the hive. Have some family stopping by this weekend and it would be cool to have a chunk of comb to show off on the breakfast table.

5th bar in everything is looking like its gonna be about a week or 2 out but they should be some beautiful bars of honey.....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
QUE DRAMATIC MUSIC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Then my little friend Mr. Brown Recluse spider walked down the inside of my veil right in front of my face and I un-veiled real quick!
HEE-BEEE-GEEE_BEEES !!!!!

The purpose for the inspection was over and I faced the wrath of the hive until it was closed up without protection. Im done for today


----------



## soarwitheagles

Delta, glad to hear you escaped the wrath of the BR. I still remember in one of the medical classes I completed, the photo's of the BR bite and the effect on the patient. That was horrific!

Today in our apiary....

Well, it began late last night...checking to see how long and how prevalent the bee beards were...nearly every hive had em' and many were good sized. 

A gentleman from AU recommended I add some more supers and frames to the hives with the largest beards to alleviate the problem of crowding. I believe he nailed it on the head, so that is what I hope to do later today if possible. We are still in the midst of a prolonged heat wave. Yesterday was 108, I think today will be 111.

I hope to do some bee work around 8 pm if possible. I still need to move 3 new swarms into boxes.

Newest swarms this week are considerably smaller than many of the other swarms...and for some reason unknown to me, they prefer to live inside the box, rather than outside the box as some of the other swarms...


----------



## Zephyr

Iffy queens again, joy. Might just buy one from a good breeder next time. My small hive is productive. Last month they were still ignoring the empty medium. Yesterday the entire thing was on the verge of being capped. I dont know what in the hell is blooming because it sure wasnt like this last year. Debating on harvesting, freezing, or leaving their honey. Brood box is becoming honey bound so I might just harvest 2 frames and leave the rest for them to use while drawing a second brood chamber.

Bigger hive survived my attempts to kill it in May. Storm Cindy made these hives sour and all my smoke fuel got wet. 2 stings and I wasnt in the mood to inspect very much. Found some eggs, had some brood, lots of capped honey, good enough. Left and returned to cut out some combs. I just scrape fully capped areas into a cup. Brought it in, gave it a bit of pressing, got it warm and poured through a sink strainer! (Coffee filter didnt work) Tried the meat tenderizer on my stings and it worked pretty well. Still swelled but stopped hurting. I'm just a bit wuss so that was good enough.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Today in the apiary:

Due to time limitations, did a super fast inspection. Found 3-4 hives completely filled...most of these hives had the super large beard. Added new supers with frames + wax sprayed plastic foundation. I really wanted to try the wired frames, but still no time to build them yet.

The large majority of the hives appear super healthy.

Also found 2 dead outs. Not sure what happened, but I do no recall having dead outs in the summer before here.

Got way to late to transfer the new swarms. We hope to do this tomorrow at 5 am.

A number of hives had swarm cells. So there may be some truth in the theory that captured swarms may have a tendency to swarm! Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Another interesting discovery: the super hot hive was tame as can be! I have a feeling that due to it being completely full, it is possible the queen from this super hot hive took some bees and swarmed... She was painted, so when I look at the captured swarms in the traps, I will look for her...

Best news of all for us is this: Once we switched to full suits with gloves, we have experienced zero stings. And working with the bees is a much more enjoyable experience for us due to the no-sting confidence.

Last, our extended heat wave is over for now. So we are very happy about that, but I still will keep the plywood shade covers on every hive for now...hope this won't hurt them!


----------



## RayMarler

Were the deadouts full of dead bees or were they just mostly empty? If just mostly empty, they could have absconded from the heat with not enough cavity space to be able to keep cool enough?


----------



## soarwitheagles

RayMarler said:


> Were the deadouts full of dead bees or were they just mostly empty? If just mostly empty, they could have absconded from the heat with not enough cavity space to be able to keep cool enough?


Hi Ray! So sorry about not being able to join chat recently...I had two computers bite the dust...and Windows 10 is not permitting me to use the Beesource chat...

No dead bees, just lots of empty frames...so I suppose this falls into the absconded category!

Thank you for helping me understand and read hives Ray!


----------



## Phoebee

Did our first extraction of the year this weekend. The pros will laugh, but we set a record for us ... a whole 5-gallon bucket, just over 50 pounds. The early frames are lighter and probably black locust, and the later frames are darker, probably largely tulip poplar. We could taste a distinct difference. We only harvested frames nearly fully capped, and the honey was nice and thick. Maybe the club will have a honey test day this summer?

During extraction, one bee got into the garage and found out what we were up to. We had just watched "Goldfinger", so I knew just what to do. We shut the doors so that bee could not leave and come back with 5000 of her closest friends. They had a grand time later cleaning the frames. A few bees got into the extractor when we were done and nearly drowned in honey. These were rescued and presented to a nuc, which delighted in licking them clean.


----------



## JWPalmer

Phoebee said:


> The pros will laugh, but we set a record for us ... a whole 5-gallon bucket, just over 50 pounds. The early frames are lighter and probably black locust, and the later frames are darker, probably largely tulip poplar.


Doing my first extraction ever next week. Plan on getting about 5 gallons also. 1 full medium and 1 full deep. I noticed the same thing about the color. Early honey is much lighter, the open stuff now is real dark. Might steal a little of that for a taste.


----------



## Phoebee

JWPalmer said:


> Doing my first extraction ever next week. Plan on getting about 5 gallons also. 1 full medium and 1 full deep. I noticed the same thing about the color. Early honey is much lighter, the open stuff now is real dark. Might steal a little of that for a taste.


We harvested 11 medium frames and one deep ... you might want to have some extra bucket capacity ready You'll be surprised how much you get. If you are using a strainer on top of your bucket, that extends into the bucket and you can't quite fill it.

Average harvest for Virginia is around 47 pounds a year, IIRC.


----------



## jbuzz

This has been the best spring we have ever had. The weekend of 6/10 we pulled honey and a 70.18 lb average. Past first pulls i was lucky if i got 5 or 6 lbs. The weekend of 7/8 we will pull again and most have 1 to 2 boxes to give up at last inspection.
We have been blessed with a fantastic spring!


----------



## RayMarler

Was 88F clear and sunny with slight breeze.

Created a split to start a cell builder.
Fed all hives a quart, they are somewhat on the dry side.
Pollen stores seemed good.


----------



## soarwitheagles

RayMarler said:


> Was 88F clear and sunny with slight breeze.
> 
> Created a split to start a cell builder.
> Fed all hives a quart, they are somewhat on the dry side.
> Pollen stores seemed good.


Dang Mr. Marler!

When are we gonna hear some gigantic honey stories from you?:s

Come on, we are all ears!:waiting:

Today in the apiary...

Made a colossal mistake on Craigslist...I had purchased an office trailer for $2000, put it on CL for $2200. It sold in less than 5 minutes. Was told by many people that it should have sold for $5000-$6000. Been sniveling and crying all day long.:v:

Ran home with my tail between my legs and finished building more ant proof beehive stands in my attempt to escape the pain...but, unfortunately, the pain of a poor decision is still there...trying to figure out how to escape the pain but I don't drink and I don't smoke...I just might try staring at the bees until the sun goes down...

On the brighter side of things...getting ready to create some nucs in my new nuc boxes if JRG and Ray give me the green light!:scratch:

JRG and Ray, come out, come out wherever you are and let me know if I can proceed with some nucs guys!:s

BTW, can anyone give me any suggestions before we begin selling nucs on CL? I certainly do not wanna make the same foolish blunder...can someone help me dig myself out of this hole I dug? :digging:


----------



## gww

Sourwithe....
Don't feel too bad. Mom bought this 12 foot by 40 foot for about $1400. The guy had five of them.









I cut the wood for the pavilion on my home made saw mill.
Cheers
gww

Ps the electric and heat work and the air works but is leaking freon and will need to be worked on.


----------



## soarwitheagles

GWW,

You sure have talent! Nice job. BTW, something like that on a small property lot in Silicon Valley would go for at least a half a million! You sure got a good deal!


----------



## JWPalmer

Phoebee, I am getting two of the 5-gal buckets with gates and a strainer set tomorrow. This hive went queenless about 4 weeks ago and all the nurse bees turned into foragers. They filled the upper brood chamber in three weeks. I need to make room and am out of boxes and frames with foundation. Who would think that BM could run out of deep wired foundation? I have several boxes of foundation on backorder but no word yet on when they will ship. My new queen gets here friday. I hope it is not too late for this hive. The others are booming.


----------



## gww

Sourwitheagles


> You sure have talent! Nice job. BTW, something like that on a small property lot in Silicon Valley would go for at least a half a million! You sure got a good deal!


Talent? I took the picture so far away so people couldn't see my lack of talent.

You got me on the economys. Central Mo is not Cal. Things are a bit cheaper here and maby you should still feel bad.

The guy we had haul it was saying he should buy the rest of them and try and sell them in the city for a profit. 
At least you didn't lose money.
Cheers
gww


----------



## JRG13

Soar,

Make the nucs, didn't you have some swarmy hives with cells? If not, time to start grafting this weekend.


----------



## soarwitheagles

JRG13 said:


> Soar,
> 
> Make the nucs, didn't you have some swarmy hives with cells? If not, time to start grafting this weekend.


Thank you JRG! Just finishing up the ant proof stands today [primed] and also finishing up on the new nuc boxes [primed]. Hope to apply final tomorrow morning, then begin the process!

Also, called the Mosquito Vector Control and asked them to send a team out to eradicate the subterranean yellow jacket wasps nests...it has become quite the challenge:

Cannot eat meat outside without major attacks.
These wasps are hanging out at our apiary and stealing hundreds of bees per hour [they pair up like the monkeys on the wizard of oz, grab a bee, and both wasps fly away with their victim].
Got stung the other day and my wrist and arm swelled up fiercely.
Still remember 19 months or so ago when they stung me 25+ times in the head.

We want these out of here!

Dumb butt county brought them in from a different country to control the insects on the eucalyptus trees? And now they are a major menace for everyone out here! How crazy is that?


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Had some bad luck and hopefully some good luck. Found two hives with dead brood possibly AFB they went to the burn pit, looked into my nucs yesterday and I might have one more to burn. Now the good news some friends had a swarm move into a tree right by their house, doing a trap out and after a day it's looking good it had bees telling others this box sitting here is home.


----------



## soarwitheagles

soarwitheagles said:


> Thank you JRG! Just finishing up the ant proof stands today [primed] and also finishing up on the new nuc boxes [primed]. Hope to apply final tomorrow morning, then begin the process!
> 
> Also, called the Mosquito Vector Control and asked them to send a team out to eradicate the subterranean yellow jacket wasps nests...it has become quite the challenge:
> 
> Cannot eat meat outside without major attacks.
> These wasps are hanging out at our apiary and stealing hundreds of bees per hour [they pair up like the monkeys on the wizard of oz, grab a bee, and both wasps fly away with their victim].
> Got stung the other day and my wrist and arm swelled up fiercely.
> Still remember 19 months or so ago when they stung me 25+ times in the head.
> 
> We want these out of here!
> 
> Dumb butt county brought them in from a different country to control the insects on the eucalyptus trees? And now they are a major menace for everyone out here! How crazy is that?


UPDATE:

County officials came out last Friday. They taught me how to locate the subterranean yellow jacket wasps nests. We worked together and I found my very first subterranean yellow jacket wasps nest in the back forest. We eradicated it.

I must issue a public apology: The report I heard that the county brought in invasive species of subterranean yellow jacket wasps was completely and totally erroneous. I apologize. The truth of the matter is these are native and they thrive by eating the red gum lerp psyllids [Glycaspis brimblecombei Moore] off the eucalyptus trees. 

Dang I hate it when neighbors tell tall stories based upon old wives tales rather than scientific data and truth...anyhow, lesson learned. The county official was really nice, open, honest and incredibly helpful. Check this out: To find the nasty yellow jacket wasp nests, you lay on the ground or get your head close to the ground. Next, find the wasp flight path. Next, walk the wasp flight path, looking for vertical wasp flight path activity. When you find the vertical flight activity, you have found the nest. I found it before any of the county people did!

Today in the apiary: Sat/Sun scouted out a new possible bee yard in the Bay Area. It looked promising. Finished priming and painting all new nuc boxes and new ant proof stands last Friday. Today I hope to bore the entrances, attach the .5 hardware wire, and install the metal bee disc on all new nucs. 

Tomorrow hope to start the walk away splits and may try our hand at grafting.

Busy bees here for sure!


----------



## gww

sourwith.....
I usually find the nest pretty fast by picking black berries or bush hogging.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Zephyr

Good lord I'd of gone a wasp hunting if I was getting hit so hard with YJ. There was a thread on here a while ago that said if you leave some meat / fish out, the YJ will come to it and you have to watch them leave. Follow them a ways, place meat down. Rinse and repeat until you find where they take the meat and pour some gas down the hole & light it.

Today in the apiary: Winter prep begins! Kinda... I just added boxes. Now both my hives are 2 deeps and 1 medium. Hive 1 needed 150 lbs of resources last year due to mild winter. They didnt have the medium last time so it was rough those last few weeks but they ought to manage this time if they'll finally draw in it. Hive 2 has begun to lay in the super due to honey binding so they get new deep to play with. Gonna OAD both of them between now and the end of Novemeber. Was hoping to get honey as they were close to capping a whole empty medium last month but nah. They're starting to eat it up so I figured it's a good time to have them draw wax before all the sugar is gone. Convinced myself to buy something to make lighting smoker easier. I usually scrape up dead grass and use a cigarette lighter but it takes a long time (wet grass :no: ) and I burn my thumb. Got some pine shavings made for small animal cages and a grill lighter. Never had such a nice smoke so quickly. You'd think I'd of learned the first time I got burnt...


----------



## Phoebee

Theoretically, the flow is over. But the big hive tipped the scales at 198 pounds Friday, and about 206 this morning, so it put on 50 pounds over the last two weeks. We pulled 47 pounds of additional capped honey off of it today (frames that had been 1/2 capped two weeks ago). We suspect the present flow is mostly milkweed, and it is similar to last year's late June spurt.

More good news, a neighbor who has an excavating company says he was paid to put in a wildlife feedlot on some recently timber harvested land half a mile from us. Lots of clover and other pollinator-friendly things went in. He's on our "nice" list for a quart of honey next week.


----------



## cbay

Been seeing more small hive beetles lately, did some reading the last couple days and really started worrying about one of my hives at the farm. So much so that i got in the truck and drove out there and did a good inspection followed by putting new bottoms on the hives out there with oil trays. The hive was in much better shape than i thought. Being new to this i was all worked up since i saw a shb larva in an oil tray here at the house in a split i took off a hive from the farm. That 80 miles of driving was well worth it to not worry like that for a few days. 
The splits at the house are doing great. Had to double up on 3 of the nucs. Pulled the cork on the candy end with the other 3 splits Sunday. Fingers crossed on them...
The bees at both places have been a little more pissy the last couple days. Normally can go without gloves. That hasn't worked out yesterday or today. Wearing shorts wasn't a good idea either. lol
Man this bee stuff sure is a lot of fun though.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> Was 88F clear and sunny with slight breeze.
> 
> Created a split to start a cell builder.
> Fed all hives a quart, they are somewhat on the dry side.
> Pollen stores seemed good.


Clear and 96F in the bee yard right now.
I went into that cell builder and destroyed all queen cells. Wow, there sure were a lot of them. I then gave them 2 frames with eggs, one each from each of my better queens, and put pollen patty and syrup on them.

Pinched a queen that has been a chalk brood factory this year, and gave her a queen from a different hive. That different hive I then combined with my best queen's hive, now she's two boxes high.

Put syrup on all hives, as they are still on the dry side. I'm hoping to get a summer flow going soon, maybe it will but maybe it won't. It'll be from star-thistle. which is a plant that has everyone in the state at war with it, so it gets sprayed or disc under every year. I'm hoping there'll be enough of it around to give a little bit of flow.


----------



## gww

Soarwitheagles
Just to show I am an uneducated hick that can't type and can't spell, I have been typing


> Sourwitheagles


over and over in this thread instead of getting it correct. I am sure that I am messing up a few of you other forum members names also and so beg for forgiveness now and also for future mistakes of this nature. I may be sloppy naturally but am such with good will to all in my heart. So I appoligize for this sloppyness to soarwitheagles and also to the many others I have messed up or will mess up on in the future.
Cheers
gww


----------



## soarwitheagles

RayMarler said:


> Clear and 96F in the bee yard right now.
> I went into that cell builder and destroyed all queen cells. Wow, there sure were a lot of them. I then gave them 2 frames with eggs, one each from each of my better queens, and put pollen patty and syrup on them.
> 
> Pinched a queen that has been a chalk brood factory this year, and gave her a queen from a different hive. That different hive I then combined with my best queen's hive, now she's two boxes high.
> 
> Put syrup on all hives, as they are still on the dry side. I'm hoping to get a summer flow going soon, maybe it will but maybe it won't. It'll be from star-thistle. which is a plant that has everyone in the state at war with it, so it gets sprayed or disc under every year. I'm hoping there'll be enough of it around to give a little bit of flow.


Ray, nice to hear you are making more queens there. Hope you will experience tremendous success again dear friend!

Please describe chalk brood and what it looks like Ray and, if possible, can you describe any actions that can stop or minimize it?

My wife and I spotted good numbers of the tar weed this last weekend as we drove several hundred miles. I think I am beginning to see the star thistle blooming in many areas near our ranch Ray. Sure seems a bit early for it!

Foragers here are returning with pollen sacs full to the brim, so flow is still on.

Today in our apiary:

Finished installing all of those stainless steel discs to give a variety of settings for the nuc entrances. Used the tractor to level an area and then leveled with bubble level the new ant proof stands.

Experimented by drilling into eucalyptus trees and installing 1 inch pipes to mount nucs.

Concerned the newly mated queens will not be able to find their hive if I have large numbers of nucs that look so identical...not so sure I want to put all the nucs on the ant stands now...

Nearly 100F, so I retreated into the shade and will make some more tops and bottoms for new Langstroth hive boxes...


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Pinched the queens in two different hives, and split each one up into single deeps sitting side by side. So I've got four singles needing queens now, and hoping the other two give me some for these four.


That was from June 9th
Today is July 6th, clear and 88F in the beeyard at the moment....

Checked those four hives. I had pinched their queen cells made and gave them cells from two different better genetic queens back on June 19th I think it was? Maybe it was earlier than that, I'd have to check the log here in this thread. Anyway, three have queens, nice looking ones. One is mostly black, one is mostly yellow with a black tip, the other is mottled looking yellow/brown with a little dusting of black kinda looking. All look good sized, one had sealed brood, the other two had open larva, patterns looking good so far. The 4th one acted queenless with runny bees and fanning bees, but I did see one small patch of eggs so maybe she's in there. I'll check that one again next week.

Removed the excluder from one 2 box hive, just not enough flows or population of bees in that one to be having an excluder. I've robbed frames of eggs/larva from them three different times to make queen cells from, so they have been set back some from doing that.

Put feeder on my current cell builder hive and on a single box hive that needs frames drawn. Everyone else has stores pretty good now.

Nope, that was back on 6/12 that I had pinched the cells made and given cells from other hives into these four I checked today. That means that the one with sealed brood today, I must have missed a cell or two when pinching, because I think it would be a stretch for them to be having sealed brood now from cells given just 24 days ago, but hey, maybe? At any rate, 3 new laying queens in the beeyard today.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Today in the apiary...

Noticed bees all over the white dutch and ladino clover we planted...but the pasture is getting too tall so we released the sheep on the pasture today at 1pm. The sheep will mow the lawn, then it will require 3-4 days for all the clover flowers to return. Sure is a nice cycle to have...

Strapped all nucs to the pipes on the euc trees in the hope of avoiding any skunk thievery. 

Emptied a swarm into a full box and set it up.

Set up new swarm traps and re-applied swarm lure to existing traps...

Still have two captured swarms up in swarm traps now for 3 weeks...simply have not had the time to transfer them yet. No complaints...actually kinda nice problem to have!

Busy day for sure...


----------



## Bowfinger

today July 9, 94 F degrees in the shade, w/ 60 relative humidity. I took off 12 supers of honey yesterday and today. I put them in a room w a dehumidifier with the A/c on. Some of this honey may be "wet". My refractometer is ordered. But I don't know if I can wait that long to extract because of hive beetles. Odd, I didn't see any today, but one was on me when I came in the house. This should yield 250# of honey. 
Also today I saw bright yellow nectar in some of the frames. It shook out as yellow as could be. I wonder what that is from.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Dragon flies just started showing up here in force...oh my...do they eat bees?:s

I will continue to place new nucs up in trees. I do not mind walking a few hundred feet on a temporary basis. I only plan on leaving the nucs in the trees for a max of two months, and probably won't even look at em' for the next 4 weeks.

With all the predators around, I am beginning to be convinced I need to raise a ship load of queens, so we will do our best to start some queens soon.

Today in our apiary...another lamb born, dropped right into the clover we planted for the bees and the sheep to share.

114F...so we had to get an early start...if the weather continues this hot, we will change and modify our sleeping/working habits to sleep from 11 am to 7 pm, them work at night...

Working out in the sun when it is 114F is not smart at all. Today, we completed soil prep and planting all winter squash.

Stapled up and glued another 30 frames. This is my first time to do the wire frames. Hope I get it right. 

Thinking about cutting 1 inch strips of plastic foundation with zig zag and use honey to "glue" them up top of the frame...anyone have an suggestions for us in this area?

Thanks,

Soar


----------



## Cloverdale

I have tried everything and find a dab of glue works best. The bee's will draw comb around that and it holds nicely. Honey and bee's wax will melt. It's hot out there!


----------



## JWPalmer

Last friday evening I installed a new Russian hybrid queen into one of my hives. After the fact, I learned that Russians don't always get accepted into Italian hives. I also learned that the success rate diminishes the longer the hive has been queenless. This hive has been queenless since Memorial day. Thought I wasted 50 bucks. Pleased to report today, 1 week later, that she was released and is laying. Some of the eggs are lying down already so I guess she got right to work.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...The 4th one acted queenless with runny bees and fanning bees, but I did see one small patch of eggs so maybe she's in there. I'll check that one again next week....


That was a three days ago, today is clear and 91F in the beeyard at this time.

That hive I'm sure is queenless, and probably just starting laying worker. I found 2 cups built over pollen cells that had an egg in them. That's a sign of starting laying workers that are desperate for a queen or a good cell. I took a frame with a few good cells with adhering bees on it out of my cell builder and gave this hive. I'll check next weekend to see of a cell has emerged.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Went to JRG's house and he showed me how to make wired frames with wax foundation. It was nice to see a master beekeeper at work! I have learned so much from him. Thank you JRG and everyone else here!

I also discovered that the yard in the Bay Area has plenty of sun...and, I also decided to place the hives up on the roof, that way, the nucs will have full sun all day long and I think less possibility of anyone getting stung.

Hoping it will be cool this part of the week so we can make up lots of nucs and get them ready to transport to the BA.

Now, we must finish all the wired frames and get em' ready for when we pull frames from the healthy hives to make the nucs.


----------



## Zephyr

Earlier this year blackberries were early. ~3 weeks early and it seems everything stayed that way. Found something that appears to be the first GR blooms. If it is, then GR will also be about 3 weeks early (everything says late july early august is when they first bloom). Been timing a split to take advantage of the absurd amount of GR around here so I can have 3 hives work berries in spring and once again nature said "F you!". Set up the nuc today and they're still there. It's been great the last few weeks so I'm pretty sure I have 3 hives now  Not a huge loss if they abscond, theres more time and resources but my little hobbyist mind will be checking them weekly and observing the entry daily. I'm 1 for 3-5 (lost track!) attempts at swarm catching, hopefully splitting is a hell of a lot easier.

The plan is to have 3 hives work the berry flow so I can have something to sell but I live by "The bees are smart and I'm dumb" ever since a queenless fiasco in Feb. Thinking about making a 4th hive to overwinter in the nuc once this 3rd hive gets put in their boxes. Really just to have them farm resources I can use to sustain the other 3. Not really "in the mood" for a 4th hive yet... Not finacially in the mood that is


----------



## m0dem

Zephyr said:


> Found something that appears to be the first GR blooms. If it is, then GR will also be about 3 weeks early (everything says late july early august is when they first bloom).


What is "GR"?

P.S. Don't worry... splitting is harder than keeping swarms in a box.


----------



## Phoebee

Zephyr said:


> Earlier this year blackberries were early. ~3 weeks early and it seems everything stayed that way.


Which reminds me, our tiny little raspberry patch was not a significant source for our bees, but some pollinators did an exceptional job on it. My wife thinks that may have been one or two bumbles. Four cups out of a patch less than 8 ft square, and more coming.

The big event this weekend was that the black critter with the small patch of white was not, in fact, our neighbor's missing cat by that description. It was an atypically black "striped" skunk, and a rather scrawny one. It may be small enough that it can squeeze thru the tiger fence around the apiary ... we saw some digging in front of one hive. After positively identifying it, I commenced fire with my trusty .22, from a respectful distance. Alas, small skunks are more hair than critter, and my aim was none too good, so I need to take other measures.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Provincial bee inspector due tomorrow. Good or not quite as good....at least it will be nice to have some feedback. Last time someone came to the house was the day the nukes were dropped off last year. Wife drives 20 miles to a bee club for meetings but (I work mostly evening shifts) we were never able to find a mentor.


----------



## cbay

It's been a week since our last three splits so we went in this evening to check for eggs and queen. All three were a success and look good. Even though they were mated queens to start with we feel great about it being new at this. That's six for six out of our four hives that were started from nucs this spring. Looking to get one more round this year. The first three splits we made stronger than necessary and will likely get one out of them as well. Having a blast with the bees!


----------



## soarwitheagles

m0dem said:


> What is "GR"?
> 
> P.S. Don't worry... splitting is harder than keeping swarms in a box.


Golden Rod? If it is Golden Rod, it is a genus of about 100 to 120 species of flowering plants in the aster family, Asteraceae. Most are herbaceous perennial species found in open areas such as meadows, prairies, and savannas.

Oh, compliments of wiki...:applause:


----------



## Cloverdale

A question for northeastern beekeepers....I am finding that our hives have plenty of nectar but are very slow on capping this year. Anyone else having this situation?


----------



## nediver

Yes. I pulled some anyway and am drying them in a small room with dehumidifier


----------



## m0dem

Cloverdale said:


> A question for northeastern beekeepers....I am finding that our hives have plenty of nectar but are very slow on capping this year. Anyone else having this situation?


North_west_, but yes. Little capped honey. Lots of uncapped nectar.
Don't know if it's normal or not for around here at this time.


----------



## Cloverdale

nediver said:


> Yes. I pulled some anyway and am drying them in a small room with dehumidifier


I have heard that but I have never done it. I'll try it out. Do you use a fractometer to test the moisture level? or shake the frames?


----------



## soarwitheagles

Today, we finished up some of our very first Halloween Monster Teeth Foundation frames. They took a real long time to build and I am not so sure they will work.

Also applied the two final coats to the sticky bottom boards...




















It's me, Herman!


----------



## Cloverdale

Those frames look like a LOT of work. I am curious what difference do you think they will make regarding the drawing of comb?


----------



## soarwitheagles

Cloverdale said:


> Those frames look like a LOT of work. I am curious what difference do you think they will make regarding the drawing of comb?


Cloverdale,

I just want frames that the bees will make foundation and lay eggs or lay up honey. I wanted to try something so I could cut out eggs/larvae, and honey comb. I did not wanna install wax sheets out of fear of contaminated wax...

Is there a better way to do this?


----------



## soarwitheagles

We worked until 10 pm in our bee yard. Here is what we did:

Moved a newly caught swarm [it flew into one of our traps yesterday] into a new bee box.
Finished making new frames with various types of foundation designs [we stopped making the Munster foundation frames after viewing Laurie's much easier version]!
Made a bunch of frames using Laurie's designs.
Finished up a new batch of sticky bottom boards. Next, I will cut the coroplast to insert them into the bottom of the boards.
Made up a new batch of nucs to take to the Bay Area tomorrow.
Caught and marked more queens.
Inspected many hives, cleaned them up.
We sweat like pigs due to the heat...

Still trying to figure out what to do with the swarm that I moved into a hive box but forgot to install the upper box frames...see pic.


----------



## Cloverdale

soarwitheagles said:


> Cloverdale,
> 
> I just want frames that the bees will make foundation and lay eggs or lay up honey. I wanted to try something so I could cut out eggs/larvae, and honey comb. I did not wanna install wax sheets out of fear of contaminated wax...
> Is there a better way to do this?


Hi sorry it took so long to get back, computer trouble! again. It has been my experience that just a straight piece of foundation is all that is needed. In addition to doing that you can purchase unwaxed plasticell foundation and brush on your own wax; on deeps you can fit two wood kabob sticks into the frames vertically so it looks like your frame is in thirds and they will draw comb on that, it makes it sturdier for drawcomb on deep frames.


----------



## Cloverdale

Soar "Still trying to figure out what to do with the swarm that I moved into a hive box but forgot to install the upper box frames...see pic."

Well I would just rubber band them into frames...


----------



## vtbeeguy

Spent the day today catching queens with Michael Palmer in a couple of his mating yards. What an experience learned lots from him and others he had working with him. Thank you Mike for letting me come learn and help out today I had an amazing time hope to come back soon.


----------



## Cloverdale

vtbeeguy said:


> Spent the day today catching queens with Michael Palmer in a couple of his mating yards. What an experience learned lots from him and others he had working with him. Thank you Mike for letting me come learn and help out today I had an amazing time hope to come back soon.


How nice that must have been! Can you share any of that experience and knowledge? Were you guys caging queens?


----------



## vtbeeguy

Hey Cloverdale, yeah we were caging queens. 2 of us were looking through the mating nuc for the queen as a team, when found I would take the frame she was on to Mike and he would grab her off the frame, mark her, and fill the cage with attendants. It was incredible to see how comfortable he is with grabbing those queens (as were couple others working with him). I will continue to practice grabbing drones and maybe when I stop hurting 20% of those I grab I'll try a queen. Personally though the most helpful thing that I was finally able to learn/see was eggs!!! I have tried and struggled and thought I saw eggs on several occasions but being able to look and say "I think those are eggs are they?" Then to have someone confirm it and just having things explained while you have a real frame in front of you is absolutely priceless for someone like myself learning mentorless. 
They're winding down on queen rearing but I might try to make it up for 1 more queen catching this year. If you ever get the chance I highly recommend jumping at it very impressive operation, great people, and great fun.


----------



## Cloverdale

You are right about having a frame and hive right there to learn from and what a mentor to have. Keep us posted on your learning experience. Deb


----------



## Phoebee

We removed the blue-marked queen from the dink a few weeks back, planning to requeen, but managed to kill both queens. Her green-marked mother was still cranking out brood until she swarmed recently, but none of her daughters have been as successful. However, her grand-daughters head some pretty good hives, including our big one at the other end of the stand. We've harvested from them twice already, pulled another deep from them yesterday, and probably need to pull another medium super from them next week. The dink has managed to raise a new queen (a grand-daughter), so we're hoping for a turn-around. Nice brood pattern, not capped yet.

We stole two frames of brood from the big hive to support a struggling nuc. That's probably going to turn out to be a waste of time, but we're worried the big hive is getting honey-bound, and we're trying to give them some room.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Today in the apiary...

Well, actually, it was yesterday and last night...

Dug into that captured swarm hive where I forgot to install the frames in the upper box. Followed Enj's instructions and cut out all the wild burr comb and transferred them into frames, supported by rubber bands... It actually worked much better that I thought...but we did lose most of the honey.

Next, installed newly made sticky bottom boards all nearly all our hives that did not have them. During installation, we noticed some hives had a lot of mites, others had nearly no mites at all. Not sure what to make of that!

Last, I began to inspect more hives in the hopes of making more nucs. BUT, I discovered most hives have lots of honey, but less and less eggs and brood...hmmmmmm...I think people call it back filling of something like that. I will post in the bee forum, asking for advice on what to do to help the bees continue to lay lots of eggs...


----------



## vtbeeguy

Getting 4 queens from Sam Comfort of Anarchy apiaries today so got 4 splits to make up. Also got a few queens doing mating flights in the next weekish hopefully


----------



## soarwitheagles

Worked the bees late last night, then early this morning...

Last night, made up more nuc colonies because I found a hive that was loaded with eggs, larvae, bees, brood, pollen, and honey. Pulled three nucs from one hive...feel kinda good about that!

I notice the colony that we installed the monster teeth frames had already begun to draw out the frames, and even began to fill with honey and pollen...all in less than 36 hours...

Pulled more frames of honey and then did the checkerboarding, adding empty frames in many hives in my attempt to stimulate the queen to lay lots more eggs.

Was handing my neighbor a full frame of honey, he saw a bee, and he, his wife, and three kids screamed at the top of their lungs and took off running like they saw a ghost. He later explained that he recently was stung by a yellow jacket and experienced significant pain and swelling. Needless to say, they were really happy to have some fresh honey.

Early this morning, drilled more holes in trees and mounted more nucs.

Busy bee, busy me!


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...on 6/12 that I had pinched the cells made and given cells from other hives into these four I checked today... 3 new laying queens in the beeyard today.


That was back on July 6th
Today is clear and warm, 90F at the moment.

Marked the three new queens, two are yellow Italian with black tip abdomens. One is almost all black. All three are good sized and have been laying. The sealed brood starts out clear but ends up spotty by the time it emerges. That shows hygienic bees removing varroa infested pupa, in my minds eye. Yes, the mites are starting to show signs here, but have not treated and am not planning on doing so yet. I want to see if they can manage the high mite loads I get here on their own for a bit.

I have two hives that should have virgin queens, they had a cell emerged normally and several that were torn open at the sides. I didn't look through them, just the one frame to see if a cell had emerged normally, and yes, so should have two virgins. Will check them the first weekend in August to see if laying yet.

One hive the top box not being used much, some stored honey but not much, so rotated the boxes and put the mostly full bottom box on top. It had brood and pollen stores in it. I use inverted canning jars on top through hole in migratory lid for feed, so this hive should start moving brood down some if I keep up on the feeding.

All hives getting syrup today.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Took down 3 unattended swarm traps just to discover massive wax moth larvae infestation. It was so disgusting. The darn things even began to eat into the wood of the hive box! Termites or what?

Removed all frames. Sprayed all frames with Zentari. Installed new frames with drawn comb and sprayed those too. Within minutes, all three swarm traps were being hammered by scout bees. Crap! I could have been catching many more swarms if I had monitored the traps better. Lesson learned.

I suppose I have learned that a hive with drawn wax and no bees to protect it is an open invitation for these wax moths to have a feast and an orgy for massive reproduction? Can it be true? And is it possible the wax moth waits until summer heat to invade?

Need to inspect every hive carefully, mark the rest of the queens. That is our next project...


----------



## Phoebee

A wax moth trap a couple of years back is why this year we set up the swarm trap with foundationless frames. So we did not get wax moths.

The swarm also flew right past it.


----------



## Zephyr

My nuc finally drew QC, bout dern time! They're on day 5 I believe based on the larvae I gave them on the 16th. I think I've pretty well drained my second hive trying to get this nuc going, the poor things. But I got the last bit of resources soon-to-be-H3 needs from them today. H2 gave me 9 bottles 12 oz each. It's still runny despite being in a dry room for the last few days so I'll just hope it's thin honey. It tastes very savory, I dont like it so the bees (or customers  ) can have it. Neither hive is honey bound any more to boot. Maybe I ought to leave Jack Daniel's smoke chips out of my smoker. Gives me a good sale point though "It's a summer honey, of course it's smokey! Doesnt it remind you of grilling?" (It really does remind me of grill charred food)


----------



## m0dem

Just did my first queen introduction. She's been in the hive for two days in a cage and since the bees looked friendly toward her, I popped the cork and let her walk. Bees ran to her and started feeding her with their tongues. Then she started walking around the comb asking for more handouts. 
Looks good.

Let me tell you, everything this year is going a lot smoother than last year!


----------



## GSkip

Caught a swarm today that had two queens. Let one stay with the swarm the second will go in a new split.


----------



## Phoebee

Last week we stole two frames of brood with what we hoped was nurse bees to bolster a struggling hive with a queen we're hoping to whip back into shape. As of this morning, she was looking better and laying, but all the honey and nectar in the hive had vanished. Dry as the proverbial bone.

We fed them. Half an hour later, bees were using the feeder with enthusiasm. Three hours after that their fancy entrance system (this is one of my indoor nucs with a tube and foyer entrance from a window) was a traffic jam ... far more bees than this little nuc has.

I slammed the door (closed an entrance hatch) while we engineer a fix. This was massive robbing. The robbers had already made off with three pints. A large number of them are now trapped in the hive and we'll see what transpires. When we can get back to the apiary mid to late in the week, we'll close the suspected robbers and open the nuc, to see what happens. But we're also going to see if a neighbor who recently moved to a farm several miles away would like a nuc yard beside their garden.

I would have thought the tube and foyer entrance was a great robber deterrent. The long tube and confusing box at the nuc entrance ought to be hard for robbers to navigate, and offers plenty of chances for guards to defend it. We've seen bug-tussles in the clear tube recently. But this was an overwhelming assault, and probably not the first this week.


----------



## VickyLynn

It has been a bad year for robbing, and it has started much earlier - perhaps because we had such a wet spring, the nectar and pollen either washed away or never developed (as opposed to last year's drought, lol) . I have robbing screens on all my hives, but one mating nuc whose virgin never returned from her mating flight was completely ravaged. 

On a good note, though, of nine virgins emerging, seven came back from their mating flights and are laying. I went in yesterday to combine two nucs, one whose queen had not returned, only to find out she had. She was just a little late getting started.


----------



## Dillonmartin1

Experienced my first hot hive today during an extraction today... Holy cow. It was undoubtedly the most difficult one I have done yet. The hive was the the attic/apex of the roof of a second story home so we were confined to work on scaffolding. The two of us took roughly 50 stings each and we both wore the jacket/veil combo. We have done 5 extractions prior to this one and before we seldomly need to use the smoker and can do the second half of the work with just a veil on. Now I am stuck with this hive at home. I am debating weather or not I should re-queen or kill the queen and add the bees to another hive.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Dillonmartin1 said:


> Experienced my first hot hive today during an extraction today... Holy cow. It was undoubtedly the most difficult one I have done yet. The hive was the the attic/apex of the roof of a second story home so we were confined to work on scaffolding. The two of us took roughly 50 stings each and we both wore the jacket/veil combo. We have done 5 extractions prior to this one and before we seldomly need to use the smoker and can do the second half of the work with just a veil on. Now I am stuck with this hive at home. I am debating weather or not I should re-queen or kill the queen and add the bees to another hive.


Dillion,

I am not sure what you should do, but here is my experience with a "hot" hive...

All our hives have been incredibly gentle, so we are thankful for that. A few months ago, one of our newer hives was invaded and taken over by a swarm...a very large swarm. It kinda caught us by surprise because we only remember the box having about 3-4 frames of bees in it. Upon opening the box, it was completely filled to the brim, with lots of bees on the outside too. I was instantly stung through canvas gloves 5 times. I also discovered dozens upon dozens of bee stingers hanging off of both gloves...these bees were indeed very, very hot.

I asked for advice here at BS. Here's some of the advice I received from various beekeepers:

1. Kill the queen and requeen.
2. Kill the entire hive.
3. Split the hive into 3-4 nucs after killing the queen.
4. Make many daughters from the queen because this strain of bee is so incredibly productive.
5. And the list goes on...

Initially I really struggled with making a correct decision because the hive became the strongest, most productive hive in our apiary!

We decided upon the following action:

1. Purchase newer, thicker bee suites.
2. Wear sweaters and pants under the bee suites.
3. Purchase and use super thick gloves.
4. Keep the hive and eventually make some daughters and nucs out of this hot hive.

Results:

1. No more bee stings once we upgraded our bee protective equipment.
2. Massive honey harvest.
3. Massive bee production.
4. Now this hive has grown into 4 hives, and it has calmed down somewhat too!

Special note: We are convinced this is not an AHB hive due to the fact the bees are much larger than our other bees in our apiary. I would be extremely cautious to discern if there is any possibility of AHB in your swarm.

Today in our apiary:

Did a visual inspection of the exterior of every hive and every nuc. All appears well. A couple of days ago we noticed much more bee traffic in one of our hives. I will do an interior inspection of that hive and if we find any signs of robbing, we will install entrance reducers on all of our smaller hives...


----------



## Dillonmartin1

soarwitheagles said:


> I am not sure what you should do, but here is my experience with a "hot" hive...


Thank you very much for your comment. That is very interesting you had a swarm take over a hive of yours. We had something similar happen a month ago. We placed a newly extracted hive adjacent to another and the extracted hive took over the older hive and they combined... I believe its called usurpation. It was pretty crazy to watch unfold and there was no stopping them. 

Its funny you mentioned looking at the gloves and seeing all the stingers. That was the first thing I noticed today and told my partner we were gonna get stung alot today. I think the number of stings would be less if the suite was dry but with the fabric being bogged down with honey I feel it stuck to the skin more making it easier for the stings to occur. 

As for the advice you received from BS:
I have heard of the first two options. I need to research more to determine if there is any possibility of AHB but I live in Colorado and although I have not yet researched it enough I was told the AHBs have not made it this far north yet. I will research how to identify them.
Option 3 Given the size I don't think a split would be a viable option, at least at this point. 
Option 4 I will be checking the hive in a day or two. If there is a queen this is certainly an option. The surplus of honey from this hive was very high. Thinking of it now I believe it had the most honey out of extraction we have done yet. 

I think it is great you adapted to the hive and made it work for both of you. Given the high yield genetics of the queen I can see how fruitful it could be to divide and adapt. I suppose I will need to see how they handle when not being inspected. The hive is in town and with kids next door I will need to see how aggressive they are when being inspected and when left alone. 


I am glad your 4 hives have calmed down from the original swarm!

Happy beekeeping and thank you for the input.


----------



## BeeN

Feeling satisfied. Started two packages this year but lost one immediately. When I checked the survivor today the bees were halfway through their fourth deep. I wrecked comb bees and honey a couple weeks back. I was very excited to see them thriving again and back to their old comb building rates before I got all hamfisted. The second box is almost too heavy to lift. Couple more weeks of nectar to go perhaps. Life is good.


----------



## Cloverdale

This past week has been bountiful with harvesting honey. The hives finally started capping honey. So far not the usual dearth we get in July, the nectar keeps coming in! We do have to watch for swarming though, it seems that the hives fill up fast. If we have our usual 
flow here for Fall it will be a winner year for honey.


----------



## COAL REAPER

Cloverdale said:


> This past week has been bountiful with harvesting honey. The hives finally started capping honey. So far not the usual dearth we get in July, the nectar keeps coming in! We do have to watch for swarming though, it seems that the hives fill up fast. If we have our usual
> flow here for Fall it will be a winner year for honey.


cloverdale,
i am seeing the same thing 100 miles south of you. wondering how long it will last. no swarming though. any idea what they are working besides clover and maybe loosetrife? have you any early goldenrod yet? i just spotted some yesterday.


----------



## Cloverdale

COAL REAPER said:


> cloverdale,
> i am seeing the same thing 100 miles south of you. wondering how long it will last. no swarming though. any idea what they are working besides clover and maybe loosetrife? have you any early goldenrod yet? i just spotted some yesterday.


Hi CoalR, yes, first early goldenrod is blooming now, no sign of japanese knotweed buds yet. This year I have seen flowers that I have never seen before; along side my street in the gully is a wild orchid growing, came out of nowhere! I believe it is called a epipactus heleborine. Crazy! The bee's seem to working vetch, purple loostrife, coneflower (echinacea), wild thyme, mints and other wild flowers. They are VERY busy, they havent stopped working at all.
Originally I grew up in Essex County and family in Ocean County. I don't miss the shore at all or West Orange but love the mountains here; actually I couldn't afford to move back!


----------



## Wosiewose

Weather forecast is much cooler for the next 10 days at least, highs to hover in high 70s/low 80s, so I seized the opportunity to put a MAQS in the active hive. Cleaned out the empty hive (ants but no beetles or moths), hoping to make a split after the MAQS treatment. The queen in the active hive is young (she's a package supersedure from late May/early June) and doing a good job, so I'm hoping she will come through the treatment well and give me a daughter when I make the split. The bees roared when I put in the strip (I don't blame 'em!), but were so gentle I didn't even have to light the smoker. They're busy filling their top deep box with honey (about 6-7 frames out of the 10). Is it okay to super this late in the season (while splitting), if we get some rain during the treatment period and the blooms in the area pick up? Crossing fingers! 

Wosiewose


----------



## COAL REAPER

Cloverdale said:


> Originally I grew up in Essex County and family in Ocean County. I don't miss the shore at all or West Orange but love the mountains here; actually I couldn't afford to move back!


aint that the truth. i grew up in rahway and now from my house i can see both easton and the water gap!


----------



## RayMarler

A friend contacted me last night and said he was bringing me ten queen cells today, 5 each of Italian and Carniolan. Well, he did. 

I went through my six hives that had combs to spare and pulled out 40 combs and put in two stacks of 8 frame boxes. No sooner had I gotten that done then he arrived. We went to lunch and then came back and put the cells into cages and put 5 into each queenless stack I'd made earlier. So, 2 queen banks. One of the Italians had emerged already. I gave him some spare equipment I had laying around and he took off. By this time it was getting quite warm out so I jumped in the pool a sec to cool off them came in and made up queen candy. I went out and put candy in all cages. Another Italian had emerged. so I went to one hive that had a questionable queen and pinched her and split it up into 2 nucs and set in that hives place. I figured the foragers would equalize between the nucs that way. I put one of the caged italian virgins with candy and attendants into each nuc. 

In an hour I'll go out and see if any more have emerged and if so I have two more queens I can pinch, but I can't split up those into nucs though as they don't have enough bees. If two have emerged I can do that tonight. Then I'll check in the morning tomorrrow and make up nucs as the queens emerge through the day from the frames in the two large queen banks. 

It will be interesting to see how many emerge from all the rough handling, and then see how many actually mate well at this time of year here. This is probably the start of the worst time of year to try to get queens mated in this location. I will say the virgins that emerged were quite large and well shaped, very good looking girls.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Good job Sir Ray!

Today in the apiary...

It was actually yesterday...

Was quite disappointed after opening up our first nuc from 5 weeks ago and finding...

1. Less bees.
2. All brood hatched.
3. No queenie.
4. No eggs.
5. No larvae.

What to do? It was getting dark and I did not have the time to ask...so...here is what we did...

1. Stole two more frames of honey and installed them.
2. Stole a frame of pollen and installed it.
3. Stole a couple of frames of eggs and installed them.
4. Shook off a heck a lot of nurse bees, and sealed the sucker up again.

Not sure I made the right decision...

Now I am tempted to begin [for the first time] to purchase queen cells off of Craigslist for $4 a pop. I am actually thinking of installing queen cells in 10 or more of my newly made up nucs...

Anyone have any ideas on this?

Thanks


----------



## beeservant

Today in the Apiary I did the biggest idiot move ever!

I had two colonies both with queen cells.

1 of the hives I had lost hope on because the bees were no longer sitting on the queen cell so I presumed it dead.

I merged the colonies, and then a few hours later the queen cell I presumed dead hatched, queen emerged and entered mortal combat with the queen I was sure of.

Both queens killed each other. This has to be my biggest epic fail yet, but there is a lesson to be learned here.

1 is not to give up on a queen cell just because the bees are no longer sitting on it and its old and brown and dirty looking.

The other is to inspect every frame and not assume you know whats going on in the hive based on your inaccurate theories.

Thats my day in the apiary. 

My question would be how to deal with loss like this emotionally especially if it's your own goddamn fault. Ill get over it I guess.

-ThomasG.


----------



## nediver

beeservant said:


> Today in the Apiary I did the biggest idiot move ever!
> 
> I had two colonies both with queen cells.
> 
> 1 of the hives I had lost hope on because the bees were no longer sitting on the queen cell so I presumed it dead.
> 
> I merged the colonies, and then a few hours later the queen cell I presumed dead hatched, queen emerged and entered mortal combat with the queen I was sure of.
> 
> Both queens killed each other. This has to be my biggest epic fail yet, but there is a lesson to be learned here.
> 
> 1 is not to give up on a queen cell just because the bees are no longer sitting on it and its old and brown and dirty looking.
> 
> The other is to inspect every frame and not assume you know whats going on in the hive based on your inaccurate theories.
> 
> Thats my day in the apiary.
> 
> My question would be how to deal with loss like this emotionally especially if it's your own goddamn fault. Ill get over it I guess.
> 
> -ThomasG.


I love these posts. I mean sorry but it happens to is all. I've made so many bonehead mistakes and I consider myself a decent beekeeper. It's humbling for sure.


----------



## RayMarler

So as I posted, yesterday I had the fortune of having 10 queen cells delivered. As of 9am this morning, 5 have emerged, 4 Italians and one Carniolian. The Carni emerged sometime last night or earlier this morning. I've gotten them all with 3-5 attendants, I think 3 is best, with candy in roller cages and placed into nucs. I've not checked the remaining 5 cells since this morning, but am assuming more of the Carni's have now emerged. I'll check later around 7:30pm as there will be some shade in the bee yard then, it's 102F right now at 5:30pm. By the end of the day tomorrow, any cells that are going to emerge should be emerged and into nucs. I'm anxious to see how this works out, I've not had good experience introducing virgins in the past, so am trying this way to see how it works. It's looking like for now I'll be doing something or other in the beeyard just about every day for a week! What fun huh?


----------



## soarwitheagles

RayMarler said:


> So as I posted, yesterday I had the fortune of having 10 queen cells delivered. As of 9am this morning, 5 have emerged, 4 Italians and one Carniolian. The Carni emerged sometime last night or earlier this morning. I've gotten them all with 3-5 attendants, I think 3 is best, with candy in roller cages and placed into nucs. I've not checked the remaining 5 cells since this morning, but am assuming more of the Carni's have now emerged. I'll check later around 7:30pm as there will be some shade in the bee yard then, it's 102F right now at 5:30pm. By the end of the day tomorrow, any cells that are going to emerge should be emerged and into nucs. I'm anxious to see how this works out, I've not had good experience introducing virgins in the past, so am trying this way to see how it works. It's looking like for now I'll be doing something or other in the beeyard just about every day for a week! What fun huh?


No need to be anxious Ray! Simply take those queen cages, drive over to our place, and we will help you install them in our nucs. 

I will even give you a weekly report!

Problem solved!!!

PS How can I find a friend like that who delivers queen cups in time of great need?:s


----------



## m0dem

Earlier this month I made a split from a hive that had swarmed and was still super strong. Just checked today and both the mother and daughter colony have laying queens.
I saw them both too.
Good when things work out perfectly. 
Also, they both hatched out just eight days ago.


----------



## Boardrida20

First year bee keep no mentor only the internet. Upstate NY and started with an overwintered Nuc and a 3lb Italian package last week in April. The OWN exploded and currently has 2dps and 4 meds on it. The 4th is being drawn currently. 

Quick Background before the last 2 weeks of development. PKG struggled in comparison but I believe was doing well. Had an initial mite problem 2 months in that a MAQS brought under control. Hive was finishing building out its second deep but I had reservations about the queen. Couple decent frames most spotty however. I decided that the only way to learn is to try so I split the hive into a double 4frm nuc with supers to OW. Got a new northern hybrid(Russin/Carniolan) for the one side and kept the original on the other with the most bees. Worried about the original hive being to strong and swarming so I split that in half to make my 3rd nuc 4 days after the initial split. So I got another hybrid QN and tried a push in cage this time. 

As I inspected the OW hive I noticed swarm cells hanging from the super above the Brood box and decided to investigate further. Had swarm and emergency cells with only small larva and no eggs. (must have crushed the QN or the swarmed) Based on the number of bees and lack of hardly any eggs I'm assuming the QN got rolled. So I took the now laying hybrid QN from the 3rd nuc and direct introduce her to the hive after testing acceptance in a cage. I also took a split of the OW hive and frames with swarm cells to replace the laying queen I took from the nuc to direct introduce. Checked back 4 days later and saw the direct introduced queen laying happily in the 3rd frame i pulled in the brood box. No I just have to wait till the QC's emerge and hope they mate. I'm thinking of caging 1 or 2 for extras but I don't really have a place to put them for safe keeping yet..


----------



## RayMarler

Well, no more of those queen cells had emerged this morning, I tore them apart and they died when being packaged or died during shipment or died during handling here. No matter, got five good ones emerged.

The two queen banks I'd made up were shy on bees and had empty combs, so I went through them both and reduced each to six good frames with stores and sealed brood with what bees there was, spraying them all down with sugar water. Went to my best two hives with my best queens and grabbed those queens with a frame of sealed brood and a frame mostly open cells with all adhering bees for each queen from each hive, and sprayed them with syrup and gave to the two now re-arranged and waiting single boxes from the queen banks. I put drawn empty or drawn with stores frames back into each hive I pulled the queens from, they had at least one frame in each that had a lot of eggs, so they should re-queen themselves just fine.

I then went to the four earliest nucs I'd made up two days ago, and sprayed the frames of bees and released the virgins into them. I figured they were two days or almost two days since I'd made them up, all were calm, no bees smothering the cages, and the virgins needed to get out and run around to eat and strengthen. I opened the cages and let the attendants and queens walk out and down into the combs of sugar syrup sprayed bees, it all went off without a hitch. Looking good so far. Now I leave them totally alone and check on them in two weeks for eggs.

I have two other hives in the yard that are getting close to having freshly mated laying queens, checked and one is laying, a mostly black queen with some grey on her belly. The other queen I did not see, and saw no eggs, but bees were calm so I'll check back on them in a week.

All in all, the yard is cleaned up from all the changes made over the last three days, and all hives are calm and working. I now have 6 hives with laying queens, 5 with virgins, 1 awaiting a soon to be laying queen, and 2 that were just made queenless today to raise and requeen themselves. That is 14 hives total. No more changes being made this year here, hopefully all get well mated and laying, any that don't will be joined with others. It's time to look forward and get ready for winter, so it's about strength and health of hives from here on, no more expansion.


----------



## Phoebee

We have seen many bees shaking their booty on frames during inspection, but that's usually just a "somebody take this payload" dance.

Thursday morning we spotted an actual waggle dance. We had a frame of brood out for inspection. One forager carrying bright orange pollen caught our eye. She would waggle while moving forward, and circle back right, then repeat the waggle and circle back left. This is a classic waggle dance. She was doing it on capped brood ... I guess that's a good dance floor, but I would have expected it on a frame of stores.

Because I was handling the frame, the direction of her waggle was all over the place. She couldn't tell which way was up, because up kept changing and I was not holding the frame vertically.

Alas, it turns out that a bee will not continue the dance for the time it takes your wife to run back to the cabin to get the i-pad.


----------



## fntsyfan

20 hives 5 swarms this spring. Today 1 sting to the top of the Plummer crack, dang I wasn't expecting that one!


----------



## Charlie B

I caught one much lower last year and had to use hemorrhoid cream! I will spare you the pic.


----------



## beeservant

Not much going on today due to wildfire smoke.
We had a little sun earlier but now it's thunder, lightning, rain. So dark it's like wearing dark-sunglasses.
Air is thick and reeks like smoke. 
The bees probably are starting to think it's fall already.
I've been feeding them heavily at a communal feeding station. 
They've been sucking back a lot of syrup. 
Been putting essential oils in syrup and using green-tea instead of water. They go nuts for it plus it makes it easy to mix the syrup.
Had a peek at a few hives. Some looking about what I expected. A couple seem to be growing faster then I expected.
Downsized 1 deep in to 1 side of a double-nuc so they can get more brood going. 
Thats about it.


----------



## Cloverdale

fntsyfan said:


> 20 hives 5 swarms this spring. Today 1 sting to the top of the Plummer crack, dang I wasn't expecting that one!


Sheesh, no plumbers crack allowed in the beeyard!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Preparing to open up many nucs for the very first time since making them up. A little confused about this part of the process...

Read several books, articles, posts, threads, etc. that stated, after making up nucs and/or splits, simply walk away, and DO NOT OPEN for a month or so...so that is exactly what I did. Several of the author's stated you can do more harm than good by looking too often...

Then I hear other master beekeepers saying I should have opened each nuc all along the process to ensure the process was proceeding successfully...

Wow, who do I believe and which way should I go? Not sure to be honest with you...

Sure would be awesome to obtain greater insight into this process...please feel free to chip in everyone!

First nucs to be made up were done on July 4th. This coming week will be the one month mark since making them up.

So my plan is to begin opening each nuc that was made 30 days ago. I know I am suppose to look for a laying queen, eggs, larvae, etc. but beyond that, not so sure what to do....but I sure hope this was successful.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Perhaps the 30 day thing is okay with walk away splits. I use mated queens. I inspect mine 8-10 days after setup. Looking to see the queen laying at that point. Some %, maybe 2-5% won't be accepted. If not, there will be emergency cells. If I wait to check the nucs until day 14, the cells will have emerged and I have to find a virgin...if I want my own queen in the nuc.


----------



## Arbol

Beehive rescue, got a call yesterday evening to do a removal.
Seems a bear has hit her hives 4 times this week, she didn't
want a electric fence, just sad to see her hives go.
Retrieved them last night. She said she hasn't treated for 5yrs
and that they were 3 brood chambers deep with several mediums of honey.
Lots of bees and 2 decent deeps and about 30 unbroken pierco's
the rest wacked.
Is there a queen my boy said he could here piping, I thought I heard something.
the combs are a maze of chambers as I rebuilt the one box.
Major trailer robbing happening out front, did not want all those grassy honey frames
near the apiary at all.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Michael Palmer said:


> Perhaps the 30 day thing is okay with walk away splits. I use mated queens. I inspect mine 8-10 days after setup. Looking to see the queen laying at that point. Some %, maybe 2-5% won't be accepted. If not, there will be emergency cells. If I wait to check the nucs until day 14, the cells will have emerged and I have to find a virgin...if I want my own queen in the nuc.


Michael, 

Thank you very much for your reply. Well, I would like to install mated queens but they are a bit out of our price range at the moment and I failed miserably three times in my attempt to raise my own queens.

I did the walk away splits due to the ease of the method and because we had no queens to install.

We will begin our inspections of the July 4th made nucs in the next day or so. Gosh, sure hope the bees succeeded in producing some nice queens and second, hope the queens mated and made it back to their nucs!

Thanks again for your good advice!


----------



## Bdfarmer555

If I end up doing a walk away split, I will go back 5-7 days later and carefully make sure there are queen cells. No need of waiting a month if they failed to draw at least one, or you'll just have a box of laying workers. 

The vast majority of the time they do...but every once in a while...


----------



## Arbol

the saga grows.
got into cleaning up the frames to look for a queen, found the queen and 43 mud wasp nests inside
the brood chamber, how why did these bees let them do this...so weird. a maze all around these mud nest.
loaded with wasp larvae, scrape and smash. wtf bee abuse for sure.

now that's what you get for leaving your bees alone for 5 yrs.
she must have freaked out when she saw the wasp nest and that's the reason she didn't want them.
called me and asked for the rescue. another wiccan witch wannbe haver.

some people think they are doing such good with their save the bee crap. 
do do do do do, skiptoe through the tulips with me, la la la la la
I can see them now dancing around their hives waving their crystals, chanting to the moon, beating their drums and who knows what else.
thinking they are casting spells of protection, for real this is what she told me they do for their bees.
wow oh wow. some people are ding bats for sure, so sad the condition of this colony

now the hive is cleaned, queen has room to lay there is some brood in this weird mish mash of maze comb.
I added a few empty frames and gave them some sugar syrup and a patty. 
Stuck in the empty outyard in Wimer way away from my clean hives.
5yrs of no treating and this mite load wow. 

tomorrow I'm pulling the queen, and shaking this colony out, and using the queen in a nuc of my own stock to evaluate her laying abilities.
come oct she lives or dies


----------



## Cloverdale

Boardrida20 said:


> First year bee keep no mentor only the internet. Upstate NY and started with an overwintered Nuc and a 3lb Italian package last week in April. The OWN exploded and currently has 2dps and 4 meds on it. The 4th is being drawn currently.
> 
> Quick Background before the last 2 weeks of development. PKG struggled in comparison but I believe was doing well. Had an initial mite problem 2 months in that a MAQS brought under control. Hive was finishing building out its second deep but I had reservations about the queen. Couple decent frames most spotty however. I decided that the only way to learn is to try so I split the hive into a double 4frm nuc with supers to OW. Got a new northern hybrid(Russin/Carniolan) for the one side and kept the original on the other with the most bees. Worried about the original hive being to strong and swarming so I split that in half to make my 3rd nuc 4 days after the initial split. So I got another hybrid QN and tried a push in cage this time.
> 
> As I inspected the OW hive I noticed swarm cells hanging from the super above the Brood box and decided to investigate further. Had swarm and emergency cells with only small larva and no eggs. (must have crushed the QN or the swarmed) Based on the number of bees and lack of hardly any eggs I'm assuming the QN got rolled. So I took the now laying hybrid QN from the 3rd nuc and direct introduce her to the hive after testing acceptance in a cage. I also took a split of the OW hive and frames with swarm cells to replace the laying queen I took from the nuc to direct introduce. Checked back 4 days later and saw the direct introduced queen laying happily in the 3rd frame i pulled in the brood box. No I just have to wait till the QC's emerge and hope they mate. I'm thinking of caging 1 or 2 for extras but I don't really have a place to put them for safe keeping yet..


Where do you live upstate? Maybe I can help you out or know of someone.


----------



## m0dem

Arbol said:


> 5yrs of no treating and this mite load wow.
> 
> tomorrow I'm pulling the queen, and shaking this colony out, and using the queen in a nuc of my own stock to evaluate her laying abilities.
> come oct she lives or dies


Just... please don't kill a potential varroa tolerant queen breed without evaluation...

In other words, if it survived at least the past year without treatment, what will you loose by not treating it now?


----------



## AHudd

Arbol said:


> the saga grows.
> I can see them now dancing around their hives waving their crystals, chanting to the moon, beating their drums and who knows what else.


It's a good thing she didn't live in SoCal or Arizona, such behavior could be troublesome with Africanized bees. :no:

Alex


----------



## Boardrida20

Michael Palmer said:


> Perhaps the 30 day thing is okay with walk away splits. I use mated queens. I inspect mine 8-10 days after setup. Looking to see the queen laying at that point. Some %, maybe 2-5% won't be accepted. If not, there will be emergency cells. If I wait to check the nucs until day 14, the cells will have emerged and I have to find a virgin...if I want my own queen in the nuc.


Michael,

From you YouTube talks I know your a big proponent of using drawn comb in the Nuc so its viewed as usable space. For a newer keeper who doesn't have a lot of drawn comb(any) do you have any tips on how you would recommend getting a supply started quickly and how best to store? I would prefer to get them to draw new comb rather than use an excluder or something to that extent. 

I currently have a production hive and 5 nucs in my first year. 

I'm in upstate NY so I tend to find your information the be the most helpful and relevant in my learning about bees. 

Thanks!


----------



## Cloverdale

AHudd said:


> It's a good thing she didn't live in SoCal or Arizona, such behavior could be troublesome with Africanized bees. :no:
> 
> Alex


:lookout: I like that one.


----------



## Boardrida20

Don't put your smoker on a foam telescoping cover... Noting a little spray foam and duct tape cant fix..


----------



## soarwitheagles

Today in the apiary...

Gently opened the first two nucs from July 4th splits...very, very good news. We are batting 2/2! Lots of new eggs, a good number of fresh larvae, and of course, brand new queens that my wife marked immediately.

Now I see the logic behind checking the nuc within a few days to make certain the bees are creating queen cups/cells. If no queen cups, then we lose 30 days all for nothing! Thanks for sharing that idea. 

We hope to dig into the next few nucs this evening and I have a feeling they are gonna be nice too.

We appear to continue to be in a literal non-stop flow here. Since Feb. there has been non-stop alternating flows with various wild flowers, trees, farmer's fields of clover and planted flowers.

Installed the funny Halloween teeth frames and many are already completely drawn out...for our locale, at this time of the year, this is unprecedented. Hives keep growing with more honey, wax, and pollen. Trying to manipulate the hives to inspire more egg laying and I think it is working...

Super happy for now!


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...I have two other hives in the yard that are getting close to having freshly mated laying queens, checked and one is laying, a mostly black queen with some grey on her belly. The other queen I did not see, and saw no eggs, but bees were calm so I'll check back on them in a week...


That was back on July 28th

Checked today, that last one is now laying, another nice looking black queen.

I have an black and straw yellow striped queen, her daughters and grand daughters have all been black. So far they are good foragers and build up brood good. So far, it's really to early to tell much.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...The two queen banks I'd made up were shy on bees and had empty combs, so I went through them both and reduced each to six good frames with stores and sealed brood with what bees there was, spraying them all down with sugar water. Went to my best two hives with my best queens and grabbed those queens with a frame of sealed brood and a frame mostly open cells with all adhering bees for each queen from each hive, and sprayed them with syrup and gave to the two now re-arranged and waiting single boxes from the queen banks. I put drawn empty or drawn with stores frames back into each hive I pulled the queens from, they had at least one frame in each that had a lot of eggs, so they should re-queen themselves just fine...


That was back on July 28th. 

Today I swapped positions, the two now weak queen right hives got swapped back with the splits off of them that I had left in place. So the now weaker queen parts got put back into their original places and the splits left in place were moved away to the temp queen rights position. Now the splits with cells will lose foragers, the queen right parts will get foragers back. This way to reduce chances of swarming from the splits, since now they have good cells started and close to capping, and the queens will get populations back so they can now brood up the box again.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Continued to create more nucs. Checked more nucs from the July splits and all have laying queens, eggs, larvae, and lots of new comb and honey.

Man, this has been like a beekeeper's dream come true!

Last year we were batting 1/10 with our nuc successes. This year, we are batting 100%.

Sweeeeeet!


----------



## RayMarler

Over-cast but still out in the beeyard today, 91F so far this early afternoon.

Fed the hives that needed it, both pollen sub and syrup. Time to start building these splits up and getting stores started in the hives. The rest of the year will be slowly equalizing and getting brood building and stores for winter started.


----------



## cbay

Ran into my first hive beetle damage inside a hive today. Tried scraping the larva out of the combs so i could put it back in but decided to leave them out. What a mess. Went for a search for the queen, found her, checked the rest of the frames good and left it as a 3 frame nuc for now. Afraid to put a feeder on it now but will probably need to.

Finally purchased some 1/2 gal canning jars and fed the rest of the hives and put a box over them.

Took a frame of brood from a strong hive and a frame of food from another strong hive and made up a small nuc to hold an extra queen. Used some homemade dummy boards to reduce the size. Have a nuc trying to rear a queen and wanted to have an extra just in case it doesn't work out. Since i needed two for splits that didn't accept queens i figured might as well and save shipping costs and be done with getting any more for the year.

Had to switch out one more box that had wrong bee space and was building comb between boxes. Was being extra careful and set the new box on a cover and checked for the queen as i went along putting them in it. When i got done, removed the old box and started to put the new box on, Dad said "there she is". She was on the cover i had set the new box on.
Took my glove off and picked her up and put her in the hive. First time for that. 
Lost a queen this year moving bees into new equipment and see how easy that can happen now. Hopefully she will be ok, i wasn't very graceful at picking her up.


----------



## Phoebee

Last week we relocated a struggling nuc to get it away from a robbing neighbor.

What a difference a week makes! They now have nectar/syrup stored in the frames, and two nice frames of brood, all stages. The queen, Georgie, looks fat and healthy for a change, serenely strolling around on the outermost brood frame. The population was calm but busy, covering the frames adequately.

The robbers are doing OK, to, if somewhat beside themselves for having to do honest work.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Checked more nucs today...still batting 100%. Man, what a difference!

Made up a queenless cell builder last night, left for 12 hours, then grafted for the first time ever this morning. It was not as easy as I thought and I am not so sure we will experience success. Most larvae that I transferred were between 1/8" and 3/32". Super hard to see the super young ones...


----------



## Arbol

the secret to grafting is to find the line between eggs and newly hatched larvae.
the newly hatched larvae next to the egg are the ones you want to use. no others.


----------



## cbay

A sweet but bitter day today. I went out to install the two new queens in the new splits that didn't accept last week. Went carefully through the first one to remove cells that were there before... they were gone... as i kept going through i found a beautiful laying queen! So i slid her frame over and went through the rest to make sure no more cells. There were none. 
When i went to put the lid on i noticed a few bees worked off on the side of the nuc. I looked on the ground and there was the queen.
I took my glove off and went to pick her up and like last week when i tried this it didn't go gracefully. This time when i tried to get a better hold on her i felt and heard a "crunch" sound i think. I let her move on my hand and she acted ok, put her back in and she went right in. I'm all worked up over this though, not confident. I think i'm done trying to pick them up for a good while and will remember to carry a cage with me from now on. I get too excited.

Then i went into the other "unaccepted split"... well what ya know there's eggs, then found the queen. I was very confident they weren't there when i went to check a week after i put them in but they were there.

Learning a lot about how sneaky these queens are. They like to vacate when things get moved around. 

Now i need to make some more dummy boards to reduce two more nucs to 3 framers for these two extra queens until i can get more resources and/or find out if i killed any more queens.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Arbol said:


> the secret to grafting is to find the line between eggs and newly hatched larvae.
> the newly hatched larvae next to the egg are the ones you want to use. no others.


Arbol,

So nice to have good advice. Thank you for sharing!

Today in our apiary...

Got in late, so will transfer the queen cell builder frame with all the newly grafted larvae into a large, super strong and super healthy hive later this evening. Hoping for success. We only transferred 16 larvae for our first attempt/experiment.

We hope to transfer more later this week from another strong hive that has an awesome queen.

On the first graft, we selected a queen that is gigantic...she arrived in a swarm that took over one of or weaker hives, and this hive then became the strongest and most productive hive in our yard. Fact of the matter is, I have never seen a queen that large ever before. It may be a hybrid from one of the massive local commercial keepers. Who knows?

We are thinking this is the last week in which we will make splits and queen rearing attempts. It is getting kinda late in the season.

We did not notice queens are still laying tons of drones and no drones are getting kicked out yet...isn't this a sign, we can still make queens and nucs?

Not so sure...still a rookie...


----------



## Boardrida20

cbay said:


> A sweet but bitter day today. I went out to install the two new queens in the new splits that didn't accept last week. Went carefully through the first one to remove cells that were there before... they were gone... as i kept going through i found a beautiful laying queen! So i slid her frame over and went through the rest to make sure no more cells. There were none.
> When i went to put the lid on i noticed a few bees worked off on the side of the nuc. I looked on the ground and there was the queen.
> I took my glove off and went to pick her up and like last week when i tried this it didn't go gracefully. This time when i tried to get a better hold on her i felt and heard a "crunch" sound i think. I let her move on my hand and she acted ok, put her back in and she went right in. I'm all worked up over this though, not confident. I think i'm done trying to pick them up for a good while and will remember to carry a cage with me from now on. I get too excited.
> 
> Then i went into the other "unaccepted split"... well what ya know there's eggs, then found the queen. I was very confident they weren't there when i went to check a week after i put them in but they were there.
> 
> Learning a lot about how sneaky these queens are. They like to vacate when things get moved around.
> 
> Now i need to make some more dummy boards to reduce two more nucs to 3 framers for these two extra queens until i can get more resources and/or find out if i killed any more queens.




I had this same thing today but I watched her jump off the frame. I proceeded to pick up a stick and she obliged by crawling right on and jumping back off one onto of the
hive body..


----------



## Arbol

oh well spaced out and baked from another days work in the beeyard. Hot and tired...one must remember to not fall asleep and forget to close your uncleaned sugar mixing tanks which sit out in the open near your home.

That leads to lots of bees visiting today, grandkids yelling Swarms Grandpa Swarms, all hands on deck...what a way to wake up today, kids having a ball, jumping on Poppa, and the bees doing their thing.
At one point it sure did seem like there was a swarm, bees balling up on the rail in a huge cluster, knocked them in through a QE box and she wasn't there, but darn ther bees were thick and all over and inside the tank.
Took about 2 hours for things to calm down after moving and closing up the mixing tank into the barn.

Have Fun Kids


----------



## soarwitheagles

Arbol,

Great story and thanks for sharing...got a good laugh out of that!

Transferred the queen cells into a large healthy hive, then made up two more nucs. It appears at the moment, 14 of the 16 cells are being built up.

We were warned by seasoned beeks to NOT put the queen cages on yet, but, due to temperature regulation abilities of the nurse bees, to wait until the 10-12 day. We take that advice to heart.

Hope to make up a few more nucs this week and then another couple of queen raising cell frames. 

Hope this works...


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> So as I posted, yesterday I had the fortune of having 10 queen cells delivered. As of 9am this morning, 5 have emerged, 4 Italians and one Carniolian. The Carni emerged sometime last night or earlier this morning. I've gotten them all with 3-5 attendants, I think 3 is best, with candy in roller cages and placed into nucs. I've not checked the remaining 5 cells since this morning, but am assuming more of the Carni's have now emerged. I'll check later around 7:30pm as there will be some shade in the bee yard then, it's 102F right now at 5:30pm. By the end of the day tomorrow, any cells that are going to emerge should be emerged and into nucs. I'm anxious to see how this works out, I've not had good experience introducing virgins in the past, so am trying this way to see how it works. It's looking like for now I'll be doing something or other in the beeyard just about every day for a week! What fun huh?


OK, that was 2 weeks ago.
And a couple days later I had released all virgins into the nucs.
For a week, bees just hanging around not doing much.
The last couple days there's been foraging activity.
I just was watching today, and pollen is coming in on all 5 nucs.
That's a good sign, but I won't be checking inside for visual confirmation until later this weekend, but I'm betting all 5 got mated and are now laying... fingers crossed. It's taken over twenty years for me to learn patience and not disturb them once I have a situation set up. I know the timing, and figured they might be mated and laying by Friday or this weekend, and today saw good news that they are probably mated now.


----------



## frustrateddrone

Fed my bees 15 pounds of 1:1 today to ensure they're stores are not eaten. Plan to do this a couple times weekly. 3rd year bee keeper and 1st year I will be able to process honey. Been a long road of learning hands on. 4 bee hives total 2 bee hives that I plan on taking the honey from. Really fun thing is after learning my mistakes is that my split from late winter (FROM TEXAS) is 1 of the 4 that I am going to have honey from. That in it's self speaks volumes of leaning with experience. I have productive bees and I have non productive bees. I could work a lot harder on the bees, but for now I am fine. I am one that keeps a high percentage of Africanized bee dna, so bee keeping isn't exactly what others have for experience. Pissy bees is a way of life. As the years go by I likely will have more honey reward. My past has taught me volumes.


----------



## Phoebee

A rare forecast of several cool days in August and an unopened 2-pack of MAQS due to expire in 2018 convinced me it was time to murder some mites.

I never like to do that without a mite count, so I did a sugar roll on our friskiest nuc, just because it was easier to reach their brood. The sugar roll produced zero mites, which would be below any treatment threshold. But what the heck, there must be mites in there.

The pack was enough for a half-dose treatment, one strip on each of the three full hives, and a half strip on each nuc. Everybody got fresh IPM sticky boards for a good count. The MAQS was fresh enough that they didn't like it. I used it with a side order of HBH, which is supposed to reduce queen balling.

By this morning, the IPM boards were showing some dropped mites, tho' not a lot. The nuc with the zero count dropped 8 mites. Two of the larger hives dropped maybe 30-ish. Will count again after the treatment.

There was a lot of mortality on one of the big hives, but it was drones and some larvae (possibly drone larvae). A massive drone eviction was underway. A few dead bees and pupae were being hauled out of the frisky nuc. Everybody else seemed to be taking it in stride.

I credit the low mite load to last December's OAV treatment, plus a strain of bees with good mite-fighting characteristics, plus our relative isolation.


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> OK, that was 2 weeks ago.
> And a couple days later I had released all virgins into the nucs.
> For a week, bees just hanging around not doing much.
> The last couple days there's been foraging activity.
> I just was watching today, and pollen is coming in on all 5 nucs.
> That's a good sign, but I won't be checking inside for visual confirmation until later this weekend, but I'm betting all 5 got mated and are now laying... fingers crossed. It's taken over twenty years for me to learn patience and not disturb them once I have a situation set up. I know the timing, and figured they might be mated and laying by Friday or this weekend, and today saw good news that they are probably mated now.


That was posted 4 days ago on the 9th of this month, today is the 13th, my lucky number!

The hopes and fears of any investment...
It looks like my fears have been realized...
Today I checked visually, and only 1 of the introduced virgins were accepted and is laying. She is a Cordovan Italian queen and has a good pattern of open larva. Of the other four, 1 has a small black and orange striped virgin, and the other 3 have small black virgins. At least they had resources to make virgins of their own, but that's probably why the introduced virgins were not accepted.

So now I have 6 hives with virgins, so it'll be the end of the month or close to it, before they are all mated and laying. It's getting late, at least they all have drawn comb and stores. They should make it OK as it's still early enough in my area for them to make it with the resources that they now have.

My treatment regime is being put off to the first of next month, because of all the hives with virgins, and the rest of the hives have pollen patty on top squeezed in between the top bars. Since I use OAD with a spray bottle, the pollen patties are in the way. So treating will be a month late, I hope I can get everyone into shape for winter.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Today in our apiary....

Opened a bunch more nucs after leaving them sealed and alone for one full month. Every nuc has a new laying queen so we are still batting 100%. This was our third batch of nucs and we still have 3 more to go.

Opened up our queen rearing cell builder/finisher...only 7/16 cups were sealed. They appear kind of small, and to be 100% honest with everyone, we are not sure if they are even worth keeping. We have had different advice from different beekeepers regarding these queen cells. So, we did decide to at least give them a chance...placed the queen cages on them yesterday, and if all goes according to schedule, I think they should emerge this Tuesday. Anyone venture to predict what we will see on Tuesday?

Next, one of our nucs produced a prolific egg laying queen that is nearly completely black. She already has laid nearly full frames and she appears to have no stopping sense. We are super happy to see all these new queens. It truly has been a marvelous year for us.

Last, monster teeth frames continue to do well, with nearly every one of them filled with comb, eggs, larvae, pollen, and honey.

Now, we are presently in the mode of looking for one of those cable spools so we can make up nucs in more centralized areas...hopefully, no more Tarzan nucs in the trees...even though it did work incredibly well for us!


----------



## Arbol

Lost one nuc out of 16 new to swarming sometime during the last 10 days. Just didn't check out that double the last time out doing rounds. Saw a empty chewed out swarm cup this afternoon, but lots eggs and wet brood, didn't see a queen, I know she was there I marked her this last may, maybe about 1/3rd of the bees left from the once strong nuc. not back filed just overlayed with eggs and brood, so she bailed.
darn bees don't wait for no man


----------



## soarwitheagles

So sorry to hear about your swarm Arbol! Hopefully you can capture it or it will return one day!

My wife and I decided to try one more grafting attempt. We were so happy about finding that black prolific egg laying newbie queen. Most of all our queens are all yellow and/or have black rings. This is the first fully black queen I ever remember seeing at our place. We hope to graft some of her eggs later this week.

I was studying the traits of the various types of honey bees. If we guess her lineage only based upon color then I think this queen could be a Carniolan honey bee (Apis mellifera carnica, Pollmann)!

Regardless of what type it is, she is laying more eggs than any of our other new queens created by our nuc bees...and that is the main reason we would like to have some of her daughters for next year!

Hope to make up the cell builder tonight and then graft tomorrow!


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...I have two other hives in the yard that are getting close to having freshly mated laying queens, checked and one is laying, a mostly black queen with some grey on her belly. The other queen I did not see, and saw no eggs, but bees were calm so I'll check back on them in a week...


That was back on July 28th, today is August 15th.
Both queens are laying, both have sealed brood, I marked both queens. Both are good looking black queens, good size and shape. Populations are low, they're going to need some time to build up.


----------



## cbay

RayMarler said:


> That was back on July 28th, today is August 15th.
> Both queens are laying, both have sealed brood, I marked both queens. Both are good looking black queens, good size and shape. Populations are low, they're going to need some time to build up.


Nice Ray, our best hive has a dark queen. She's a firecracker.
You say bees were calm in the one hive, is that sign they may have a virgin in there? Got one i'm hoping will have a mated queen but running out of patience... they are really quiet.

Spent the day at the farm today, checked hives and treated.
Think we were close to having our strongest hive swarm. Was getting pretty full but held off on adding a box because of fear of weakening it this time of year - as the beetles are terrible around here. Well when we got there today like usual we watch the activity for a while before doing anything. The strong hive had a lot less activity which it never has. Went in and it was still full of bees. Hmm, started checking and found quite a few cups on the bottom of frames. Then i found ole ***** strolling around on a frame. So i moved a frame of brood up in another box and fed. All hives looked like they have drawn some comb since about ten days ago so am hopeful to keep them building.


----------



## RayMarler

cbay said:


> Nice Ray, our best hive has a dark queen. She's a firecracker.
> You say bees were calm in the one hive, is that sign they may have a virgin in there? Got one i'm hoping will have a mated queen but running out of patience... they are really quiet...


Yes, that's a sign. Running around or anxious activity with buzzing can be a sign of queenlessness.


----------



## cbay

cbay said:


> Got one i'm hoping will have a mated queen but running out of patience... they are really quiet.


Checked today and we have eggs! Earlier in the year we installed a cell from a local beek and didn't give it enough time. Thought we did, ran them through an excluder, bees everywhere, and then installed a mated queen only to find out a few days later there was brood being capped. Somehow missed the eggs on that one. 
This time we used our own cells from a queenless incident and gave them enough time. 
Noticed when i opened it up today there was new drawn comb on a frame of foundation i put in.... then saw some eggs and closed it up, gave them a tablespoon of pollen sub and a jar of sugar. Great feeling to have a home raised queen.


----------



## gww

cbay
Having eggs is good.
Cheers
gww


----------



## cbay

gww said:


> cbay
> Having eggs is good.
> Cheers
> gww


:banana: Got enough royalty around here for the year. Now i gotta figure out how to get them all built up.


----------



## Phoebee

Counted mite corpses on the three hives and two nucs yesterday, a week after applying the 1/2 dose of MAQS. Most had just a handful, as expected. The big hive probably dropped 300-400 (hard to count exactly because they fuzzed the IPM board with chewed paper towel from the HBH pad. That was gratifying, 'tho still a tiny mite load considering how strong this brute of a hive is.

All the queens came thru in good shape, with healthy brood. We marked the two new ones (they've been laying about a month).

But weights were down. We're in a dearth, so everybody got fed 5:3.

The little nuc is recovering from robbing. We had some pollen sub in their hive on waxed paper. I found the sheet of waxed paper stuck halfway out their entrance reducer. You just have to wonder how many bees it took to pull this sheet, about 3 x 6 inches, down past deep frames. They seem to be doing pretty well considering what they've been thru.


----------



## soarwitheagles

We applied pollen sub to all hives after discovering some hives ate an entire patty within a week's time. Most hives still have lots of honey, so no need for sugar syrup. Still batting 100% on the nucs, and each one is growing like gang busters...

Messed up on first virgin queen transfers...we used those hair curler cages and they just didn't do that good of a job. Most queens were released prematurely as in, the cap came off during installation. Total rookie, that's my name.

We did not have many queens anyway, so no big loss. So sorry JRG, no queens to give away this year...unless we luck out on a new batch...but it appears to be getting kinda late for that...

We discovered that several of the nucs have what appear to be the Carniolan queens and bees inside. I believe we picked up a number of strong Carniolan queens and bees from the swarms we caught last spring. We pulled frames of eggs from several of the Carniolan swarms and made nucs from them. Sure is a beautiful bee with lots of really nice qualities. We are hoping they will hold true to their reputation of wintering well and bringing forth a strong spring build up. There is only one thing I do not like about the Carniolan queen: She can be so dog gone hard to find!

Mite numbers and wax moths are now nearly non-existent...not sure how this can be because in years past, we had a real challenge with the varroa mites during the end of summer/beginning of fall. Who knows, they may be waiting until September to start rapidly multiplying.

Last, debating whether or not to leave all the nucs in trees or to place them on bee hive stands in our yard now that they are established. Also wondering if we should transfer them all into regular 10 frame Langstroth boxes.


----------



## soarwitheagles

repost! please remove.


----------



## RayMarler

Last night at dusk I moved and swapped some hives around on the stands. Tonight was a lot of confusing and flying around, but they all found a way into a box. I did it to start equalizing a few of the hives here.


----------



## RayMarler

I checked this evening at sunset. The hives are very calm, no confusion at all, front entrance boards look calm and full of bees in each hive. From the outer appearances, the equalization by swapping has worked very well. I'll be checking inside hives in a day or three to see how they are measuring up. I fear some are going to get too crowded too soon before the end of fall. I might be in trouble with fall swarms if I'm not careful. Most hives are in single 8 frame deeps, some new splits are in 4 frame deep nucs. I don't have any more drawn comb and it's late in the season. 

I was surprised that the confusion ended so soon. In the past I've had more days of flying around when I did this. Two hives that I moved were removed from their stands to a different stand and no hives were put in their place, so I expected some confusion for 3-5 days, but it looks like they've all figured out and like the new arrangements.


----------



## gww

Ray
I can't wait to see how it turns out. I understand well about the late season and no extra comb thing.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Dwarvencheif

This afternoon I sat watching as the drones came out for cleansing flights (?). Loud and clumsy they were LOL. 

They have been doing this every evening, around 3pm till dusk.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Yesterday, prepared a starter hive for Carni queens. This time we decided to install the sugar syrup. This evening, we yanked open a Carnioloan nuc that has a brand new, super productive Carniolan queen. This nuc is filled with eggs and larvae and so many bees, it will soon be time to transfer to a 10 framer or risk an imminent swarm. So we grafted from this nuc because we are so happy with the new queen. Decided to graft only 16 of the one day old larvae. This nuc appears to have an abundance of RJ in every larvae cell, but I still wish I had fed them some sugar syrup for the last few days...

Did not finish until dark, and the Carni's got really ticked off. Stung me good due to one exposed area. Their sting hurts considerably more than our other bees. I did not wanna use smoke due to grafting.

I will leave this nuc with the grafts for 24-36 hours per UofArk advice, then transfer to a super strong queen right hive with a QE.

JRG, I have 5-6 really nice new queens if you need any. I made a queen bank and for now, they appear to be doing just fine.

If you are not interested, please let me know! Then, anyone in the greater Sacramento area, I have a few new virgin queens for free...not Carni's, but appear large, strong, and healthy.

PM me if interested.

Up, up, and away!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Transferred the Carni queen cell builder frame into a super strong hive after locating and locking the queen up under a QE. Most of the cells had build up on them.

I have recently discovered that grafting one day old larvae is actually incredibly simple and easy to do. What a nice discovery!

Getting ready to release the new virgins after leaving them in queen banks in various hives. Ruth recommended we simply make up some small nucs, coat all the bees with powdered sugar, and install the queen! We're gonna give that a try too.

We fell behind on our checking of nucs schedule. Normally, we always check the new set of nucs on the 30th day. Just haven't got the time right now. Hope to check next week, hoping we will continue to bat 100%! 

Still seeing large numbers of drone comb/larvae in a few hives...but I think that is a good thing as our queens will be needing to mate again. I think most of the drones are being created on a few monster teeth frames...so I discovered we can motivate a queen to lay drone by manipulating the comb. Nice discovery indeed, this late in the year...and still no drones getting kicked out of our hives yet...

Now need to find time to build 40-50 new ten framers.


----------



## RayMarler

clear and sunny, 85F in the beeyard

Checked through the hives.
Of the 5 mating nucs, one looks queenless, one has all four frames with eggs/small larva. The other three are good with laying queens.

One hive was queenless, so joined the newly mated queen right nuc next to it, into it. So, I nuc'd the queenless hive with a new laying queen nuc.

One full box split had eggs the area of a silver dollar, so she's just getting started.
The other full box split looks queenless, most likely.

One, maybe two other hives have been slow to get going so far.

I'll be doing probably 3 joins in a few days or by middle next week. That's good, I'll get the numbers down to 10 hives. Will probably be less than that by November.

Making syrup to feed five that looked dry.


----------



## RayMarler

I just came in from the bee yard again, I went out and joined a failed mating nuc in with the single box hive next to it that could use a boost. Sprayed the bees in both and shook the bees out of the nuc right into the top bars of the hive next to it.

I've now got a game plan for the three remaining newly mated queen nucs. One of them I'll be shaking into a failed single box split, and with the drawn frames freed up from today and that last shake in, I'll upgrade the two remaining nucs into full boxes. Planning on doing this within the next few days or the start of next week.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Nucs, nucs, and more nucs....and nope, we do not live in North Korea!

And yes, we need to walk to each tree to check the nucs...but heck, only needed to look once in the last 30 days...and best part of all, with all the walking and juicing I lost 17 lbs. So JRG, you were right...the juicing and working hard with bees does indeed work well! Only drawback is...if I continue to shrink, I may need to purchase all new bee suites...not a bad problem at all!

Still batting 100%. Each nuc has a wonder and amazing new queen and laying eggs like crazy!

But I must confess my non non-treatment free sins...last week we began to add Keith's wonderful bee pollen sub.

Enjoy!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Some more miracles...

And now it is time to start building many 10 framer boxes, lids, and SSB's. 

Thanks again everyone for making this work!


----------



## Charlie B

soarwitheagles said:


> Some more miracles...
> 
> And now it is time to start building many 10 framer boxes, lids, and SSB's.
> 
> Thanks again everyone for making this work!


Actually Soar, Odfrank really prefers 8 frame hives after I talked him into trying them.


----------



## cbay

Found out today that my best hive swarmed. Brought it on myself when i fed syrup and pollen sub a couple weeks ago. Knew they were backfilling some and thought i could get them up in a third box. They wouldn't draw and at the same time this was going on a big field of soybeans went on the menu. I stopped feeding a week ago and got a frame or two of drawn comb up there but it was too late. Still a decent amount of bees, but not like before, it was packed.

Can't say i didn't see some signs of this coming. Just thought the bees would work it out. That was a dynamite queen. Pulled 3 splits off it this year and it was a purchased nuc in May.
Took 3 frames of brood with nice cells on them and brought home tonight, added a frame of nectar/capped honey to each, another partial brood for one, and made two mating nucs.

Hoping i can get at least one of the nucs to make a queen and for the parent hive to come out swinging. The parent hive is now just a double deep with some drawn comb for room this time.


----------



## m0dem

Ouch. I feel for you, cbay.


----------



## RayMarler

It's getting warm again, yesterday was well over 100F by late afternoon, today is going to be hot again, and continuing for a week by the forecast.

Cleaned up feeding jars, replace all seals and most rings, dumped out syrup and replaced with a new batch. I had fed some Walmart Great Value Sugar the last 2 rounds. The syrup had a brownish tint to it and the bees seemed to resist taking it, so today I emptied out all the jars and fed C&H sugar syrup, which has a very pale yellowish tint. I suspect the Walmart sugar is not as well refined and contains more molasses in it, but that's just my suspicions. Too bad, I used to use that sugar all the time with no problem, and no brownish tint, and it was a bit cheaper... But no more Walmart sugar for me, which is a bummer as now I've got one unopened 25lb bag of it in the spare bedroom.

Bee hives are dwindling in population numbers somewhat. Partly it's the time of year, partly it's the lack of flows, partly it's the breed of bees. But, Mite levels are always higher this time of year as the queens slow brooding since first of July, and they are a major contributor to late summer and fall dwindle. I'm still debating on whether to treat or not, but I'm thinking now that I will in a week. Once these jars get emptied I'll be checking through to see just what's up in each hive, then treat and feed again.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Charlie B said:


> Actually Soar, Odfrank really prefers 8 frame hives after I talked him into trying them.


Charlie,

You seem to always come up with the better ideas! I especially have enjoyed your ant proof hive stands and still make them to this day.

I am glad to hear you could help Odfrank out in this all important area of hive box sizes...


----------



## soarwitheagles

We are at 107F today...dang...I wanted to work on the bees but no way in this type of heat. Anyone know if this type of heat will effect our virgin queens mating flights? And how about our queen building cells? Will we be ok? Weather models predict triple digit or near triple digit for the next week straight...wow, what a way to end August and step into Sept.

Contemplating cutting up 50+ new top covers with a vent hole and a feeding hole because I was thinking of feeding syrup to all hives to build up before the fall...Not so sure I should do this. But I would like our queens to keep laying eggs and the bees to keep building comb for a few more weeks.

I only found a couple of hives with significant mite build up, but still thinking about hitting all hives with the OA vapor just to be sure.

Finally, need to build 25+ more boxes, lids, bottoms to place the nuc colonies in. Then, we would like to transfer small numbers of bees into the empty nucs and install our new virgin queens in our first attempt to overwinter small nucs with new queens...busy, busy, busy!


----------



## JWPalmer

Soybeans are in full bloom and the bees are bringing in pollen like crazy. Treated the hives with Apivar and was pleased to see that the queens are still laying full bore. The Russian hybrid I got from Kelly is doing real well and has made up for the hive being queenless for a month. Almost ran into a swarming problem, the split I made back on Memorial Day was busting out of it's 10 frame deep. Did not have another deep so ended up putting on a medium super I had extacted last month. So much for that nice white comb. Going to try a late summer walkaway split next week and two more with purchased queens.


----------



## RayMarler

108F in the bee yard. It's 6:30pm
Walked out to see feed jars, they all are half empty so the change in syrup is good. Hope not too much damage was done by feeding that bad sugar syrup the last two times. Lesson learned... if the bag doesn't say pure cane sugar on it then I'm not buying it.


----------



## Delta 21

Hi everyone. Just checking in. I should read this thread more!

Working for a little while on a batch of Hush Honey. Strategic strategery in deployment throughout the neighborhood. Any useful or experiences in this arena are appreciated.

Nuthin but a 8oz. jelly jar with some nice chunks of comb and filled to the rim with honey. A little note from the ladies and a pink ribbon tied in a bow. 8 or 10 of these should keep things running smoothly, and I met a few folks I needed to.


----------



## odfrank

Charlie B said:


> Actually Soar, Odfrank really prefers 8 frame hives after I talked him into trying them.


Let me clarify Charlie's incorrect bragging. I currently manage two topbar hives, about 8 Warre hives, twelve 12 frame Jumbo hives hives,over 21 ten frame jumbo hives, over eleven 8 frames that do not belong to me, maybe ten 8 frame hives of my own, and well over one hundred 10 frame hives of my own and for others. Plus a bunch of four frame medium depth queen mating nucs and an assortment of other hives. Oh, and seven mini mating nucs whose queens mated this week. 
I started making 8 frame hives after 40+ years of using other size hives and it had nothing to do with "Charlie talking me into it". 

I first made apiaries of 8 frame hives for clients because that size seemed to be the "in" size for hobbyists. And these clients were in areas that a smaller hive seemed more appropriate for. Then I made a complement for myself to properly manage my clients hives, such as having backup hives for winter losses. And to service my new queen rearing undertakings with Dr. Bob. As an senior citizen whose body has been weakened by 27 year's of MS, I am also smart enough to recognize that the lighter boxes will be easier for me to manage in my golden years. I feel that larger than eight frames hives are better hives for maximum honey production and reduced swarming. Charlie is the kind of person who only feels good about himself if he has put down his associates and taken credit for things he doesn't deserve to get credit for. Please forgive him his trespasses. Otherwise he is a charming gentleman.


----------



## Charlie B

odfrank said:


> Charlie is the kind of person who only feels good about himself if he has put down his associates and taken credit for things he doesn't deserve to get credit for. Please forgive him his trespasses, he is a charming gentleman.


No associates, just you!!!:thumbsup:


----------



## RayMarler

Mid 90's and clear in the bee yard today.
Marked the most recent 6 queens that are now mated and laying well. One is a scrawny but well shaped queen that is laying great egg pattern and the sealed brood pattern is good as well. One has a little bit of odd shape to her, but she's just started laying so maybe she'll lengthen out some. The rest of them looked great as far as shape and size.

Fed 10 of the 12 this evening at dusk.


----------



## RayMarler

One of those 6 queens I marked is being superceded. I noticed the queen cell a couple days ago, but left it and marked the current queen. Today I saw the cell is being thinned on the tip. It looks like an overly large cell, it may be that it's not a viable cell. The current queen looks good, so they may abort the new cell. Time will tell the story.

I did more equalization management today, including moving hives as well as swapping frames between hives. In the process, I upgraded the last three 4 frame nucs into 8 frame single boxes. I'll check back early next week to see how things are looking.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Scrambling to build 50+ new boxes, tops, and bottoms to accommodate all the new bees, queens, eggs, and larvae. After using a drill motor for pilot holes, then an impact driver for screws, life is so much easier with the staple and nail guns. Wife and I now are set up to glue, assemble, square and nail off one full box every 3 minutes. That is 20 per hour. Not bad for total rookies, but sweating like pigs working in 105+ temps!

Tomorrow we hope to prime and paint all new boxes. Appears as if one nuc may have already split and swarmed. We choose to monitor each nuc much more carefully after this. Tomorrow we hope to begin the transfer process of nucs to 10 frame boxes.

Ww will also look tomorrow for our first batch of new Carniolan queens to emerge. Then, time to make more nucs, and populate them with the new Carni queens. We hope to do a couple of more rounds of queen raising in the next few weeks. So far, all is well...still batting 100% on the nucs and becoming more and more convinced, splitting and making nucs is the way to go for our given situation.

Also began bucking and splitting 30 cords of eucalyptus wood this morning. Weather felt like Hawaii or southeast Asia...sweating like piggies again!


----------



## JWPalmer

Made my walkaway split from the #3 hive. Found the queen for the first time in that hive, an all black beauty all fat and sassy. Opened up the #1 hive with Russian queen I introduced July 4th. She is still strutting her stuff but I found several nice sized queen cells that had been torn open. One still had rj in it. Not sure what is going on there. She has a good pattern, in fact one frame was about 99 percent capped brood. This hive will get two nucs made from it next weekend as it is still a very strong hive. It also has a good number of drone cells so mating the queen from the walkaway should not be a problem. If I didn't know better, I'd swear the bees are trying to swarm but the queen won't let them. Plenty of room, open drawn comb, and two supers on top. One of which has some brood in it.


----------



## Dwarvencheif

Watching a storm roll in, my wife's hive looked like a reversed funnel sucking all the bees into the hive as fast as they could fly. Not two minutes later the rain came down hard, not something we are used to here in SoCal LOL. 

I was glad I could witness what I thought was going to happen.


----------



## Gazelle

Dwarvencheif said:


> Watching a storm roll in, my wife's hive looked like a reversed funnel sucking all the bees into the hive as fast as they could fly. Not two minutes later the rain came down hard, not something we are used to here in SoCal LOL.
> 
> I was glad I could witness what I thought was going to happen.


Rain?? Man I wish it was raining up here in paradise! So hard to work the hives when it's 105'!


----------



## Dwarvencheif

Now they are fanning like crazy LOL


----------



## Phoebee

Not a good weekend to loiter in front of the hives! Perfect weather, ground damp from a recent rain, and the wingstem appears to be at peak. We have acres and acres of it available, and in every patch we see our bees enjoying it. The traffic is stupendous.

The recovering nuc is now up to three nice deep frames of brood, which is not shabby for a queen we feared was kaput. Remarkable what they can do if not being robbed out.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Finally cooled off! Worked in 90 degree weather and it felt like heaven!

Finished all new boxes and migratory covers, primed, and almost finished all the sticky bottom boards. Cut more cords of eucalyptus wood. Scrambling to get these new boxes and tops and bottoms finished so we can transfer all nucs before it is too late.

We chose to go with Kelly Moore's very best exterior. Still ticked off at the Sherwin Williams fiasco with all the bubbling on the outside of the beeboxes...tried their very best exterior at $70 a gallon and discovered it was complete, total, 100% crap. Won't buy from them ever again. I should have stuck with Kelly Moore...been using their paint since the 1970's and never had a problem.

Will check for the emerged Carniolan queens in the next few minutes...can't wait to see what happened!

Ordered two more OA vaporizers so we can do three hives at a time. Hope to start the OA treatments next week.

Still have 200 frames to build.

Busy bee for sure...


----------



## soarwitheagles

Update: Wow, 100% success rate with the Carni Queens.

Here's the last 3, tried to find a home for them ran out of nucs...placed the others in the remaining nucs this evening a few minutes ago. I had to make some more queenless nucs up this evening...hope to install these three left over Carni virgins within the next day or so...

Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Success with queen grafting!















PS Nicot queen rearing system sucks compared to simple grafting!


----------



## Phoebee

Soarwitheagles, a question on those cell protector cages. What's that component stuck in the bottoms? My guess is that they're Nicot cell cup holders, but I never have seen any instructions selling these as parts intended to fit together.

I use the cell protector cages with corks, but would get the right part if I had any idea what is supposed to be used with it.

So far, we've not been grafting, etc., but just cutting out queen cells from frames and sticking them into cages in our incubator.


----------



## Phoebee

(duplicate post deleted)


----------



## JRG13

Those are the candy plug inserts for roller cages.


----------



## Phoebee

I wish Brushy Mountain or somebody would illustrate these parts together.

Our bee supplier has the cell protectors (I have some and use them with corks) but I've never seen him carry the rest. The Brushy Mountain website does not put the parts together in any sensible form. The closest thing I can find is a frame to hold what appear to be cell protector cages on cell cup holders, probably with Nicot queen cups, on the frame holder below:

http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/2-Frames-with-Cell-Bars-2

They show a Nicot Queen System with some of these parts, not including the frame holder or cell protector cages.

Leaving me to not know what goes with what, or to even care, because corks with the protector cages are doing it for me. I glue the corks onto a plain frame with a little hot glue. If I needed cups, I've got cork bores and could probably make some quicker than I could order them, and put a little beeswax down in them, or make wax cups as I've seen on YouTube.


----------



## RayMarler

Phoebee...

https://www.mannlakeltd.com/complete-queen-rearing-kit


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> One of those 6 queens I marked is being superceded. I noticed the queen cell a couple days ago, but left it and marked the current queen. Today I saw the cell is being thinned on the tip. It looks like an overly large cell, it may be that it's not a viable cell. The current queen looks good, so they may abort the new cell. Time will tell the story...


Clear and 82 in the beeyard.

That hive, they did not let the queen complete, she was dead inside, almost fully developed.

I had another hive, only 2 frames brood and losing population, the queen was on the bottom board and the bees were harassing her. I cut her in half with the hive tool, and used the combs from them to replace undrawn combs in other hives and give boost of stores or brood where needed. I also swapped positions with a few hives to help equalize some more.

Not much, but a DWV here and there, and a crawler here and there, and spotty brood as it gets close to emerging, so treatments will start next week.

Mixing up syrup now, some are quite light weight, others could use a little. I equalized pollen stores so that's good at the moment, just syrup on most of them is going on early this evening.


----------



## soarwitheagles

repost, please delete!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Phoebee said:


> Soarwitheagles, a question on those cell protector cages. What's that component stuck in the bottoms? My guess is that they're Nicot cell cup holders, but I never have seen any instructions selling these as parts intended to fit together.
> 
> I use the cell protector cages with corks, but would get the right part if I had any idea what is supposed to be used with it.
> 
> So far, we've not been grafting, etc., but just cutting out queen cells from frames and sticking them into cages in our incubator.


JRG is correct Phoebee! That is 100% homemade candy plugs made out of powered sugar and honey, mixed to a consistency of mold-able [not moist] clay. That bottom piece came with the hair roller set up that I purchased on Ebay. Nice thing about those specific hair rollers, you can add the queen candy AND add another plastic cap on the bottom IF you do not desire the queen to escape just yet. Worked like a charm!

Hope this helps!

Today in the apiary...

Still need to finish applying final coats to all boxes and tops and bottoms. Nearly completed the SSB's, need to staple the screen, add the .75" strips, and ready to go. Home Depo had a great sale on Behr's premium exterior marquis paint. Picked up 5 gallons of white. But afterward the lady told me she consistently has gallons of mis-made paint for only $9 a gallon. I purchased one on the spot. Now debating on whether or not to wait for more gallons of returned paint of the super high quality marquis. $9 a gallon is a total steal compared to their normal prices. Only problem is...gotta get this project done asap.

Time to inspect all hives, transfer nucs to new boxes, and begin the OA vapor treatments immediately. I did see significant mites in three hives and that has my concerned.


----------



## Phoebee

Thanks. I'm using the curler cages just to hang harvested queen cells in an incubator until they hatch, so I guess I can keep doing what I'm doing. But your recipe for candy plugs sounds more convenient that what I'm using on queen introduction cages.

Still a little irritated that Brushy Mountain and my supplier just carry bits and pieces of the Nicot system. They might sell more if we had a clue what this stuff is really for.


----------



## AHudd

The bees have begun expelling Drones and removing Drone brood in various stages of development.

Also, I installed a robber screen on a five frame nuc box I put a small swarm in that I caught about a week ago. That makes two swarms since August 28. They both came out of a hive that has had problems of one sort or another all Summer. I'll be using them to combine with others or re-Queen next Spring as I do not want any splits or anything else from this Queen. 

Alex


----------



## AHudd

The bees have begun expelling Drones and removing Drone brood in various stages of development.

Also, I installed a robber screen on a five frame nuc box I put a small swarm in that I caught about a week ago. That makes two swarms since August 28. They both came out of a hive that has had problems of one sort or another all Summer. I'll be using them to combine with others or re-Queen next Spring as I do not want any splits or anything else from this Queen. 

Alex


----------



## JWPalmer

Great weather today in Richmond, dry and the high reached a whopping 77 degrees! Opened up the hot hive today and pulled 4 frames of brood with stores to make my two splits. Queen is still laying strong. Took the nucs to my out yard (30 miles away) and introduced the new queens. Looked like immediate acceptance, but I won't direct release. Orientation took about half an hour and there may have been some drift. Hoping these late splits do well.


----------



## JWPalmer

Posted back on Aug. 27th that I had prevented a swarm by adding a second box to a summer split. Well...Today I was looking for brood to put in my split from two weeks ago that failed to produce a viable queen cell and wtf? The donor hive had multiple swarm/ supercedure cells in the new box. Checked to make sure I had more than one capped cell and several others in the works and grabbed one for the queenless split. Putting a swarm trap up to hopefully catch them when they go.


----------



## soarwitheagles

please delete and why do we keep seeing duplicate posts after I only post one post?


----------



## soarwitheagles

All our bees are still on hold due to the vital importance of planting all our fall/winter crops right now. We had to drop everything and prepare all soil and areas for planting. Today we began planting the russian and italian kales, the japanese mustards, spinachs, etc. Tomorrow we we prepare a few more areas for planting the red and golden beets, radishes, collards, carrots, turnips, and super sugar snap peas. Got our work cut out for us, but the poor bees are left to themselves for another week...darn!

Hoping we will not have any more swarms and also hoping to avoid a massive increase of the mites. Have some brand new OA vaporizers ready to go...may try some this week in the evenings...


----------



## snl

soarwitheagles said:


> Have some brand new OA vaporizers ready to go...may try some this week in the evenings...


Which brand might they be?


----------



## GSkip

Sun has come out but the winds from Hurricane Irma are still blowing at my place. 6pm and I have bees doing orientation flights in this wind. I can see them being blown around but they some how make it back to the hives. Crazy bees!!!!!!


----------



## soarwitheagles

snl said:


> Which brand might they be?


snl,

I purchased your best version [Varrox @ $168] and also one from Blue Ridge Bee Company and one from Scott Bee. I plan on testing them side by side. Blue Ridge states their's is better than yours! Is it true?:scratch:


----------



## snl

soarwitheagles said:


> I plan on testing them side by side. Blue Ridge states their's is better than yours! Is it true?:scratch:


You'll soon find out. Interesting how others are comparing theirs to the Varrox.


----------



## JWPalmer

I swear, I'll never figure the bees out. Saturday I made two splits from my really strong hive. Introduced a mated Italian into each one. Time between pulling frames and placing new queen, three hours. Today was 5 day inspection. Both queens released and laying and one nuc had two queen cells in it. Larva looked to be two days old. Nice large cell too! Considering pulling that frame and putting it in a mating nuc once it is capped. Very late in the season I know but I still have drones and intend to feed all winter. VA winters are weird. We get 70 degree days into Jan. along with the typical 30s and 40s, so there will be flying days till then.

All summer long I tried to get queen cells, and did get a few. Now that I don't want them, I've got a bunch.


----------



## RayMarler

Overcast and 76F with a breeze here today, very pleasant. As always at this time of year, I'm getting tired of summer.

OK, clear and sunny, 74-75 in the beeyard about an hour before sunset. Bees not flying much at all, no beards, no orientation flights. I did an OAD using trigger spray bottle on them all. Smoked the front entrance, wait a sec, open top and spray a stream in each seam of bees. Used 10-11 ounces of mix on the ten hives. That seems just a little bit shy of what should have been used, but not by much. Next time I'll pull just a little harder on the trigger.

The swapping around to equalize has worked some, the stronger hives are not so strong, the weaker ones are not as weak, just judging by the number of seams of bees in each, did not pull any frames as this was just a treatment visit. I have about half the hives look strong enough, and half are still a little weak. It's that time of year here where brooding has slowed way down. The weaker ones should start growing now that I've started the treatment cycle and am feeding as needed. 

It would have been better to have started treating 6 weeks ago, but the timing of splits and queens laying made me decide to wait until I had hives more equalized so could treat them all. I manage the hives as a "yard". as you can tell from my writings, and just waited to treat until now. It should still be early enough, but I have seen crawlers and some DWV lately.


----------



## gww

Ray
What is with this californa 76 degree stuff? We are hitting the 90s. Sounds like your moving stuff around is working pretty good. 
Good luck
gww


----------



## Gazelle

Always enjoy your posts Ray. I'm up in paradise, same climate. Last night I noticed no bearding too. Scared me at first, till I opened them up to put pollin patties in. Alls well inside I think.


----------



## RayMarler

gww said:


> Ray
> What is with this californa 76 degree stuff? We are hitting the 90s....


It's quite a ways below normal temp for this time of year, but not so unusual as to be unheard of. I'm sure enjoying it, as we'll probably be back up to upper 80's to 90 soon.



> *Gazelle*...
> Scared me at first, till I opened them up to put pollin patties in. Alls well inside I think.


Yes it's from the cooler weather and slowing of brooding. Not a lot of nectar to be drying out here either. Not getting beards here like there was a week ago and earlier.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Somehow I am still experiencing Beesource forum doubling my posts...please delete!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Still have our bees on hold...

Presently, we are doing our very best to prepare soil and plant all fall/winter crops here:

Italian Kale
Russian Kale
Beets
Turnips
Spinach's
Super Sugar Snap Peas
Etc. 

If we wait too long, then everything is dwarfed and it is not even worth planting. So the rush is on to get all soil prepped and all seeds in.

Still hoping to treat all hives with OA vapor this weekend!


----------



## RayMarler

Cooler today, mid 70's and clear, a very nice day.

Tipped the hives today, 2 seemed light, so refilled the feeder jars on them. I'm making thicker syrup now for fall feeding when needed.


----------



## cbay

Yesterday i put a lw hive on top of a weak qr hive with a screened shim. Used some grass to partially plug an upper entrance to help reorient 10 ft. from their original location. Seemed to work pretty well.
Today, i put another box on a 5X5 nuc that is crammed with bees. Took a couple frames of brood out of it a week or so ago but was still worried about swarming. Know they won't fully draw a frame but still 
put a blank in the second box and pulled a brood up to the third box just to try. Only put three total frames in the third box - as i'm running out.

This evening i just went out and watched them for a while. Thought about things like what in the world am i gonna do with these hives to get them through winter.
New to this whole thing with 15 hives in all different stages. Finding it more difficult now than any other time so far. 6 single nucs that i really wanted to get to 5X5's for winter. 

No spare drawn comb so i have to use from 3 triple deeps which are partially filled in the third box, and one 4 high 5 frame nuc which has about 3 1/2 boxes filled.
From that i have to figure out how to best use all that for the 6 single nucs. No way that's going to add up to 30 frames of honey or even drawn comb so then i have to decide which to leave as is.
On top of that some of the 5X5's have a frame or two that are not fully drawn. On top of that i have two single nucs that have poor laying queens that have not went anywhere. I want to use them for resources but Dad wants to see how they do so i'm stuck there for the time being.

I guess this is what you get when you have zero experience and try to make lots of increase in the first year. Lots of learning experiences thus far.
Experienced Laying workers, shake outs, combines, killed queens, lots of splits, successful and not successfully mated queens, battling hive beetles, OAV treatments, been chased half way across the farm, building equipment, and most importantly a ton of fun.

The whole feeding to get them up to weight sounds great but when you only have so much drawn comb and fear them swarming it gets a lot more challenging to me than anything else this year. 
Don't want to wait too late but they are still brooding good and actively foraging so i don't know what to do just yet. 
Did add some brood to the better single nucs a week or so ago but that is looking like a committment to get another box on them so i got to just jump in and do what seems best with some of the resources mentioned above.

OK, i'm done rambling now. Sounds negative but just venting the stressful stuff. This has been some of the most fun i've ever had and am hooked for life.


----------



## JWPalmer

Wow! I'm feelin ya. Made some splits myself this summer and ran out of deep drawn frames. Had to put the honey supers on for brood space as they were the only drawn comb I had left. Trying to get the bees to draw out the 20 some new frames I have scattered amongst the hives. Not much luck with that. Sitting here this evening making hive components for springtime. Fun stuff.


----------



## cbay

JWPalmer said:


> Sitting here this evening making hive components for springtime. Fun stuff.


 :thumbsup:

Been "backfilling" the spare bedroom here lately. Should be plugged by Christmas.


----------



## RayMarler

OAD beehives. 4 out of 11 all have good fill of bees, the rest are so-so on populations. I didn't get the treatment regime going soon enough in the year.


----------



## soarwitheagles

We treated all hives with the OA vapor yesterday. This morning, 5 of the hives had a few hundred mites dead on the SSB. All the hives had at least some dead mites, but only 5 had large loads of dead mites.

I used three different vaporizers and I like the Varrox Vaporizor the best so far.

Presently, I am debating whether or not to use some Apivar strips just to be sure...but they sure are expensive!

Temps are finally down to the 70's and 80's. It makes working with the bees so much more comfortable. Next week, we are suppose to be back up near the 100's.

Next week, we begin to plant massive amounts of crimson clover, rye, bird's foot, chickory, etc.

Last week we got in all our kales, beets, peas, mustards, turnips, spinach's, etc.

Enjoying the nice weather while it lasts...


----------



## Michael Palmer

soarwitheagles said:


> Presently, I am debating whether or not to use some Apivar strips just to be sure...but they sure are expensive!


Mite count?


----------



## soarwitheagles

Michael Palmer said:


> Mite count?


Hi Michael!

I realize many people adhere to very strict criteria for counting mites [alcohol wash, sugar roll, etc.] and criticize beeks that do not adhere to very strict criteria for counting mites...

For the last two years, we count and monitor our mites in the following ways:

1. Simple yet diligent close inspection of the bees themselves [we discovered finding the mites is fairly easy].
2. Diligently checking our SSB's on a consistent basis.
3. Carefully monitoring dead mite counts AFTER treating with the OA vapor.

This process has worked well for us in years past. Yet, out of fear of losing many hives, during the last two years, we have also applied Apivar to every hive in the fall. Results: Difficult to find even one live or dead mite from November through March. I suppose the Apivar provided extra assurance for us during the last two years as it was incredibly effective...


----------



## JWPalmer

Well I went to harvest the queen cell I saw on 9/13 figuring it was about a day or two from emerging. Didn't want a new virgin killing my just introduced paid for queen. Gone, as in no trace of it at all. The good news is that the two nucs are doing real well. Almost all of the original brood has emerged and almost every cell not already filled with syrup/nectar/pollen contains an egg or larva. Concerned now about getting honey/pollen bound. The bees are drawing comb, but I don't think they can keep up. Two single sides of foundation drawn about half deep, full frame. And I have no drawn comb to give them, just foundation. The queen in one nuc is not shy and will walk around boldly. The other queen is a master at hiding. Even though they are both marked, if I catch sight of this one for 5 seconds I consider myself lucky. 

My #3 hive finally did swarm and I have no idea to where. Both traps are vacant. Will be checking next week to see if I have a mated queen or not. Same goes for the walk away split that got a queen cell two weeks ago.


----------



## RayMarler

Fed all hives today. I had tipped them this morning, they all seemed a bit light weight.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Our bees are bringing in massive amounts of pollen every day now. This is the largest percentage of and quantity of bees returning with full pollen bags that I have ever seen. Bright yellow pollen...


----------



## Bolichsbees

Same here in middle TN. Wondering how long it can last. Actually getting a decent honey flow this Fall, packing up the supers. Plan to start feeding heavily right after the flow ends. As for now, watching the bees pack in pollen and lecture.


----------



## JWPalmer

Checked the #3 hive today. Nada. Lots of open cells, no eggs, no brood. Crap. Five queen cells open at the bottom, one torn through the side, no sign of a queen anywhere. The nuc on the other hand, is full of eggs, larva, and capped brood. That queen was apparently successful on her mating flight. I still have a few drones in the hives but doubt that they wii be allowed to stay much longer.
Put in a call to Barnyard Bees looking for a replacement queen but am afraid this hive may be my first real casualty.


----------



## Phoebee

We weighted the three full hives Friday, with a nice surprise. The largest one put on 21 pounds over the last two weeks, the middle-sized one about 13, and the dink about 5. 

The only two things blooming in sufficient quantity to explain this were wingstem and boneset, both of which were being worked with some enthusiasm. We've never noticed a significant weight gain on these blooms before.

The wingstem is now all but gone. The boneset is hanging on. We have not had rain in several weeks. We have been watering a few boisterous little patches of asters, flowers we planted for the bees several years ago and which they have pollinated with great enthusiasm, spreading them rampantly. These may be the last hoorah for the season.


----------



## JWPalmer

Well I got my queen Friday from Barnyard Bees and went to put her in today. I obviously need to work on my bee math. My now mated queen had returned and had about half a frame layed up. All 1 and 2 day old eggs. So I went to my other two hives to see if I could pull a few frames of brood to make a split for the new queen. Either my queens in those hives have shut down or they are gone. #1 had a marked russian queen from July, no sign of her and no eggs or brood, but I did see another emerged queen cell. Maybe out getting mated but I stuck a queen cell in there just in case. The #2 hive had no eggs or larvae but did have some capped brood. No queen cells. I put the caged queen on the top bars and the bees looked like they were attending to her. After about 10 min. I went ahead and pulled the cork and put the cage on a frame and sealed it back up. This is my first winter prep so I am a little concerned when I don't see the queen or any signs of recent queen activity.


----------



## Dwarvencheif

Sitting in my yard watching my gals come and go. A huge cloud of bees arrive and the noise from the hives lifted to an agitated level. I was in a robbing cloud and the girls were mad as hell. My Top Bar hive only has a small entrance while the Langstroth hive was more open and needed to be closed down a bit. I use wine corks to close down and maintain the opening for the bees, I closed it down to a one cork opening causing a massive war in a tight space. This lasted an hour with major agitation of the home bees. 

It was pretty wild to watch and frustrating because I could do little else. My Top Bar gals didn't have half the fight to deal with and I was glad, they have only been in that hive for a week.


----------



## JWPalmer

Unappreciative little wenches! It's been raining and overcast for a few days here now. Figured my girls might be getting a little hungry. Brought out a gallon of 2:1 for each of the lighter hives, lifted the cover on the feeder and promptly got stung twice. I was working from the back and they came around from the front to let me know they were in a pissy mood. I also need to check on my new queen, but not in this weather.


----------



## RayMarler

Put a quart feeder on 5 hives four days ago or so.

Put a quart feeder on all hives today.

Plans are a quart every Friday and Monday or Tuesday for a couple weeks to get weight up.


----------



## RayMarler

Lately it's been into the high 40s over night and close to 80 in the late afternoons. So, chilly mornings and warm afternoons, perfect fall weather, except we could use some rain, same as most years this time of year.

Refilled the quart feeders on all hives just now.
I don't think I've checked inside the hives in over a month now.
I don't see any crawlers or DWV on the ground lately.


----------



## Rototiller

First time Wintering a hive, had to merge my two hives, one was not going to make it. A lot of honey in #2 & #3 boxes, did not get into bottom box. 

Three medium 8-frame boxes...

Hopefully I will have bees to split next Spring...


Donald


----------



## Rototiller

Darn! Went out without the gear just to slip mouse guards on the hives, hive #2 was like the liberal media on Trump, before i even got the guard down, not even positioned I was attacked, two to the right hand, one each to the right ear and right upper arm and more moving in for the kill. Sunny and 70 degrees. Got to reQueen this hive next Spring.

Donald


----------



## JWPalmer

Aggressive behavior is pretty normal this time of year. If the hive was gentle before, i wouldn't be too concerned. See how they act this spring before you order a new queen. I had to start wearing a suit to work my bees after they started getting testy. Nucs I made off of them calmed right down after the split.


----------



## Michael Palmer

Rototiller said:


> Got to reQueen this hive next Spring.


Not necessarily. I see colonies like that at this time of the year. The cluster is right down to the bottom board...all those old field bees, right there at the entrance. They're in protection mode at this time of the year. And I want to stick a mouse screen into the entrance...Oh my! Good thing your bees are like that...if you'd been a skunk....

Just use a bit of smoke.


----------



## Cloverdale

NY Bee Wellness has a virus mapping program that I am involved in from specific areas of the State. Four samples are sent in to a place in Montana which tests them for viruses, from May to November using bees from the inner cover as samples. The one hive I used for this was diagnosed with nosema cerana and SBV. On last inspection 2 days ago it was dead. I will trash the frames and clean up the equipment, probably with a blow torch. Would using diluted bleach and water work better? Not sure which way to go.


----------



## Delta 21

Topbar beek here.
The last day in the 80s today with thurs & friday nights will be a hard freeze.
All 3 hives are active and queenright. #1 is hatching new bees! orientation flights and everything. I hope they are catching the last of the Goldenrod flow. Lots of bees in the box and very active. I reworked the entrances on all 3 hives to one bee width.

#1&2 are active with plenty of bees and stores. Hive #3 is doing ok but about 1/2 the bees as the other 2. Plenty of stores and all 3 hives have open brood and more capped brood to hatch out soon. I have been thinking of weighing my hives to see how they are set for winter. I am keeping records of OAV so hive weight would be an advantageous bit of data as well.

All the entrances are down to one bee wide. Critter screens and robber screens still in place. I was hoping to swipe one more comb of honey for a friend, and may be able to do that next week. I plan on having the insulation panels on just after Halloween or so. If the day temps stay high enough for foraging,but the hard freeze is gonna shut everything down.

Planning a 4 part OAV just after Halloween. I will have a few sugar frames in each hive for insurance over winter. Spring starting in February has made for a long season.

Winter worklist:
Replace copper plates on all 3 gabled roofs. Hail damage insurance has provided $ for me to do it like I want to instead of making shortcuts.:thumbsup:

Construct one or two Cathedral hives for my phase 2. My bee yard will be full with 5 active hives.

t: Has anyone ever used mirrors to redirect the sun to warm your hives? With the sun's movement this wouldnt last for long but timing it between 7 and 10am would give my girls a little head start. The hives are positioned where the daily sun hits them as soon as possible but I am just looking for that extra edge. Anyone ever try anything like this?


----------



## Cloverdale

Delta 21 said:


> Topbar beek here.
> The last day in the 80s today with thurs & friday nights will be a hard freeze.
> All 3 hives are active and queenright. #1 is hatching new bees! orientation flights and everything. I hope they are catching the last of the Goldenrod flow. Lots of bees in the box and very active. I reworked the entrances on all 3 hives to one bee width.
> 
> #1&2 are active with plenty of bees and stores. Hive #3 is doing ok but about 1/2 the bees as the other 2. Plenty of stores and all 3 hives have open brood and more capped brood to hatch out soon. I have been thinking of weighing my hives to see how they are set for winter. I am keeping records of OAV so hive weight would be an advantageous bit of data as well.
> 
> All the entrances are down to one bee wide. Critter screens and robber screens still in place. I was hoping to swipe one more comb of honey for a friend, and may be able to do that next week. I plan on having the insulation panels on just after Halloween or so. If the day temps stay high enough for foraging,but the hard freeze is gonna shut everything down.
> 
> Planning a 4 part OAV just after Halloween. I will have a few sugar frames in each hive for insurance over winter. Spring starting in February has made for a long season.
> 
> Winter worklist:
> Replace copper plates on all 3 gabled roofs. Hail damage insurance has provided $ for me to do it like I want to instead of making shortcuts.:thumbsup:
> 
> Construct one or two Cathedral hives for my phase 2. My bee yard will be full with 5 active hives.
> 
> t: Has anyone ever used mirrors to redirect the sun to warm your hives? With the sun's movement this wouldnt last for long but timing it between 7 and 10am would give my girls a little head start. The hives are positioned where the daily sun hits them as soon as possible but I am just looking for that extra edge. Anyone ever try anything like this?


I haven’t heard that but who knows? Just an opinion, I would leave them bee.


----------



## Delta 21

The only reason I ask is that my hives are limited on direct sunlight. The shed roof doesnt allow morning sun until around 9:00am and the evening is cut short by my 6' privacy fence. But Yeah, my worst scenario ends up in a huge molten glob of wax and honey and a bunch of really pissy bees.


----------



## Cloverdale

Mine are too....some don’t see sun till maybe 10 or so? We have a mountain that is east in our yard. Some are under pines, etc. but they eventually get full sun except for 3-4 hives at the end, one a top bar that is the shadiest. I haven’t seen any problems with production at all so far.


----------



## JWPalmer

Beautiful day today, 70 and clear. Perfect for a full blown hive inspection.
My #1 hive that had been queenless but had a bunch of hatched queen cells did end up with a mated queen. Too early to tell if she will be a good layer but there were eggs and brood on a few frames. 
#2 hive got the purchased queen because I thought this hive was queenless. Still no eggs or brood and no marked queen, darn it. This was a feral hive and I'm guessing the old queen is in there and just shut down for the season. They don't act queenless and didn't seem any more aggressive than the other hives. 
#3 hive, whose newly mated queen had just started laying last inspection, has really suprised me. Three frames, both sides, capped brood and eggs. Not that many larvae by comparison though. Like she took a short breather. But all the hatched out cells had eggs so she's back at it. Also removed the super I had put on two months ago in an unsuccessful attemt to keep this hive from swarming. They are now back to a deep and a medium. And I saw two drones hanging out on the capped honey. I bet their days are numbered!
No new brood in the nuc I kept at the yard, just a little capped, but it is three solid frames of bees, hopefully enough to make it this winter.


----------



## JWPalmer

Christmas in October. Got my order of frames and foundation from Brushy Mountain today. 60 of each deep and medium. More than doubles my total number. Remember, this my first year. Frames seem better than the last ones I got from them that were a little on the loose side. Bought their frame jig to help keep the frames square during assembly. Can't say I'm all that impressed. Works well enough but is cumbersome to use. Also easy to get glue on the sides of the jig when putting together deep frames. B- in my book.


----------



## Phoebee

The forage on our mountain is done, except for a few zinnias in the garden, barely enough for a snack. 

We have been feeding the weaker hives, and giving the two big ones a little to keep them from robbing.

So imagine our surprise this morning when we weighed them. Hive O, the perennial strong hive, was down two pounds, about what we expected. Hive Z, reduced to the same configuration last week but not weighed, is within half a pound of the weight of hive O. Both have robust stores.

But hive N, the weakling down at the end, is well up, by considerably more than we've been feeding them. Too cold to inspect this weekend, but if we get some warmth next weekend, this we gotta see. May be hope for this hive yet.


----------



## JWPalmer

Lost one of my nucs. Mites I reckon. I came out to put Apivar strips in each of the outyard nucs and found one with about 20 dying bees in it, including the dead queen. Plenty of capped and open honey, lots of pollen, about 50 bees still flying. Several bees were dead trying to emerge. Some of the capped cells had holes in them. Only a few SHB to be found and no moths either. I am taking the frames home to dissect a few cells and look for mites. The other hive still looks ok, some open brood and plenty of capped. No eggs and the queen looks like a worker except she is marked. Put the Apivar in this hive and am keeping my fingers crossed that it won't suffer the same fate.


----------



## gww

jw
Tell us how the autopsy goes. Sorry it went that way for you. Good luck on the other one.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Phoebee

Lost one of our nucs, too. Just confirmed it this afternoon, but we got a warning sign a week ago. Pretty sure this is not mites ... they were treated in September and we've had very low mite counts this year. They appeared healthy on the last inspection.

This is a little hard-luck nuc that struggled all summer until we finally realized it was being robbed, and relocated it 3/4 mile away, which stopped the robbing. It seemed to have recovered well, and the queen was laying a good pattern before slowing down a little for fall.

Last weekend we noticed one of our three main hives, which also had a history of being a dink, suddenly gained about 10 pounds of unexplained weight, just as the last of the forage was giving up. Big mystery ... the other two hives were OK on weight. But we didn't check the nucs. I wondered if they might have discovered this one at that distance.

Apparently they did. Hard to tell the exact sequence, but the nuc had been partially robbed, with all honey and nectar in the brood box robbed out and half of the super robbed. The bees remaining in the hive may have been robbers. Some of the bees present were black, the usual mark of robbers. Also present, yellow jackets. Relatively few corpses (maybe 100) were present, with no sign of the queen. There was no cluster at all. So technically, I probably should say they absconded, although the reason may have been fierce robbing.

The brood frames showed that most of the capped brood was hatched out, but dried up larvae and eggs were present.


----------



## JWPalmer

I need to get an Xacto knife for this so don't anybody comment on the mangled larvae. The autopsy results are in, MITES. Bottom board was covered and the brood I was able to extract was also covered. 

Bottom board








Larva








Another larva








Picture of brood comb with bees in cells








Bottom board picture is fuzzy, but trust me that there are several hundred mites on it.
Also noticed the the cells have white spots on the upper sides which I just read yesterday is probably mite poop.

As soon as I got home I put Apivar in the home nuc and retreated the hive that the other two splits came from. Livin an learnin and becoming a better beek for it.


----------



## gww

jw
Thank you for going to the work of sharing. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## MikeJ

(down to only one hive this year)
Pulled the, basically empty, syrup feeder flipped the inner cover and found the bees are all in the top box. inch:
Too cold to try to do anything about it, and no warm days in the forecast - so my plan will be to feed fondant/bricks over the winter and see if they come through.

I've seen this happen before and never found the reason why they shot to the top... that hive pulled through with winter feed, so hopefully this one will too.


----------



## JWPalmer

Temps warmed up to about 50°F today and the sun finally came out. Checked on the outyard nuc. Bees flying all over the place. YAY. Dead bees removed from the entrance. Came back about four hours later when the temps had fallen to 46. No flying. Actually, I was suprised to see them out below 55. Still hoping I got the Apivar applied in time. Low 20s tonight. First hard freeze of the year, so far we haven't even had frost in the am. Should warm up again in a few days. Such is winter in Virginia.


----------



## gww

mike


> I've seen this happen before and never found the reason why they shot to the top... that hive pulled through with winter feed, so hopefully this one will too.


I had one pull through last year that was only one medium with only thirty percent of the second box drawn and filled and because of all the empty space in the top box, I put it on bottom and like you put a sugar block on it. (15 lbs sugar block). I am in zone five though. They came through fine for me and so I hope it is the same for you.
Good luck
gww


----------



## MikeJ

gww said:


> mike
> I had one pull through last year that was only one medium with only thirty percent of the second box drawn and filled and because of all the empty space in the top box, I put it on bottom and like you put a sugar block on it. (15 lbs sugar block). I am in zone five though. They came through fine for me and so I hope it is the same for you.
> Good luck
> gww


My plan is to lay a piece of hardware cloth over the top frames and then lay either sugar blocks or fondant on it. It will hold it up and allow the bees to pass through... won't hinder ventilation either.

Maine has returned to normal - last night about 17F with a wind chill of 3F 
Wrapped the hive as well (tar paper) last Thursday. Still need to go back and put an upper vent in (which I plan to do when I put the feed on.


----------



## JWPalmer

Unseasonably cold this weekend for Virginia. So I decided to stay inside and finish making the Advantech boxes from last weekend. No problems cutting and assembling the last 5 boxes. They will get painted soon. At $5.00 per box the Adavntech is a really good alternative but the corners are not as strong as a dadoed commercial box. There is a trade off. 








Ready to assemble.








Two deeps and a medium with a homemade bottom board and top.








Also pulled my first batch of sugar bricks. These will go on the two lighter hives.


----------



## Phoebee

The temps were forecast to be 50 at our apiary today, but only hit 40 in the shade, maybe 50 where the hives were. But that kept the bees quiet. The operation for the day was to pull off the feeders and install the quilt boxes ... that only takes 10 seconds when the bees are clustered. Also installed the small entrance reducers with mouse screens, and some insulating plugs on the bottom board vents on these ventilated Freeman beetle trap bottoms.

I heard a muffled "Go Away!" from each of the hives so they seem to be OK. The guard bees on the big hive were not happy with the reducer swap.


----------



## Wosiewose

Checked the hive for the first time in quite a while. (Mid-60s today, so I figured it was safe.) We've had a warm dry fall so far and I was concerned that the bees might be going thru their stores faster than optimal for this time of year. Their stores were way down, as I'd feared, so I gave them an OAV treatment, swapped out the inner cover for the insulated candy board, mixed up some heavy syrup, put it on in an entrance feeder (the only kind I have at this point), and reduced the entrance way down with about a 1.5-inch opening on the far side from the feeder in hopes of deterring any would-be robbers.

I'm just feeling rather discouraged right now. The reason I hadn't been in the hive for some time was that I'd been sick for weeks and weeks and weeks, and finally went to the doctor and found out a couple weeks ago that I have diabetes (A1c was 11.9). I'm in my second year of beekeeping and had been hoping for a honey harvest next year, but now I don't know if it'll ever be safe to taste honey again  (And hubby doesn't much like honey.) Hopefully by the time spring comes and things ramp up with the colony, I'll have the disease under control, but it's just very discouraging right now...

Wosiewose


----------



## JWPalmer

Ouch. At least honey is the best sweetner to use as you go on your new ultra low carb diet. Hopefully renal function is still ok so proteins won't be a problem.

Watched the bees for an hour this afternoon. Temps got up to 57 and all three of the house hives were flying. Even saw some pollen coming in. Cleaned off the ipm boards and did a mite drop count. Hive 2 was 13, hive 3 was 7 and hive 4, a nuc, was 9. Numbers dont really mean anything as it has bee quite a while since the boards were cleaned but it was encouraging that they weren't covered. Hive 4 has an Apivar strip in it from three weeks ago. My sugar bricks crumbled so I made fondant with the pieces. Cooking up the second batch now, this time no acv, just water, electolytes, and some anise extract.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

JW,

I've never had any problem with sugar bricks crumbling and wonder if your problem is something other than the apple cider vinegar. (The vinegar lowers the pH to acidic level that the bees tolerate best.) I make my sugar bricks according to Laurie's recipe, but at 1/4th the size as follows:
o 6.25 pounds of cane sugar
o one cup of apple cider vinegar
o one pinch of electrolite
o 1/4 - 1/2 Table spoon of citric acid or ascorbic acid (to further lower the pH.
o A splash of pro Health or other essential oil. ( I use several drops of both lemon grass oil and spearmint oil.) 

Hand mix in a big bowl with a whisk, dump on a cookie sheet, form a patty, roll to 1/2 inch thick with a rolling pin, cut into < 1 inch squares with a dull butcher's knife, dry overnight in the furnace room, and feed to the bees the next day. The bees love them as emergency feed and any that are left over you can use as a jump start next fall. This also reduces the amount of moisture you are introducing to the colony at this time of the year. 

Always be sure and have both lower and upper entrances to your hives in the winter so that any excess moisture (from respiration) can escape naturally by convection. Also, on sunny, warm, windless days during the winter make a very quick check to of the hives to see if the bees need an additional handful of the sugar bricks. Guess what happens if you don't pay attention and let them run out of food.

Good luck with your bees, JW. And pay good attention to their well-being.

Steve


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

JW,

I've never had any problem with sugar bricks crumbling and wonder if your problem is something other than the apple cider vinegar. (The vinegar lowers the pH to acidic level that the bees tolerate best.) I make my sugar bricks according to Laurie's recipe, but at 1/4th the size as follows:

o 6.25 pounds of cane sugar
o one cup of apple cider vinegar
o one pinch of electrolite
o 1/4 - 1/2 Table spoon of citric acid or ascorbic acid (to further lower the pH.
o A splash of pro Health or other essential oil. ( I use several drops of both lemon grass oil and spearmint oil.) 

Hand mix in a big bowl with a whisk, dump on a cookie sheet, form a patty, roll to 1/2 inch thick with a rolling pin, cut into < 1 inch squares with a dull butcher's knife, dry overnight in the furnace room, and feed to the bees the next day. The bees love them as emergency feed and any that are left over you can use as a jump start next fall. This also reduces the amount of moisture you are introducing to the colony at this time of the year. 

Always be sure and have both lower and upper entrances to your hives in the winter so that any excess moisture (from respiration) can escape naturally by convection. Also, on sunny, warm, windless days during the winter make a very quick check to of the hives to see if the bees need an additional handful of the sugar bricks. Guess what happens if you don't pay attention and let them run out of food.

Good luck with your bees, JW. And pay good attention to their well-being.

Steve


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

JW,

I've never had any problem with sugar bricks crumbling and wonder if your problem is something other than the apple cider vinegar. (The vinegar lowers the pH to acidic level that the bees tolerate best.) I make my sugar bricks according to Laurie's recipe, but at 1/4th the size as follows:

o 6.25 pounds of cane sugar
o one cup of apple cider vinegar
o one pinch of electrolite
o 1/4 - 1/2 Table spoon of citric acid or ascorbic acid (to further lower the pH.
o A splash of pro Health or other essential oil. ( I use several drops of both lemon grass oil and spearmint oil.) 

Hand mix in a big bowl with a whisk, dump on a cookie sheet, form a patty, roll to 1/2 inch thick with a rolling pin, cut into < 1 inch squares with a dull butcher's knife, dry overnight in the furnace room, and feed to the bees the next day. The bees love them as emergency feed and any that are left over you can use as a jump start next fall. This also reduces the amount of moisture you are introducing to the colony at this time of the year. 

Always be sure and have both lower and upper entrances to your hives in the winter so that any excess moisture (from respiration) can escape naturally by convection. Also, on sunny, warm, windless days during the winter make a very quick check to of the hives to see if the bees need an additional handful of the sugar bricks. Guess what happens if you don't pay attention and let them run out of food.

Good luck with your bees, JW. And pay good attention to their well-being.

Steve


----------



## JWPalmer

Thanks for the input Steve. My problem with the bricks was that they were too thick. Outsides were dry and sealed over but the insides were not set up, even after three weeks out of the pan. The fondant came out fine so that is what they are getting.

Today, like much of the southeast, there is several inches of snow on the ground. Figured it would be a good day to dream about swarms and to that end I assembled a bunch of foundationless frames with homemade starter strips. All waxed and ready to go. Had a few plastic foundation sheets so I washed and waxed those too. That doesn't sound quite right, not a car. Went by the big box store for some 1 x 12's to build more nuc bodies. Plan is to have around 10 regular nucs, the 8-6 over 6 swarm traps and the 4 mating nucs going into spring. With a little luck I will have bees in all of them by June from my soon to be aquired grafting skill. (Ok, bumbling attempts at grafting).


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Cold nights. Some as low as -25C with wind chill. Last 4 or 5 of them have been much the same with night lows of 15C but wind chills in the -20's. Long range forecast has rain and 50F (10C) on the 23rd. Some years I wonder how we are zoned 5b. 

Been having trouble with moisture. Even this summer we had no rain but found mold on some inner and outer covers.

Currently we have 2 deeps with an upper entrance shim, then a 3 inch feed shim or box over it. Covered the wire in the feed shim with newspaper and placed dry sugar and winter patties in these before using roofing felt to wrap them and the 2 deeps. Last year we added the feed in Feb but this Jan or Feb may be too cold pull, the way things are going, the top off them. So did it early. ( Is this what is causing the moisture???) Built a 3 inch high inner cover boxes and put 2" of Styrofoam insulation in them. Then cut the center of the foam to match holes in center of covers. This year we built 5 1/2 inch vent boxes, but time and other work got in the way and they did not get installed when we wrapped. So it took another 4 or 5 days to get vent boxes on. When I did all 11 of my hives had moisture. All the newspaper was soaked so I moved sugar back from sides and cut out some of the paper to let moisture rise. We already had a left a hole in center of newspaper matching the holes in insulation box. Got to late moving sugar and pulling wet newspaper, so put vent boxes on next day. By then some hives had small puddles of moisture on top of the Styrofoam . Even had a couple of boxes freeze to outer covers. Concerned so went to tractor supply and bought a bunch of burlap bags for around 1.27 each. Filled them about a third of the way with shavings and placed them inside the hives over the vent hole in Styrofoam. To cold to go back in right now to check them for moisture. 

So there is an upper entrance, 2 1/4 hole in plywood of insulation box, 3 inch hole in Styrofoam, and eight 7/8 inch holes in vent box. That's a lot of holes. 

the burlap bags should keep heat in but hoping the next time we are looking the moisture issue is solved.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Cold nights. Some as low as -25C with wind chill. Last 4 or 5 of them have been much the same with night lows of 15C but wind chills in the -20's. Long range forecast has rain and 50F (10C) on the 23rd. Some years I wonder how we are zoned 5b. 

Been having trouble with moisture. Even this summer we had no rain but found mold on some inner and outer covers.

Currently we have 2 deeps with an upper entrance shim, then a 3 inch feed shim or box over it. Covered the wire in the feed shim with newspaper and placed dry sugar and winter patties in these before using roofing felt to wrap them and the 2 deeps. Last year we added the feed in Feb but this Jan or Feb may be too cold pull, the way things are going, the top off them. So did it early. ( Is this what is causing the moisture???) Built a 3 inch high inner cover boxes and put 2" of Styrofoam insulation in them. Then cut the center of the foam to match holes in center of covers. This year we built 5 1/2 inch vent boxes, but time and other work got in the way and they did not get installed when we wrapped. So it took another 4 or 5 days to get vent boxes on. When I did all 11 of my hives had moisture. All the newspaper was soaked so I moved sugar back from sides and cut out some of the paper to let moisture rise. We already had a left a hole in center of newspaper matching the holes in insulation box. Got to late moving sugar and pulling wet newspaper, so put vent boxes on next day. By then some hives had small puddles of moisture on top of the Styrofoam . Even had a couple of boxes freeze to outer covers. Concerned so went to tractor supply and bought a bunch of burlap bags for around 1.27 each. Filled them about a third of the way with shavings and placed them inside the hives over the vent hole in Styrofoam. To cold to go back in right now to check them for moisture. 

So there is an upper entrance, 2 1/4 hole in plywood of insulation box, 3 inch hole in Styrofoam, and eight 7/8 inch holes in vent box. That's a lot of holes. 

the burlap bags should keep heat in but hoping the next time we are looking the moisture issue is solved.


----------



## JWPalmer

I got tired of doing laundry so I decided it was time to build some nucs. This time I'm building 5 over 5 mediums. Got 10 bodies cut and milled, 10 bottom boards, 6 telescoping tops and 7 inner covers all ready to put together. Ran out of wood. Will start glueing and nailing everything together tomorrow. My nucs are copies of the Brushy Mountain nucs so there is a lot of cutting involved but they look real good when assembled. Plan is to make between 15 and 20 nucs total so I'm not concerned that the numbers aren't even. 

Temps made it to 52°F here. Checked on the girls. Feral hive (#2) was active, hives 3 and 4 not so much. Couple of bees snacking up in the syrup feeders which I still haven't switched out yet for the fondant. Bad daddy.


----------



## gww

Jw
I built several 5 frame medium nucs but have not used them one time. I just decided it was easier to just use ten frame stuff. If I did decide I needed to reduce space to match the bees, I kinda think what enjambers does and just use follower boards might be easier. Of course me, I do usually let the bees suffer and I am sure that is why some of mine build up pretty slow. I used the mediums three high for traps and they are just so unstable and top heavy when stacked. Finacially, it is probly a good move for you cause you can have more bees with queens cheaper. I can't wait till next year to see how they work for you.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Charlie B

Huge Eucalyptus flow here. Most hives have two supers and ready to go with a third. Really good weather has increased production.


----------



## baybee

Charlie B said:


> Huge Eucalyptus flow here. Most hives have two supers and ready to go with a third. Really good weather has increased production.


What does the SF Eucalyptus (mostly _globulus_?) honey look and taste like? I extracted a frame of what I hoped was Eucalyptus honey from a busy hive just south of SF. The aroma of this honey definitely has Eucalyptus notes, the honey, however, has a slightly bitter after taste -- not sure it comes from eucalypti, maybe honeydew?


----------



## Charlie B

Eucalyptus honey is light in color and sweet with no bitter aftertaste.


----------



## JWPalmer

Gww, the medium nucs are for a friend who runs 8 frame medium equipment. I still use deep bodies for my brood boxes and nucs. The nuc build up is anticipation of being sucessful in my queen rearing endeavors. If not, then they can always be used as swarm traps.


----------



## JWPalmer

We made it to 67° today. Must be global warming! Or not. I was able to spend some time after work observing hive #5, a late summer nuc that was next to the one that mite crashed about six weeks ago. Pleased to say that the girls are still alive and active. Dead bees have been cleared from the entrance and there was some obvious foraging. Even saw a few bees bringing in what I assume to be dandelion pollen. Feeder jar was down at least 8 fl oz from last week too. If they can hang on for another 6-8 weeks, life will be good.


----------



## gww

Looked at mine today also. Cloudy and no real bees flying (much). I saw bees at the entrance of all but my two smallest hives even if it was just one crawling to the opening and backing back into the hive. I think the two small ones are also alive cause they were flying on our last 55 degree day a few days ago. I have found that I cn not hear anything when putting my ear against any of my hives. Last year I could hear a roar sometimes. I am atributing this to those times the hives were louder were the times they were getting into stores. Or, My ears are even getting worse. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## 1102009

gww
they are louder when it´s colder and if not, you are toast 
Cheers.


----------



## 1102009

double


----------



## gww

Siw......


> gww
> they are louder when it´s colder and if not, you are toast
> Cheers.



Time will tell.
Cheers
gww
Ps dec 20th at 12:46pm, 46 degrees F and sunny and all bees at entrance and so I am going to have to wait for the next cold spell for some of them to die. Of course my fingers are always crossed for good news instead.


----------



## JWPalmer

Someone posted that you can use a stethoscope to hear the bees in the hive. I have not tried it which is funny because my wife is a nurse and we have several of them here. You can get cheap ones at Walgreens or CVS. Walmart probably has them too.


----------



## gww

Jw
That is funny you mentioned that. I almost put in my last post that it was one of the things I was going to keep my eye out for. When I thought about it though, I deleted the bit I had typed because I knew someone would mention that they don't cost that much and then people would find out just how cheep I am when I don't go buy one. This is actually true that I had typed part and moved it for that reason. So if I ever leave home and go to a real store and see one, I will maby buy it on splurge but untill then I will just mention it to my relitives and maby get lucky. They are real collectors and you would not believe the things they come up with. It is on my wish list. I do find it hard to worry too much when no matter what I find, I can't change it at this date but do also keep my fingers crossed that things go well.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Charlie B

gww,

Who are you kidding? You’re cheaper than Odfrank. No way you’d get one unless it was on Craig’s List for free! :lpf:


----------



## gww

Charlie
If I lived near you, I would be trying to take odd franks place in the recieving department from you. I like, well I can't remember the last thing you gifted but am pretty sure I like it.
Cheers
gww


----------



## JWPalmer

CVS has the Mabis Bowles stethoscope for $7.49. I spend more than that a day on beer.


----------



## gww

Jw
I seen some for $3 something on amozon.
Cheers
gww


----------



## clyderoad

I put my ear flat on the side of the brood box to hear them if I think something is not right.
Listen on all 4 sides if I have to. I tap an index finger on the box when my ear is to it.
Yes I know others have said it disrupts them when in cluster during the cold but I don't feel a finger tap disrupts them at all and certainly doesn't cause them to break cluster. In fact the quick buzz goes right back to a low hum a few seconds later.
I also flatten my palm lightly on the sides of the brood boxes and most times can feel the slight vibration the bees give off, the ear on hive is for when it's windy and the vibrations are hard to feel.

All this extra equipment talk gives me the willies. Less is more.


----------



## JWPalmer

Never tried the hand thing. Will definitely give that a try. Hearing is not as good as it used to be but not nearly as bad as my wife thinks it is.


----------



## gww

Mostly we get enough days above 45 degrees that allow me to look at what is crawling at the entrance. I have stuck my ear to the side and not heard anything. Some of my earlier boxes have cleats and so it is harder then it should be. I don't think my ears are very good anyway and I have not tapped on the hives. Mostly, I don't have out yards yet and everything is in a field right behind my house and so I know many oppertunities come during winter when the bees actually come to thier entrances. I do live 40 miles from every store except one local walmart that is about 6 miles away and that I avoid like the plauge. Now if they sold them at the feed store, I do have to go there once a month. I have turned into a pretty big hermit since retirement and luckily my wife is willing to shop and so I even avoid the local walmart except maby three or four times a year.

I also usually only carry a smoker and a painters tool when I go to my hives. Even though close to the house, I leave a few extra supers set up like hives that I steal from when needing to add boxes. If I ever get extra comb that needs protecting, I will have to carry more back and forth but right now it is just a smoke and painters tool.

If I ever move some bees to dads 12 miles away, I am going to have to become much more organized then is my nature. I am guessing that we get more warm days here then in new york. If my warre with the smallest cluster, dies, I won't do anything and if it is one of the langs that dies, the hives all have sugar water in them and so I would not try and extract and so would probly leave them and hope that they don't get wax moth before I can make a split or something to use the comb in very early april. I am thinking I will be close to good with this plan and if not, I will learn better. My biggest fear besides the small ones and the fact that I did not treat will be starvation and it being warm enough and me being smart enough to catch it before I kill a hive that does not die of other reasons. So far they are alive but lots of winter/spring left to go.
Cheers
gww


----------



## clyderoad

We get enough flying days during the winter. Bees are rarely cooped up for more than 3 weeks without a good calm warmer day where they can fly.

















BTW, if a few turn up dead I usually leave them where they sit until a good, warm dry day shows up where I clean out the dead bees,
look at the brood comb for disease, pull any honey frames and put them in a box in the truck and put it all back together where it stands until it's needed in the spring.

Same yard in the spring:


----------



## gww

Clyderoad
I am going to take your post as advice. It is close to what I had planned and good to know I may not be way off track with my thinking and yes, I will try and not forget the inspection for cause. I like pictures and your boxes look much nicer then mine though mine are getting better the more I build.








new ones for next year.








Thanks
gww


----------



## clyderoad

They may look ok from a distance but in reality I have to start culling some and pulling out some popped nails and replacing with screws on a whole bunch of others. I have about 30 brood boxes built and ready for replacing in spring, which should leave me another 30 to get ready. The rest are ok.
My honey supers are in pretty good shape just need a little maintenance.

Would like to try some of those polypropylene hive bodies one day from Mother Lode, even though I'm a wood guy.


----------



## gww

Clyde
I run all medium and have about 15 two medium box hives built ahead including tops bottoms and inter covers. I have new holes showing up every day on the first ones I built due to bees makeing new holes in corners and a couple of knots falling out.

My hives are made of all kinds of wood cause I make my own boards and air dry them (mostly hard woods) and my logs are not always the best quality. They are made out of every thing (hickory maple etc). I am sure they will not all last the same. 

I am on year three of building and about 20 hives is where I am so I am slow but getting much better at it. I also build all the frames and so it takes awhile. I do not think they will all be filled this year but I never thought my extras would be filled last year and they were due to poor swarm control. I don't have a plan for expantion or anything but more just keep building because it gets me out of the house on something to piddle with. 

I also would like to try the styrofoam hives cause they sure seem to be light and warm. I almost built a few with some two inch foam I scavanged from my brother in law who made a mistake when building a home. I intead just incorperated two inch foam into my hive covers so I could leave them on all year. The one I had out this year was getting pretty powdery already with one year in the sun and so now I put one coat of latex paint on them and we will see how they hold up. Glad I didn't make hives with it though.

I did read that to keep moister out of the foam hives that you needed to run a screen bottom. I read that on this site as a comment from some one. I don't know if I like that ideal and am running solid bottoms on my hives now though I am using slatted racks.

Your hives look to be along a creek line. Have you ever had water come out of those banks? I have several places on dads place that look about the same. Killed some deer off of some of them. Either way, it looks like a nice place. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Some fliers today.


----------



## MikeJ

Looked at the hive (meaning - I actually just looked at the hive, no opening, not even getting close to it). Wondered if their alive still (maybe I will tap the side and see).
Maybe that sounds cavalier... currently at around -10F (without wind chill) there is nothing more one can do. Forecast (lol umm..) reads that 30 minutes outside will possibly result in frost bite on exposed skin (wind chill at -20F to -30F).

This type of weather is expected to last at least 12-14 days then maybe climb back up into the 20s. But we expect it... It does make one thankful not to live further north 

Maybe their alive? We'll see.


----------



## MikeJ

--doubled--


----------



## frustrateddrone

All entrances had bee activity.:thumbsup: I wasn't expecting anything less. Temp high 60. Past week we had 1 inch of snow and temps I believe in the high teens. The thing is, if you prepare for the winter then the 5 months they're dormant, it should not require a single thing on your part.


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> I put my ear flat on the side of the brood box to hear them if I think something is not right.
> Listen on all 4 sides if I have to. I tap an index finger on the box when my ear is to it.
> Yes I know others have said it disrupts them when in cluster during the cold but I don't feel a finger tap disrupts them at all and certainly doesn't cause them to break cluster. In fact the quick buzz goes right back to a low hum a few seconds later.
> I also flatten my palm lightly on the sides of the brood boxes and most times can feel the slight vibration the bees give off, the ear on hive is for when it's windy and the vibrations are hard to feel.
> 
> All this extra equipment talk gives me the willies. Less is more.


Hi Clyde, here in our location it’s been weeks of single digits and below zero cold; currently wind chill is -23 to -30. I am so happy I wrapped and added foam insulation inside outer cover and outside, in addition to the sugar shim up top and an extra super of honey. Treated end of November OAV. I’m still crossing my fingers on survival.

PS regarding the virus mapping program the hive I was monitoring had high nosema cerana and 
i let it die.


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale said:


> Hi Clyde, here in our location it’s been weeks of single digits and below zero cold; currently wind chill is -23 to -30. I am so happy I wrapped and added foam insulation inside outer cover and outside, in addition to the sugar shim up top and an extra super of honey. Treated end of November OAV. I’m still crossing my fingers on survival.
> 
> PS regarding the virus mapping program the hive I was monitoring had high nosema cerana and
> i let it die.


it's been a bit cold here for my liking too although not like you mountain folks! seems good old Long Island winter is a thing of the past as we either get a northern one or a southern one now. 20* below normal or 20* above.
fall extended warmth has been the real problem the last 8-10 years though, way too warm for way too long with bees brooding later and later every year. feeding has been job #1, wasn't always like that.

sounds like your hives are set for winter, not much more you could have done. good for you. protected, with feed and healthy all covered. wishing you
good luck from here.

never got to take the last sample for virus mapping in December so only sent in 3. the hive sampled is heavy and healthy going into winter and produced more than any other in that yard. surprising as it was chosen because it didn't look as good as the others in the yard when chosen in the spring and wanted to find out what was up with it. turns out not much with sac brood being the biggest issue. 

nosema cerana is a problem here and often overlooked. 

we are due for a weather break soon it looks like, hoping the snow is yellow in front of every hive when it comes.
clyde


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Wisconsin is going back in the deep freeze in the next few days.popped the top today and a few needed some sugar bricks and put what I had on them I'll have to make some more the yellow bees are going through the sugar fast.


----------



## JWPalmer

I spent some time today visiting another beekeeper and swaping some honey. Thanks Dan! It is really fun to get out there and meet new folks. It's even more fun when they live several states away. Oh my God. It was 70 degrees in GA today. This past Sunday, the low at home was -8°F., a new record for the day and close to the all time recorded low of -12°F. Loving it.


----------



## MissHoney

Sad news... At least 4 out of 6 hives are lost, at two separate apiaries One, a late swarm, I expected. Two hives had yellow jackets inside. Not sure about the fourth yet. All were treated for mites in early December. All left honey behind. 

Not sure what the next move is. I'm doubtful that the remaining two hives will be strong enough to make it through the rest of winter. At the very least, something has to change. Bee supplier, treatment methods, something.


----------



## MikeJ

Opened the lid the other day and found the bees are still alive. They need additional sugar though.




frustrateddrone said:


> All entrances had bee activity.:thumbsup: I wasn't expecting anything less. Temp high 60. Past week we had 1 inch of snow and temps I believe in the high teens. The thing is, if you prepare for the winter then the 5 months they're dormant, it should not require a single thing on your part.


In my opinion that would be a bit simplistic.
We average 6 months of winter.
On average (not using the word "normal"/"normally" because when weather diverts from what someone calls normal now - the world melts... so "average" is a safer word) we will get a killing freeze and then a warm up for a week or two. This year the average wasn't to be - the warmth lasted a much longer time - and from what I can tell the bees went through a lot of stores.
So intervention is needed during winter.
Minuses last few weeks (down into the -20s with wind chills into -30s/-40s). Then that storm rolled up the coast, afterwards we got into the 40s and today 54F. But now will return to normal. 54F today, -2F tonight (52F drop lol).
Supposed to get out of the singles and minuses later in the week (back into warm weather, 20s day/minuses and singles at night).

So I would not say prepare for winter - but don't expect winter to run according to your plans.


----------



## MikeJ

-double-


----------



## Michael Palmer

MissHoney said:


> All were treated for mites in early December. At the very least, something has to change.


That would be a good start.


----------



## Cloverdale

So far it seems as though all 13 hives were flying a few days ago, it was unusually warm. Not too sure about one, it might have been the neighboring hives bees checking it out. Still a good 2 months to go before pollen comes available from skunk cabbage and early crocus etc. Now it will be -5 tonight, not too bad.


----------



## lobottomee

Took a walk out back to check on 6 colonies. Have 3 nucs and 3 full size. Have a couple more full size closer to the house, one being a late swarm that moved in near Labor Day which I fed for several weeks. Temperatures here have been very cold since before Christmas with a number of days getting down to -25f and never rising above zero. But there also have been a couple of short warm spells with one spiking up into the 50's for a day.

I've put 1" polystyrene insulation board on the outside of each of the colonies. I cut the pieces to fit and screwed them to the wood with a couple screws and flat washers. I also pulled the inner covers and set a quilt box on top. The quilt boxes are simply a hive box that has a piece of burlap stapled to the bottom, which I then fill with dry pine wood shavings. I have about 6 inches of shavings on top of the full size colonies and about 12 inches on the little ones. My theory is that I don't need to stop condensation inside the hive, but I do need to control where it happens. 

The insulation doesn't make the inside of the hive warm, but it does buffer the temperature swings so the temperature outside the cluster is more stable. Insulating the walls of the hive less than the top of the hive causes condensation to occur on the walls instead of the ceiling. And the porous burlap wood shavings quilt pack allows very gentle ventilation between inside and outside environments. Interestingly, I found when I looked at the colonies, a couple of the shavings packs were frosted near the top, which demonstrates that air movement is occurring and that condensation is happening inside the quilt where I expected it to be. For those colonies I simply scooped out the shavings and replaced with fresh and did not have to disturb the bees. Before next year I will recalculate the heat transfer rates through the hive and see if changing the insulation and quilt thicknesses will allow better utilization of the heat leaking from the cluster to further stabilize the inside temperature.

I use a stethoscope to check my hives. It's quick and easy to put the stethoscope next to the opening and listen for the buzzing of the cluster. I can also wriggle the stethoscope down through the shavings to near the burlap bottom and hear the cluster buzzing. Once you figure out how to do it you can even tell about where in the hive the cluster is located, and if you hear very loud buzzing you know the bees are near the top and it's time to think about feeding.

Knock wood, so far so good as all 8 colonies sounded healthy. I noticed some frost in two of the wood shavings packs so I replaced the shavings with fresh. The rest of the colonies were all fairly dry so I left those alone.

Two of the full size colonies were from Italian packages I got from BetterBee in early 2017. Both seem strong, but one of them had noticeably more dead bees than the other. 
I have some suspicions that the one with fewer dead bees swarmed during the summer and so the queen probably bred with some of the local drones and that's making a difference in how they're wintering.

I'm certainly not an expert with bees and have only been working with them for a few years, but I've been applying some basic thermodynamic principles towards wintering for the past couple years and I think that's been helpful. Time will tell!

Thanks


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

lobottomee,

I like your approach to the thermodynamics of a wintering honey bee hive. What you describe is very similar to my approach to winterizing. The one suggestion that I have is that you drill one inch diameter holes on the sides of your "quilt box" (QB) to allow the accumulated moisture (solid, liquid, or gas) to escape when conditions allow. In my case I build four inch high QB's with #8 screened bottoms, filled with wood shavings, and ten one inch diameter holes (3 on the long sides, and 2 on the short sides) half way up. The insides of the holes are covered with scraps of #8 screen wire to contain the shavings and keep other bugs out. I also insulate with two inch rigid foam on all four sides and the outside top. I also do quickie, winter time, pop-the-top inspections and only found moisture once in eight years with 10+ colonies. I also built my own house with structural insulated panel (SIP) type construction. And my winters are mild compared to yours.

Steve


----------



## GSkip

Mid 60's here today. Opened 2 ten frame boxes and a NUC in my back yard. They all still have plenty or stores, even found an unmarked queen in one. Caught and marked her, she was busy laying. One frame was full of eggs. It has been very cold here for several weeks, if it stays warm they will be brooding up real soon. Will go up to my farm (45 mins away) Monday and check the other 26 hives.


----------



## lobottomee

Thank you Steve, you make an important point that I omitted. There definitely needs to be ventilation and communication between the outside air and top of the shavings in the quilt box. 

I at one point considered using metal mesh to contain the wood chips as you are doing, but decided against it. I was concerned that the metal mesh, being a good conductor of heat relative to the rest of the hive, would form a surface where condensation could form. However, your experience indicates that's not a problem.

A couple of details for others if they decide to use burlap is that you need to ensure it isn't treated with insecticides or fire retardants for obvious reasons. Over time, the burlap will stretch and can even sag down to and lay on top of the frames in the hive body below the quilt. I solved this problem by drilling a few small holes through the sides of the quilt box near the bottom. I then thread some electric fence wire through the holes and pull it tight, forming a support under the burlap so it won't sag.

I'm glad to learn that you seldom find moisture to be a problem with your method which hints that I'm on the right track with the similar one I'm using. I am considering going to a 2 inch extruded polystyrene (XPS) next year which has an R value around 10 so would be the equivalent of tree cavity with walls 10 inches thick like you already are using.

I'm an incessant tinkerer so have some other ideas about the shape of a winter cover that passively takes advantage of water's adhesion properties, or taking advantage of capillary action by orienting the grain of the wood in a hive body vertically versus the typical horizontal.

Thank you!


----------



## JWPalmer

We finally got some warm weather here in the Richmond area (high of 62 today) so I did my first check of the hives in about a month. Very happy to see that all three of the home hives were flying. Filled their feeders with 1:1. Tomorrow I will refill and throw on the pollen subs. Unfortunately, the remaining nuc I had at my work died. Cluster was very small and surrounded by capped honey, but the area they were clustered on had no stores. I think the cluster was just to small to deal with the the sub zero temps we had recently. This nuc's survival was iffy going into winter. The nuc next to it mite crashed earlier this year and I was too late with the Apivar on this one so no big fat winter bees. I always thought that was just a saying but the bees at the home yard are noticably larger.


----------



## sr49

Replace 6 candy boards on 6 of my 7 hives. All six were alive made it thru the sub zero temps a week or so ago, Will check the 7th hive Sunday as have to make another candy board.


----------



## cbay

Holy cow there's a bunch of bees flyin today.


----------



## cbay

The bees invaded the sawdust and lumber piles today. 









They were bringing it back to the hives so i assume they get something of benefit out of it???


----------



## JWPalmer

Got up to 67°F here today. Decided to suit up and do hive inspections. Hive 2, which is my feral hive, still had around 50# of honey in the upper brood box. I added a full patty of Dadant Brood Builder to the top of the frame and added a feeding shim. Hive 3 had about 30# between the medium upper box and the bottom box. Also found a 6" diameter circle of capped brood, larvae, and eggs on both sides of one frame. Way more of the eggs so she is ramping up. Only one frame had pollen stores and not much at that but the girls were bringing in something that looked like pollen and something else that looked like my neighbor's chicken feed. Oh well. Subject of another thread. Added a feeding shim and patty on this hive too.I didn't go into the nuc, just picked the whole thing up to check weight. It still feels like 10# of honey, give or take a few. Overall I am suprised how little of their stores have been consumed so far. I was really expecting a lot of empty comb. Now the concern is if they can get it emptied before the flow starts. Otherwise I will end up pulling this comb which is a mixture of honey and sugar syrup and saving it until this summer once the supers come off. I know that a lot will get used in brood rearing so we shall see. After inspections I sat and watched the bees for a while. You would have thought the flow was on by the amount of activity at the two full sized hives. Even the nuc had a lot more activity than I am accustomed to. No robbing, just a lot of foraging.


----------



## tunedin5ths

Took advantage of the 60 degree day today to check the bees. I didn’t open them up, but I could see undertakers hauling out the dead, and an ear to the hive revealed all 4 hives buzzing. Two hives are from swarms trapped last year, 2 are from a caught swarm from 2016 that I split last year.


----------



## lobottomee

Went out and checked on a few of the colonies today. Temperatures were around 44-45 with some sunshine. All 8 colonies seem to be doing well. I was able to peek under the quilt on the three nucs and I found the clusters near the top so I'm going to make up some fondant for them. 

Last Saturday I removed and cleaned the bottom board on 3 of the main colonies. Today, 7 days later, I found one mite on the board under the Italian colony, and no mites under either of the "mutt" colonies that I've been maintaining for the past 3-4 years. I wasn't able to check the remaining 2. 

I've not really checked mite drops in the winter too much, but this year I didn't get to do an OAV at Christmas like I usually do because the weather here in Upstate got really cold early, so I am a bit more interested in mite drops. Maybe someone who has some experience with natural mite drops during winter can help me make an assessment. I would think, based on natural causes alone, that some mite drop would be observed even late in January. 

I found some water on the bottom boards too, but it was near the edges which is consistent with my strategy of having moisture in the hive condense on the walls of the hive instead of the top. It wasn't much though. I did, however, find some damp wood shavings in the quilt on top of the late swarm colony so I replaced some of those shavings.

Have started to notice that the sun is up earlier and earlier each day so we're on our way to Spring!


----------



## lobottomee

Went out and checked on a few of the colonies today. Temperatures were around 44-45 with some sunshine. All 8 colonies seem to be doing well. I was able to peek under the quilt on the three nucs and I found the clusters near the top so I'm going to make up some fondant for them. 

Last Saturday I removed and cleaned the bottom board on 3 of the main colonies. Today, 7 days later, I found one mite on the board under the Italian colony, and no mites under either of the "mutt" colonies that I've been maintaining for the past 3-4 years. I wasn't able to check the remaining 2. 

I've not really checked mite drops in the winter too much, but this year I didn't get to do an OAV at Christmas like I usually do because the weather here in Upstate got really cold early, so I am a bit more interested in mite drops. Maybe someone who has some experience with natural mite drops during winter can help me make an assessment. I would think, based on natural causes alone, that some mite drop would be observed even late in January. 

I found some water on the bottom boards too, but it was near the edges which is consistent with my strategy of having moisture in the hive condense on the walls of the hive instead of the top. It wasn't much though. I did, however, find some damp wood shavings in the quilt on top of the late swarm colony so I replaced some of those shavings.

Have started to notice that the sun is up earlier and earlier each day so we're on our way to Spring!


----------



## Cloverdale

I checked my hives also. Out of 15 I know for sure two are gone and iffy on two others. I didn’t check the Top bar hive, I think they are fine. What I did see is three chimneyed up to the sugar shim and were eating that so added some winter patties. Also two smelled of mice; can’t figure how they got in with mouse guards on unless they were there before we put them on.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Checked hives after a rain last week. Found 4 of 11 with wet shavings bags. Dried them and went back today with temps @+6C and tried to put them back in over the openings in the insulation board. No quick in and out luck.The lids were all frozen down to the vent boxes. Had to pull them off and drop on ground to break apart. Put burlap bags back in and closed up. Even though 6 degrees it was windy and overcast with rain in the air. 
There were no flyers today but all 11 had flyers earlier in the week. Lots of winter left yet. 
Those same hives that had wet shavings had moisture on there sticky boards. To much moisture but I have upper entrances and vent boxes over insulation boards that have 2 plus inch holes in the center of them covered with those burlap shavings bags.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Checked hives after a rain last week. Found 4 of 11 with wet shavings bags. Dried them and went back today with temps @+6C and tried to put them back in over the openings in the insulation board. No quick in and out luck.The lids were all frozen down to the vent boxes. Had to pull them off and drop on ground to break apart. Put burlap bags back in and closed up. Even though 6 degrees it was windy and overcast with rain in the air. 
There were no flyers today but all 11 had flyers earlier in the week. Lots of winter left yet. 
Those same hives that had wet shavings had moisture on there sticky boards. To much moisture but I have upper entrances and vent boxes over insulation boards that have 2 plus inch holes in the center of them covered with those burlap shavings bags.


----------



## CLSranch

What I did today.
Read what ya'll did yesterday.


----------



## CLSranch

What I did today.
Read what ya'll did yesterday.


----------



## Virgil

Collected the last of the spare kit I need to clean. 

Checked for stores - all ok,

Checked the bottom boards, they all seem to be rasing brood.

Just watched them bringing in pollen. Quite a nice way to spend a cold Jan morning in southern England.

Every hive seems to be flying which is nice to know.


----------



## lobottomee

Another 6 to 8 weeks before I'll get to watch any bring in pollen.....


----------



## frogpondwarrior

It may be somewhere else in the forum but Ian is pumping out a great deal of info on his blog by answering questions from all comers.
He is posting a Youtube vid almost daily right now.
A Canadian beekeeper's blog


----------



## Cloverdale

lobottomee said:


> Another 6 to 8 weeks before I'll get to watch any bring in pollen.....


Today it was about 47F maybe 50 or so when the sun shone. A few hives were flying strong, so I put out some dry pollen, not too many interested in it yet. Last year in the beginning of Feb. we had a few warm days and those bees ate all the pollen I put out. The grandkids laid on the grass and had it in their hands and the bees took the pollen right from them. We had a bit of a pollen dearth that year so they really needed it. 
The top bar is alive, and so is another that I thought wasn’t, so 2 gone out of 13 isn’t too bad. My husband had 2 hives in another area, one died.


----------



## GaryG74

I noticed a red maple blooming yesterday and walked down to it to see if any bees had found it yet. I could hear them before I saw them, they were covering it up. It looked like they were gathering nectar and pollen. The elm tree buds are swelling also. If we continue getting normal weather, the bees should be foraging big time in the next week or so.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

9 below this morning went out to the hives last night while walking the dogs and put my ear to them they were humming nicely .


----------



## lobottomee

Was down below zero on Saturday morning 3-Feb-18. Walked out back and put the stethoscope to all the hives. The 3 nucs were buzzing, as were all the full size hives. Took a look at the bottom boards on the 4 full size hives and found no mites. As far as I can tell there's been 1 mite dropped on 4 hives over a 3 week period. Checked all the quilts and they were dry. I put some sugar in the nucs and one of the Italian large hives a week ago. Not sure any of them needed sugar but the weather was good enough I could do it. Another week of winter is behind me, but just tonight as I'm adding this the snow is blowing horizontally and nearly a foot has fallen in the past 5 hours. 

Lobo


----------



## lobottomee

So took a walk out back today. The snow from the storm earlier this week was about 2 feet deep with an icy crust. All looked well again and with the stethoscope I was able to hear all the hives buzzing. Even though it was just a bit over 32f, I decided to not lift the top boards to peer inside. All the quilts were dry and I still see no signs of moisture problems. I was able to get at the bottom boards of 4 of the larger hives and found nothing but chewed wax. No mites at all. Is going on nearly 4 weeks with just one mite having dropped naturally. Not sure whether this is normal during very cold weather, or means that the mite load in these colonies is low. I found a few dead bees on the snow so there must have been some flight activity last week. Winter keeps hanging on, but every day is one day closer to spring!!


----------



## Zephyr

Been a while... Havent been in my hives since August when I had some health issues & got a new job. Been taking peaks and they seem to be doing alright, could be better. There's still bees, there's enough honey in the established hives & I have some I harvested that I have been feeding back but one hive is iffy. It's my 3rd one I made in late summer. It's currently 10 frames. I've wanted to try overwintering a nuc for a while but I think not paying attention for a few months has had consequences. Last time I went in it was Nov/Dec and I did not find brood and not a whole lot by way of stores. Everytime I peek I still see a cluster through the inner cover and I've fed them the most honey. I'm good to go for year 3 though so our warm up warrents a good check. If only my boss, classes, and the weather thought so too! 

Got it announced at my local club last night that I'm beginning to rear queens and already have an order. One member wants 10 capped QC for less than 300 and when my college professor said 2 of her 3 hives have died, I said my nucs are 150 and she seemed pretty interested. I graduate college in a bit more than a year There's a strong internal argument of expanding the business or stashing it with my wages for when I move out. We need to pay rent "but more money" Eating is a good idea "but more money!" We'll see. 

During this warm week, I saw a few clusters of some small white flowers in my communities lawns. These flowers are the first things to bloom and to start seeing them means spring is coming to the Delta  Them, dogwood, and hawthornes will be out soon and then come blackberries. We cleared land that grew back as blackberry thickets. There's going to be 7 additional acres of straight blackberries blooming this year in addition to the surrounding ones that have always been here. Really excited to harvest as I've a hive who are excellent with making honey & I hear good things about blackberry honey. Or I'll do what I always do: split and get swarms until there's not enough honey for me between the infant hives. With possible nuc orders, thats probably going to happen again  Money > Honey


----------



## Zephyr

Duplicate post, my bad


----------



## frogpondwarrior

checked hives yesterday. Flyers out from all. I had thought 2 had died out. Open the candy boards on 5 and they were all using the sugar and winter patties I them in just before the cold spell in Dec. Gave them some sugar and more winter patties. clusters seemed good. Going to be in high 40's the middle of next week. Will check them again mid week along with the rest. Will add sugar bricks but not sure about adding pollen patties. We really have at least 4 more weeks of winter.
The 14 day forecast has the lowest night time temp during that period 21F. However, seasonal temps don't consistently hit all 40's until mid March. Temps last few days good but dropping over the weekend. Warming up most of next week and I wouldn't be surprised if brood rearing gets a jump start.


----------



## PepperBeeMan

In Middle TN, temps will climb into mid-70s today and stay strong all week after a ton of rain the last couple of weeks. I put on a pollen patty & a quart of sugar yesterday for each hive.

Today, the high is 74. Bees are coming and going like crazy and they've barely touched their syrup from yesterday morning. They have fat sacks of yellow pollen. I see daffodils in full bloom. Henbit, dandelion, and a lot of winter annuals & broadleaf weeds are popping. Maple buds are opening up. 

I'm worried about early swarms in March & starvation before April flow comes. Might be a lot of syrup going on these hives when the Maples die out.


----------



## PepperBeeMan

In Middle TN, temps will climb into mid-70s today and stay strong all week after a ton of rain the last couple of weeks. I put on a pollen patty & a quart of sugar yesterday for each hive.

Today, the high is 74. Bees are coming and going like crazy and they've barely touched their syrup from yesterday morning. They have fat sacks of yellow pollen. I see daffodils in full bloom. Henbit, dandelion, and a lot of winter annuals & broadleaf weeds are popping. Maple buds are opening up. 

I'm worried about early swarms in March & starvation before April flow comes. Might be a lot of syrup going on these hives when the Maples die out.


----------



## lobottomee

Temps here today reached the mid 60's. The snow and ice are melting fast, but the water is also rising fast. Every colony was flying strongly today. The remaining snow had orange polk-a-dots all over it from the cleansing flights. After today the temperatures are forecast to fall to more seasonable levels with lows in the teens and highs in the mid 30's. I have to believe that brood rearing will now start to increase so I'm going to keep a close eye on food stores and supplement if needed. I don't want to mess it up now with just a few weeks to go before nectar and pollen start to show up.

I did open up the top of one the full sized hives to add some sugar. Everything looked fine, but what surprised me was the heat coming out through the inner cover hole. I'll have to ponder on that observation for a bit.


----------



## Charlie B

All hives loaded with Eucalyptus honey! Scrambling to take it all off before swarm season!


----------



## odfrank

My supers are fuller than Charlies's and combs better looking. Eucalyptus flow of the decade after 4 years of drought now in another year of drought. Sunny and warm during the October to February bloom. Third photo is pure eucalyptus cut comb. Under supered of course, who knew there would be spring weather all winter?


----------



## Charlie B




----------



## Bolichsbees

Wilson County, TN
37088

Here in middle TN, beekeeping has begun and seems to be in full swing. Got into the hives the last few days to find the hives have moved into their second brood cycle of the year. Each hive has 4 to 6 frames of brood and the queens are laying where brood has hatched. It’s encouraging. The nucs are booming also. 

Made 11 swarm traps and have placed 6, placing 5 more tomorrow.


----------



## Knisely

Yesterday in New Haven, CT was warm enough before it started raining that all hives were showing activity. Of those 11 hives, 2 were dead and only had activity from bees coming in to rob a bit of the stored honey. They got dissassembled and carried down to the basement after cleaning out their small clusters of dead bees. All the other colonies had their entrance reducer temporarily removed so that a stick could be used to scrape out dead bees, etc. 

Not much blooming yet here. I saw two Crocus tommasinianus ('tommies' are one of the very earliest crocus) blooming in a more sheltered area, Galanthus (snowdrops), and Hamamelis x intermedia (witch hazel). Some hellebores are budded, but not yet open. I did see a bee working the snowdrops, but it's predicted to only get up to about 50 degrees as the high temperature for the next week. Red maple buds are swelling, but nothing for the bees to work on yet...


----------



## Scitfrostbite

Reading these latest posts and attending a bee meeting yesterday where Kieth Delaplane from UGA gave a very interesting talk on several topics has got me excited for the upcoming beekeeping season here in Massachusetts. Right now I'm prepping snowblower for midweek storm and packing gear for a ski weekend in VT. LOL


----------



## soarwitheagles

Things changing rapidly here too...

Last month, no drones...this week, thousands of them. Can't understand how it changed so fast...

Same as Frank and Charlie...all hives suddenly filled with honey and pollen...wow!

I will need to scramble this week to add upper boxes and frames, do some splits, and begin the queen rearing process asap.

Hoping for more rain to end the new drought...this was the worst amount of Dec-Feb rainfall I can remember in 50 years...and it was the first time ever I had to water acres of fava beans in February...they were wilting and dying. So thankful for this last week's rain.


----------



## Charlie B

soarwitheagles said:


> Things changing rapidly here too...
> 
> Last month, no drones...this week, thousands of them. Can't understand how it changed so fast...
> 
> Same as Frank and Charlie...all hives suddenly filled with honey and pollen...wow!
> 
> I will need to scramble this week to add upper boxes and frames, do some splits, and begin the queen rearing process asap.
> 
> Hoping for more rain to end the new drought...this was the worst amount of Dec-Feb rainfall I can remember in 50 years...and it was the first time ever I had to water acres of fava beans in February...they were wilting and dying. So thankful for this last week's rain.


Get all the honey out of the brood boxes. Mine were loaded as well as all the supers! Checkerboard your supers. Don’t just throw on empty ones, otherwise they’ll swarm!


----------



## VickyLynn

Scitfrostbite said:


> Reading these latest posts and attending a bee meeting yesterday where Kieth Delaplane from UGA gave a very interesting talk on several topics has got me excited for the upcoming beekeeping season here in Massachusetts. Right now I'm prepping snowblower for midweek storm and packing gear for a ski weekend in VT. LOL


I was there, too, and was inspired to rewrite my _Spring Management_ list of things to do, create several queen rearing schedules, and figure out how I'll create all the mating nucs I may need. He's a great speaker.

Eight to twelve inches of snow due on Wednesday, so spring is yet again postponed.


----------



## Matt_inSC

Not exactly in the apiary but this weekend I cleaned up my bee supply room at last. I moved into it a few years ago in typical fashion by simply putting stuff in for short-term and the small mess grew into a huge mess.
After a full emptying, getting the (junk storm) windows closed so bees and dirt don’t continue to come in, and a thorough floor cleaning I started reloading.
All of the boxes are in and I sorted my frames into boxes and used painter’s tape to label accordingly. Next will be bottom boards, feeders, tops, etc. 

Progress...


----------



## snl

Looks good, but like most of us, it’ll soon be a wreck again


----------



## AHudd

I inspected all hives yesterday. They are picking up the pace of brooding. One Queen-less out of 18 with a rapidly decreasing cluster size. I guess I will combine with another or shake it out if it has gone laying worker. I don't know how quickly they will go LW at this time of year.

This is the first year I have had serious issues with condensation. This Spring is also the first time they have come out of Winter with so much honey stored. When I pulled frames of honey out they were coated with condensation. In the stronger hives it is less severe, but still not good. I changed out the tops and inner covers on the worst ones so the bees don't have to dry them. I may need to think about quilt boxes for next Winter.

Hopefully the rains will slow down now. Good luck to everyone on the upcoming season!

Alex


----------



## Matt_inSC

snl said:


> Looks good, but like most of us, it’ll soon be a wreck again


I know, I know. I have enough tendencies that keep from being truly organized and enough stubbornness to not give up on it.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Wife walking dog today and noticed a hive stand holding 5 hives leaning. FROST. When she got closer she saw the end hive was on the ground. Lots of dead bees. 
Called me at work. Put hive back together and the small cluster that survived were huddled in the feed shim. Have no idea if there is a queen. The contents of the mountain camp on the shim were no where to be found. Put a newspaper over the cluster and poked a few holes. Gave them charity sugar and winter patties. They probably won't last long but we have an 8C day next Sat. If alive will give a new bottom board and eliminated the lower deep then will take a frame of honey and place it on it's side over the survivors. 
No cold spells coming but cluster is so small may not(queen less ????) survive anyways. 
Disappointing as we had not lost a hive yet but on the bright side we could have lost the whole stand.


----------



## Matt_inSC

Matt_inSC said:


> I know, I know. I have enough tendencies that keep from being truly organized and enough stubbornness to not give up on it.


Still working at keeping the bee room organized. Today I built some shelves for storing other woodenware.


----------



## Matt_inSC

Matt_inSC said:


> I know, I know. I have enough tendencies that keep from being truly organized and enough stubbornness to not give up on it.


Still working at keeping the bee room organized. Today I built some shelves for storing other woodenware.
View attachment 37903


----------



## CLSranch

Warm weather (with excessive winds) and finally blooms. Now I'm just waiting on some feral hives to catch. Almost a month away I think.
Checked on a swarm trap (last wk) next to a hive in an abandoned house. Trap empty, house hive thriving quite well.


----------



## Tim KS

Yesterday actually......

Just because it was 70º yesterday, my daughter & I went through our 15 colonies just to see how many survived the winter. We found bees in all 15, but only one appears to have gone queenless over the winter. We looked for the queen without success and there was no brood to be found.....only a fist sized group of survivors left. 

But the other 14 are building up nicely....some are full to the brim already. We found 3 that need splitting soon, but no drones to be seen yet, and only a small patch of drone brood here & there. There was a start or two of queen cells, but nothing too far along. We're going to give them a week yet and take another look.

I'm really surprised at the survival rate of the hives this year. The last few years we've lost nearly 40% of the hives over winter. I give credit to the Pro Vap / OA treatments that we did last fall and winter....it's easy to use and appears to be very good at killing mites. (did I mention EASY to use?)


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Not much to do in the apiary today.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Spent the day cutting out handles on bee boxes and going through a dead out. Lots of honey but most starved as there butts were sticking out of cells. Found 4 or 5 different clusters besides. They were small and I'm thinking to cold for them. 
Blame it on this spring funny weather. They flew half the days in Feb and think they broke cluster because of it. 
Also had mountain camp sugar and winter patties on board so besides the honey there was plenty of food. 
With all the flying they just unclustered and when it got cold they couldn't move around to recluster or get food.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Wow, it is nearly April and so many reports of snow and freezing temps. I am counting my blessings of living in a more moderation climate. 

I keep building more boxes, more tops more bottoms, more nucs, more swarm traps. Never ending story. Getting ready to graft, realizing I should of/could of done it a month ago.

JRG came over and nearly doubled our bee yard with splits. Rainy weather now...so working indoors building and organizing.

Met some large land owners with irrigated pasture lands. They told me I could bring the bees.

Trying to figure out how to do all this...

Still need to build another 15+ of Charlie B's ant proof bee hive stands. I feel fortunate because we purchased a number of full pallets of 3"x4"x96" wood. I plan on using this wood to build the ant proof bee hive stands.

Slowly building 150 new boxes, using glue, staples, a square, etc. Picked up nearly 100 gallons of Home Depot "whoops" paint. Made sure to stick with the super light colored mistakes...

Transferring all colonies in the 8 framers to 10 framers, then, using the 8 framers for swarm traps.

Busy bee here...


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Nice day. Found 2 more hives dead today. Lots of stores. Moisture got them. We have two deeps, shim for upper entrance, feed box with #8 hardware cloth, 3 inch insulation box with 2 inch ridged insulation that has a 2 inch hole in center, burlap shavings bag over opening, 8 inch vent box and outer cover. Vent box has two openings on each side. 
One of the hives had 10 full frames of honey in the top box but they never made it out of the bottom box. Bees are all wet and there is even moisture pooled on top of two frames. 
Found a drone so fed all remaining hive a full pollen patty. They all still had plenty of mountain camp sugar left. 
Still 2 to 4 weeks until temps will permit a full inspection.


----------



## JWPalmer

Weather is finally starting to feel like Spring here in central VA. All hives were active. By looking up through the SBB I saw that the feral hive is seven seams strong on a double deep. Time to split. It was sprinkling when I got home so hive inspections will have wait until tomorrow. Projected temps, high 80s. Wow.

I received my Ranco line voltage thermostat yesterday and temporarily wired it to the fan/heater and placed it in the minifridge incubator. All is working as planned so I may finally attempt to graft some queen cells. The #3 hive has relatively docile bees that are from an open mated F2 daughter of my original hive of Italians.

To reward the bees for being good girls, I set out a damaged partial frame of honey on my deck for them to rob out. They kept on it until dusk, even braving the scattered raindrops.


----------



## JWPalmer

Inspections had to wait until today. I hived my nuc. It was a 5 frame medium over deep. 4 frames of brood in the medium, none in the deep. Put the girls in a 10 frame hive and rotated the boxes. Medium is now on the bottom. Put on a feeder as there were very few stores. There was a little confusion for the returning foragers. New hive was a different color and did not have a robbing screen installed. Nonetheless, a large nuber of returning pollen gatherers flew right on in.

The feral hive was absolutely packed with bees. I had capped brood on 10 frames and all 20 deep frames were covered with bees. Since honey production is a secondary goal to hive increases, I made two walk away splits to reduce the number of bees in the hive. The splits are getting feeders, the hive is getting a super of drawn comb and a super of foundation. The hive also got six new frames of foundation placed into the brood nest. There are so many bees that I am not concerned about chilled brood at this point. I had left the feeding shim in too long and the bees had filled it with burr comb. About half and half honey and brood. Most of the borod was drone but some worker mixed in. Uncapped several drones and found them mite free. Rendered the wax and now have a new definition of gross.


----------



## Charlie B

Hey JW, any swarm catches with Lemon Pledge yet?


----------



## JWPalmer

No swarms at all yet. Only 5 traps set so far, all baited with LGO and SC. The Pledge trap gets placed this week, along a few more in various backyards and right of ways. I think I set a trap somewhere and forgot the location. I am supposed to have 14 total but can only account for 13 of them. Tough getting old.


----------



## Tommy Hodge

Caught first swarm of the season yesterday 3/31/18. Actually walked up on one of my overwintered nucs swarming. Awesome sight. Split the 5x5 nuc into (2) 5 frame nucs each with a couple queen cells. Swarm settled in an nearby apple tree, retrieved the swarm and I now have 2 more hives raising queens! Good day in the apiary! Earlier split or moving them to a bigger hive would have been easier. Ha! 
Tommy


----------



## Zephyr

Holy hell guys, I dont know how yall do it... 

I've 3 overwintered hives and have a recently made 5f split. I have orders that total 10 mated queens and 4 nucs. Nothing huge by any means but this is my first season selling bees. Since March 31st I've spent nearly 10 hours simply juggling frames to try and give every mating nuc a frame of brood with food and empty comb. Pulling and sticking QC into the nucs turned out to be the easy part... Had one virgin emerging DURING the transfer into a nuc of frames pulled from a queen right hive. Gave a good smoking just in case they thought about rejecting her. They seemed indifferent but I'll try to find her in a bit. Made one with QC from a different hive who just capped. Should have the queens squared out within the month then sell them & let the nucs rear new ones for the nuc orders. Bet it'd of been easier had I a few more established hives!

My established hives are pretty rough. My best producer lost an entire deep worth of frames & a couple in their bottom box. Luckily I've quite a bit of honey from last year to give them. My 3rd hive is rapidly expanding and wasnt used as heavily so maybe they can farm resources and I spread it to the other 2. Going to profit 565 bucks. Not bad for my first set of orders + I've got a guy who wants queens and multiple nucs on a waitlist. Going to file a DBA or LLC later for the tax stuff. I'm a business owner now ;-; At least my veterinary application will look better LOL


----------



## NHbeek

Gave my bees fondant to eat since it has been so cold here. Instead of eating it they glued it to the top of the frames with wax and propolis.


----------



## JWPalmer

It has been 3 days since I made my two walk away splits from my #2 hive so I wanted to see if they were making replacement queens. The good news is that both queenless hives have multiple qc's started and for the first time ever I saw this hive's queen. The bad news that she was in one of the nucs. Oops. Went ahead and gave everyone syrup. This weekend I will take one of the frames with qc's from the main hive and make a third split.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Two foot drifts outside my door. High today of 25 F . Bees are eating 50/50 pollen - sugar patties. Better warm up soon. They're going to have trouble covering brood shortly. Supposed to be in the 50's mid week. Hope so.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

And I though the drama was over. 
Frost was heaving one of my stands so I jacked it up yesterday and blocked and leveled. There are 5 hives on this particular stand and the floor jack made short work of it. Loaded everything in the cart and heard a crash behind me. In one spot the stand had spread and a hive fell in between supports. 
It was at about a 30 degree angle towards the back. The bottom board had separated but some how 2 brood and one honey super remained together. Roofing felt wrapping???? The top, vent box, insulation box and feed box all flew off. I ran around behind the stand and saw a few hundred eyes giving me an uncomfortable look. One went on the attack and I was able to support the hive and reached for the insulation box(2 inch Styrofoam) I covered the top and the bees voiced their opinion through the feed jar opening. I placed the plug back in that hole and looked around. Sun was out and there was a cold wind. Couldn't move without losing the one thing that was keeping them in, the insulation box. Wife was out so I slid my phone out and requested her presence. She arrived with a few choice words for me...... but then with a few screws and my drill we were able to lock the boxes together.
However, the bottom board was off the cold wind was blowing right up inside the boxes. Got a second bottom board from the greenhouse and found a 2 ft sq piece of plywood. Screwed the plywood to the stand so it could not spread any more. It also provided a flat space to place the boxes. After a few try's was able to get the stack of boxes level and lifted one corner up on the plywood. I walked it sideways onto the plywood just as a small wave came from under bottom deep. I let then calm down for a few min but did manage to get one bee up a sleeve. In the end he didn't make it but left me a small reminder of her visit. After a short time I tilted the hive ahead and walked it onto a new bottom board. Will they make it...not sure. There was at least a one inch thick stack of dead winter bees on the old bottom board. They now have no mountain camp, pollen patty nor an upper entrance. No entrance should have helped them recover their warmth fairly quickly. They had plenty of honey so will wait a few days to remove the screws and restructure the upper component's along with adding some feed. 
This was last years nasty hive and I was going to requeen. Now it's a waiting game for a warm day to assess to see if there will be something to requeen. 
That is the second hive that has fallen over because of frost heaves. That one died within a few days. Straps didn't help. 
No 60's forecasted here until May.


----------



## JWPalmer

Feeling for ya. So this summer's project is to get the hive stand supports down below the frost line? My supports are 4x4s on stacked cinder blocks. They moved this winter also and I ended up shiming the front of the two hives on this stand. My summer project is building several more permanent stands, but my frost line is only 18", not 4'-6'!


----------



## frogpondwarrior

JWPalmer said:


> Feeling for ya. So this summer's project is to get the hive stand supports down below the frost line? My supports are 4x4s on stacked cinder blocks. They moved this winter also and I ended up shiming the front of the two hives on this stand. My summer project is building several more permanent stands, but my frost line is only 18", not 4'-6'!



I've got 2*4 frames on stacked cinder blocks. They heaved. I shimmed and all was well. Then the one on the end wasn't. That was the first hive I lost. This one was on a 2*4 frame sitting in dodo's in 4*4 legs. The legs are sitting on cement pads with insulation under them. Suppose to stop ground from having a mind of it's own. Didn't use lags/just 4 inch screws. after 3 winters they pulled right out of the wood. So maybe lags and salt may be my new friends. 
Had planned on doing an entire rework this spring. Well still plan. I had 16 hives along the fence line on my back lawn so didn't want pallets. To easy for the skunks. These stands are a bit over 12 inches high so only once have the skunks tried for a smoothie. 
I wish 3-4 feet. I may be in zone 5b but have decks on 6 foot bigfoot sauna tubes that move. The old timers had it right. Drive a piece of pipe down 6-8 feet. shove a rod down the center with a threaded nut on one end. Set a metal plate on top and build what you will with zero movement. 
So next year will be more of the same. I can shim. Last few years it has worked...no problem. This year it's weather, screws and wood. I plan on fixing that problem but the frost....6 feet deep might work 1 year but not the next. Lot of work and no assurances. 
My hives face south with a north side fence. When the sun warms up it thaws the ground out in front of the hives. They lean forward. However, the backside is in their shade so the ground stays hard. So I know the mechanics of the situation just need stronger frames for when I make the correction. 
There are other hives around on the same stands I have. most of theirs never move. Our house is on Spring St. and it is aptly named. There are several underground streams on my back lawn. There are a number of springs on properties nearby. My hives are located right between these two streams. Soil here is all clay. So it moves, rolls, heaves and invites you to dinner. A sponge in the spring and pan baked with cracks in Aug. Winter damage is usually bad around here now it have added a couple of hives to it's toll. Time to roll up my sleeves.
Good luck.
R2


----------



## Zephyr

This is one of the first times it hasnt gone the way I wanted it to and it feels bad ;-;

I spent ~8-10 hours making 10 2f mating nucs. I had pulled capped QC out of my queenless established hive and donated one to every box. Somehow managed to get everyone population, a frame of food and/or brood, and one with mostly comb. Warm weather was the norm. After good friday we're usually free from frost. Had a cold snap in the 40's early this month. I go to check and a couple have no signs of the QC. Had one emerge on me during the creation of these nucs and I've never been able to spot a virgin so I hoped I just couldnt see them and most had queens running around. One had the cell wide open from the side. One looked emerged but the cell was on the nuc floor. The last 2 days we've been sitting in the 30s. Really worried that the 50% kill might be accurate and my hives do not have the resources to fully fix that. Worst part is I KNEW this whould happen and waited weeks into the warm weather to start. "Good friday = no more frost!" So I start on March 31st. April fools! Unusual late spring freezes all around! FML it'd of been done by now if I'd hopped on it the moment it seemed we'd be warm for a while. I havent checked them since ~April 2nd. Hoping that it'll warm up soon and the additional wait time will give me more conclusive answers

The customer has already called me once and seemed to be asking whats the hold up. "Well I've got a couple hives who are busting at the seams that I might just need to go ahead and split so they dont swarm on me" Luckily he wants genetic diversity and still very much wants to buy my queens. I just dont want to tell him this at the meeting next week. This is unexpectedly stressful but I am stubborn. One way or another he'll get those 10 queens & then I can move on to my money makers, the nucs! Then use the remaining nuc boxes to farm resources for everyone else. Worried about our main flow too. The blackberries were budding last I seen them. Hopefully the flowers are ok to bloom and have a lot of nectar to fuel my hives. Might of taken on too many orders. Did I learn a lesson? Hell naw, this is the way to do it but that F'in freeze that shouldnt be here done mucked up my buisness


----------



## Swarmhunter

Going to get a closer look at everything next two days. 55-60 . Snow should finish melting. Would like to start marking Queens while the bee numbers are still low. We'll see how warm it gets. Maybe next warm stretch. Don't want to risk stirring them up to early.


----------



## JWPalmer

Going to be warm this weekend so I am going to do my first ever grafts. I put 24 cups in a cell bar frame, sprayed it with a little 1:1 syrup, and put it in the starter colony for the bees to polish. Expect to do the actual grafts this Saturday. Would have done it Friday but need to pick up and install a package that was supposed to be here weeks ago. Saturday will also be day 14 on the queen cells the bees made when I transfered the queen out of the hive and into a nuc on March 31st. I saw at least two cells last week so they will go into mating nucs along with any others I find before the grafts go in. The donor hive has a real nice all black queen that has a very solid laying pattern. Hoping her daughters look and lay the same. I am a little concerned with the emergency queens I will get from the cell builder as this hive got hot when I took their queen away. Hopefully they will calm down when they get one of the grafts in a few weeks and all will be well.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

JWPalmer said:


> Going to be warm this weekend so I am going to do my first ever grafts.


That's great I'm going to do my first grafts this year also as soon as we get the dandelions.


----------



## JWPalmer

That is cool. I won't consider myself a real beekeeper until I can graft my own queens. In walk away splits, the bees do all the work and that doesn't count in my book anymore. Funny how our perspective changes as we become more experienced. Good luck with your grafts. I imagine your season starts in late May. I've seen it hard freeze in WI as late as early July. Brrrrr. That was the year we decided to sell our retirement hobby farm in Crivitz and stay in Virginia.


----------



## Bowfinger

Wednesday I took 6 + mediums of honey. I was in bees the whole day Wednesday. 2 difficult swarms in a tree in the apiary, only one caught after hours of work. I caught a third swarm at a different location, easy. The honey, well I brushed bees off frames and had excluders on too, so I didn't have many bees left on the honey. Yesterday while extracting I thought of 4 more frames of honey I had left in the truck back seat in a box. When I opened the box. There on one of the frames was a QUEEN. Oh my. I wonder where she came from. In trying to catch the swarms I saw a queen in one of the after I dumped them on the ground. I made a grab but fumbled her she got away. I wondered if she got on me or my veil or something. I changed veils I wonder If I threw her in the truck w/ my veil or something. OR if she was on the honey. 
After I found her, I caged her and put some bees from the yard hive in with her. She looked damaged a bit. maybe I'll put her in the 2 frame nuc If she lives. Its not like I need another colony of bees right now. A Mystery.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

JWPalmer said:


> Going to be warm this weekend so I am going to do my first ever grafts. I put 24 cups in a cell bar frame, sprayed it with a little 1:1 syrup, and put it in the starter colony for the bees to polish. Expect to do the actual grafts this Saturday. Would have done it Friday but need to pick up and install a package that was supposed to be here weeks ago. Saturday will also be day 14 on the queen cells the bees made when I transfered the queen out of the hive and into a nuc on March 31st. I saw at least two cells last week so they will go into mating nucs along with any others I find before the grafts go in. The donor hive has a real nice all black queen that has a very solid laying pattern. Hoping her daughters look and lay the same. I am a little concerned with the emergency queens I will get from the cell builder as this hive got hot when I took their queen away. Hopefully they will calm down when they get one of the grafts in a few weeks and all will be well.


I'm officially jealous. We may get ice pellets over night.


----------



## JWPalmer

We had snow last Sat. Today was 90° according to the thermometer in the car. Glad for the warm weather finally but would like a more gradual increase. Package bee installation went fairly well. The can of sugar syrup was a joke. Two very tiny holes in a can full of Karo (HFCS). I don't think the bees were able to feed off of it at all. They mobbed the hive top feeder as I was pouring the syrup in and several (20-30) plunged in before I could get the top back on. Normally I don't have any trouble adding 1:1 when the bees are flying. No doubt in my mind that they were starving.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Dan - Good Luck on the grafting this year. Still winter weather here. Thunderstorms last night- Snow today! Sick of it!:scratch:


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Swarmhunter said:


> Dan - Good Luck on the grafting this year. Still winter weather here. Thunderstorms last night- Snow today! Sick of it!:scratch:


O Lordy ice hittin the window last evening howling wind this morning we are in the circle for 8 to 15 inches of snow for tonight temps are just below the freezing point so it's not as bad as it could be.


----------



## JWPalmer

Today was grafting day. I ran into a few unexpected issues that made it interesting. First, I went into the cell builder to pull the two frames that had qc's on them. Instead I found four frames, some with multiple cells. Break out the mating nucs. Went to brush the bees off one of the frames I was putting in an earlier split where the single qc they made was quite small. Two of the eight cells were open. Crud, I have two virgins running around in my cell builder that is packed with bees. Put the remaing cells in the nuc and offered a few to another beekeeper. When he got here an hour later, three more of the queens had emerged. I guess the bees used older eggs as today is day 14 since the split. Anyhow, populated three 2 frame nucs and gave away two cells about to pop. I am hoping that the bees still think they are queenless and get my cells started. Once capped, I can put them in the incubator to finish off. Grafting is a lot harder than it looks in the videos. Larvae are just barely bigger than the eggs and I crushed a bunch trying to pick them up. Thank God for the 5x magnifying lens on my lamp. Eventually I got the technique down and the second bar looks much better. Had a bee emerge while I was doing all this. She just hung out on the frame until I got her back into the hive.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

JWPalmer said:


> Today was grafting day. I ran into a few unexpected issues that made it interesting. First, I went into the cell builder to pull the two frames that had qc's on them. Instead I found four frames, some with multiple cells. Break out the mating nucs. Went to brush the bees off one of the frames I was putting in an earlier split where the single qc they made was quite small. Two of the eight cells were open. Crud, I have two virgins running around in my cell builder that is packed with bees. Put the remaing cells in the nuc and offered a few to another beekeeper. When he got here an hour later, three more of the queens had emerged. I guess the bees used older eggs as today is day 14 since the split. Anyhow, populated three 2 frame nucs and gave away two cells about to pop. I am hoping that the bees still think they are queenless and get my cells started. Once capped, I can put them in the incubator to finish off. Grafting is a lot harder than it looks in the videos. Larvae are just barely bigger than the eggs and I crushed a bunch trying to pick them up. Thank God for the 5x magnifying lens on my lamp. Eventually I got the technique down and the second bar looks much better. Had a bee emerge while I was doing all this. She just hung out on the frame until I got her back into the hive.


Start counting days from when the egg was laid. From egg hatching to emerged queen is 13 days. MP I think does his on day 10.


----------



## JWPalmer

16 days from laid, 13 from just hatched larva. Move cells day 10 from grafting. I didn't allow for the bees to use older eggs. Next time I will know better. This makes five splits from a single hive so far. Will know in two weeks if all were successful. Should know Monday evining how many of the grafts take, if any. Checked the #3 hive, two deeps and a medium , all boxes have brood with no swarm cells. Lots of empty cups though. Have scouts checking out a trap in a pine tree about 50' away. My bees?


----------



## JWPalmer

I was out putting a super on the #3 hive and feeding the mating nucs just now and couldn't resist taking a quick peek at the cell bar with yesterday's grafts. As expected the first four are duds. I was sure I squished the larvae and I am rarely wrong when I think I have messed up. The good news is that of the remaining eight cells on the first bar, six are being built out. And, I am 11 for 12 on the second bar. I know this does not mean they will all get capped but it is encouraging.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

JWPalmer

Maybe I missed it. Are you using a stater and finisher or all in one??
Tks

R2


----------



## JWPalmer

FPW, I was trying to do an all in one with the idea that once capped, I would incubate till ready to put in mating nucs.

Well, MAJOR FAIL. The two escaped queens made short work of dispatching all my cells. I really knew better but once they had emerged, it was too late to make a change. Good news is I saw a queen in one of my previously made mating nucs. Still too early for eggs. I was unable to locate a queen in the other three nucs. The donor hive is bursting with bees so I am going to shake a bunch into a nuc and try grafting again. This time making sure the hive stays queenless. I have a couple of qe's coming from BM on Monday and will set up the donor hive as a finisher. Guess now I will have time to paint the queen castles I ordered.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

JWP,

You can avoid that type of "FAIL" if you put a "hair roller cage" over the queen cell several days in advance of hatch. They are quite inexpensive and a good CYA approach.









Steve


----------



## JWPalmer

Good advice Steve. I will order some. My first mistake was counting the cells as 1 day old eggs, instead of 1 day old larvae for the OTS method. I thought I still had two days before emergence. I probably could have saved the grafts If I had shaken all the bees into the bottom box and used the qe on my cloake board to make sure the virgins stayed in the bottom. I got lazy and of course, hindsight is 20/20. Tommorow will be another oportunity to do it all over again.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Busy, busy, busy here....

Have more swarms to house than boxes to place them in....so...

Mass producing boxes, covers, SSB's and the world famous Charlie B ant proof beehive stand.

Will move the rest of the swarms later today...

Cheers!


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Was moving my oldest boy into his first house this weekend and finally got to sit at 3 this afternoon by my bees. Bringing in some poplar pollen on their legs. Spring has finally come to Wisconsin.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Finally!!!! 60 degrees. Only the second day this year bees are flying! Reversed some of the boxes, spent the day marking queens. One got away but only flew down to the ground in front of me. Got Lucky! First pollen was yesterday. Willow and maple. Sure feels good!


----------



## GaryG74

Caught my first swarm of the year from one of my hives. Checked that hive a week ago and no queen cells so they built them and decided to swarm in 7 days. Landed about 20 ' up in a pine tree but I have a 24' extension ladder so they weren't too high to get.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

My first pollen was yesterday as well. A dull yellow. Alders?? willows?? Did see a couple of girls with orange. 
Bees been flying steady for a few weeks even with low temps. Gave them some pollen sub via open feeding. When they found their own source yesterday they didn't touch mine. Now rain for two days.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

JWPalmer said:


> Good advice Steve. I will order some. My first mistake was counting the cells as 1 day old eggs, instead of 1 day old larvae for the OTS method. I thought I still had two days before emergence. I probably could have saved the grafts If I had shaken all the bees into the bottom box and used the qe on my cloake board to make sure the virgins stayed in the bottom. I got lazy and of course, hindsight is 20/20. Tommorow will be another oportunity to do it all over again.


Take a hive body and staple a queen excluder to bottom and rim the top of box with duct tape. Shake all your bees into box and smoke them down. Should be left with a queen. But you maybe surprised and find a second queen. You will know for sure you are queen-less in your graft box. Hair roller cages are great like BCS says. 
Here we will see 70's next week. Probably a month behind you. Our first pollen was yesterday. 
Good luck.


----------



## dux

I am perhaps the clumsiest beekeeper

On Sunday, I inspected one of my colonies from a package I'd installed on April 5th. The (at the time small) queen was released on the 10th, but not being able to find any eggs, I got worried and gave them a frame of eggs and larvae from another colony.

Today I went back to see how things were going and look for emergency cells. I took off the top box (of two mediums) and placed it on-end on the adjacent hive and started to go through the frames in the bottom box. I'd gotten to about the third or fourth frame an and had lifted it up to see a nice pattern of capped brood cells and larvae.

That's when the phone i'd forgotten was in my front pants pocket started vibrating. 

Now, at any other time I probably wouldn't have even noticed it, but, at least for a moment, I was convinced that a small swarm of angry bees had infiltrated my pants and was preparing to sting me where I REALLY didn't want to be stung.

I flinched

and bumped the precariously balanced hive body and had to watch helplessly as it tumbled to the ground. The bees were not happy.I carefully rolled it over and replaced the few frames that had come out and set it on the ground for a few minutes to let the displaced nurse bees find their way back up from the ground onto the combs.

After putting things all back together, I lifted a couple frames from the top box and found the queen... Hopefully things weren't too traumatic for her.


----------



## snl

We’ve all been there, done that. You got the queen, the rest will follow....


----------



## JWPalmer

Somehow I feel compelled to admit when I have made a mistake. So here is the update. Checked for eggs in the five splits I made at Easter. The walkaway split nuc and the original hive are now both queenright. The nuc with the old queen is 3 1/2 frames of capped brood and the emerged cells already have eggs in them. I am going to transfer them to a hive this weekend. Unfortunately, the mating nucs got robbed out over the past three days. There were no eggs in any of the frames and I was unable to locate the queens I had found earlier. Nothing but a small cluster of live bees, dead bees, and wax chunks everywhere. Insert your favorite expletive here. There has been plenty of forage so this was unexpected to say the least. To make matters worse, I was trying to get some capped brood out of a medium I wanted for a honey super so I set it above a QE. Even though I looked thoroughly and did not see the queen, guess which side of the QE she was on? Eggs in every cell not already filled with brood, honey, or pollen. Time for another expletive. Set that box back on the hive and moved the queen excluder up. So much for testing whether bees with brood above a QE might make a queen cell or two.


----------



## Swarmhunter

78 degrees - Finally. Put some excess honey frames on a couple of hives that are short. First dandelions on south side of buildings. Lots of pollen coming in. Did see one hive with a few drone cells. Spring is here.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Thunderstorms and rain the last 3 days. 6 1/4 inches. Rivers and creeks over their banks. My hives high enough. Weather should be better for bee work next few days. Were brooding up good last weekend. Lots of pollen coming in. Looking forward to getting into them.


----------



## JWPalmer

I have been reminded of a song from the play "Fiddler on the Roof" which goes "Wonder of wonder, miracles of miracles, God took a Daniel once again. Stood by his side and miracle of miracles, led him through the lion's den".

I went to collect the drawn frames from the mating nucs that were getting robbed out earlier this week, only to discover eggs, larvae, (and a QUEEN) in two of them. I guess getting the entrances reduced did work after all. So four for five on returned mated queens. Hallelujah!

Thought I would share the good news.


----------



## AHudd

I've had a busy week with the bees. Last Sunday I went through all my hives to check for Queens etc. and ended up combining a couple of Queen-less hives with some Queen-right but weak ones. 

The bee inspector, Danny Brewer, came to inspect Friday. It rained before he got here and rained after he left. He must be living right. I was a little apprehensive about going through the hives during such cloudy cool weather at 8:00 AM, but it went well. I only got a couple of crawlers up the pants leg. He suggested I tuck my pants into my socks like he does. Why didn't I think of that? :lookout: The bees got a clean bill of health.

One inch of rain yesterday, the sun is shining today, the weather forecast is good for the next two weeks, the Blackberries are really starting to bloom heavily and the bees are flying. I feel Blessed.

Good luck to everyone on the coming flow.
Alex


----------



## soarwitheagles

Stayed up until 1 am reading about the Nicot system again, then literally typing out the various steps and then making a daily schedule to follow. I haven't had much luck with it, but thought I would try it one more time.

Got up early to work on the bees again [never ending story once we decided to create our own bee pollination business].

Started with making more boxes, more frames, more covers, more SSB's. I had two helpers for 8 hours so that helped a lot.

Next, we decided to begin the first step on the Nicot so the wife and I created the first two cell builder colonies. Captured the queen, marked her, moved all open brood and eggs and larvae to a top box, put the queen in, and installed a queen excluder.

Next, moved all sealed brood to the bottom box with lots of honey and pollen. We did this to two colonies, hope to do two more tomorrow.

Captured two new swarms today. Moved one to the bee yard. Moved 4 more captured swarms to the bee yard today too.

Began to paint the new nucs, each with different colors in prep for the 2 frame nucs soon to come.

Smoked some fresh lamb that we butchered a few days ago. Sure is yummy.

Watched a swarm in a tree fly away [it had been there for two days]. It headed to the back forest.

Watered two acres of fava beans, one acre of clover.

Watched newly moved in turkeys do their mating routine and now looking forward to seeing lots of baby turkeys in a few weeks.

Did all the updates on an HP computer we just bought for $49.99. It is quick as heck and was a very good deal from Newegg.

Busy day for sure...


----------



## JWPalmer

After pretending that I know what I'm doing with a trap out, I hived the nuc that had the queen from hive #2. It was a 5 over 5 deep and only the backside of an upper frame was undrawn. Eight frames of bees. So, not only did they get a full size hive, they have 10 more frames to play on. Hive #4 is my overwintered nuc that got hived last month. Booming with bees. Rotated boxes to get the deep on the bottom, added a second deep, and placed a queen excluder under the medium which has a bunch of honey in it already and some brood. Oh, and I pulled a split off of it as well. Mad scramble in the house trying to locate the frames with wax foundation I had assembled months ago. I don't recall using 60 deep frames so far this year. :scratch:


----------



## Phoebee

During our January cold snap, we lost our two strongest hives, a classic "starved surrounded by honey" situation. One hive and a garage-kept nuc survived in good order.

The full hive is our best option for honey, so when we found four frames of brood in the nuc, we stole two with eggs for a mating nuc. The nuc was set up the previous week to house foragers returning to the garage when we moved the bulk of the frames to a full hive outside, so they're able to bring in the nectar that is now starting to flow. The mating nuc has been moved to a friend's house miles away. She's fascinated with bees and has neighbors with hives, so we will have better mating chances than our isolated valley.

That was two weeks ago, long enough that 3-day old eggs raised as queens could be emerging. She wondered how she could tell if virgin queens were out, and I said it was a long shot, but if she lifts the lid and listens for short kazoo toots above the background hum, that's piping, and should mean queens are present and are calling each other out for a fight.

She just reported hearing the trumpets toot!

We do have drones out now, so this is sounding promising.

The stronger hive has so much brood we added a deep super and are on swarm watch. Both queens are looking fat and sassy.


----------



## Cloverdale

What a great experience for her to hear!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Finished up another 20 brand new nucs. I may still paint them a little different on the front face to add help for the returning mated queens...


----------



## Swarmhunter

Dandelions Finally. Bees 3 weeks behind. Will be doing some splits on strong hives this week. Rain again for 3 days again. Honey frames added to weaker hives.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Took 36 (day old) larva from Nicot today. About 12 full of royal jelly the rest all to varying degrees . It was a strong cold wind.........not please nor impressed. My cell starter is weak as well as I have 4 frames of bees not hatched yet. It's experience.....right....


----------



## frogpondwarrior

Did a quick look before work today and see a min of 12 cells being drawn out. The may be more but it will have to wait until I get back tomorrow at supper time. Happy with that many. It's very early for our location but I have a few drone frames that should hatch in the next few days. There were day old eggs in all the new comb being built on the nicot frame. Will try grafting around mid week.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Found another 2 queen hive. Both were from Michael Palmers queens. I'm pretty impressed due to the fact one of the queens was the marked one I purchased summer of 2016


----------



## Dan the bee guy

A Mother's Day treat for me inspected four two pound packages today and one queen showed me how she lays her eggs.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Placed two Nicot boxes in two different colonies and then installed excellent queens. Cell builders should be ready after waiting nearly two weeks according to instructions...

Re-drilled all nuc box entry holes at the bottom of the nuc boxes. Installed mice guards. Now we need to patch up the extra hole.

Built another 60 frames.

Continued to brainstorm on ant proof colony stands using shelving angle iron. It's gonna be about 100 faster and cheaper than using the wood because I won massive amounts of metal shelving at an auction and only paid pennies. It should work out to less than $3 per stand. Will post pics later this week.

Hopefully we are getting ready to make 60+ two frame nucs. The ball is rolling and we are scrambling.

Spoke with two more large property owners with irrigated clover and alfalfa. Received permission to place lots of colonies.

This is becoming more and more exciting!


----------



## AHudd

Congratulations. It sounds like you have hit the ground running.

Alex


----------



## soarwitheagles

AHudd said:


> Congratulations. It sounds like you have hit the ground running.
> 
> Alex


Thanks Alex!

Here's a pic of the new version of beestands...minus the bearing grease ant blockers...we hope to install the bearing grease later this week.

PS What was beekeeping like before the Varroa?


----------



## elmer_fud

Today I checked my hives. Not what I was hoping for. 

I have 1 strong hive with a new queen that is gaining a lot of weight. I added another super to this hive because the super that was on there was almost full and had several capped frames. 

The Nuc that I got about 2 weeks ago is doing ok, but I expect it to pick up in a few weeks as the population starts growing. 

I think that my split that I made on april 8th might be starting to have laying workers or a bad queen. There were some spotty capped and new drone cells, and I found a cell (only 1-2, not many) with 2 eggs on the side. I also found some cells with a single egg on the bottom. When I checked this hive a week ago they did not have any larve or eggs (that I could find) but the bees were sort of acting like the queen was there. Last week there were a couple of bees with the buts in the air fanning in one spot in the hive so I assumed the queen was in there. I added a frame with some capped brood and Larve to this hive today and am going to try to get and install a new queen Monday. There may have been eggs on the frame that I added but it was hard to see in the lighting.


----------



## JWPalmer

Elmer fudd, don't be so quick to order a new queen. What you have described sounds right for a newly mated queen. When the bees were fanning last week, that was to help the queen find her way home. New queens are spotty as they get the laying thing down. You have single eggs in the bottom, a good sign. Not sure why you would have anything capped at this point.


----------



## AHudd

Yesterday, I added more honey supers, checkerboarding capped honey frames between frames of foundation.

After the hard freeze we had early Spring, it's like we are entering into a second Spring. The swarm impulse is strong. I was surprised to find so many Queen cells. Had I known I would have made some Snelgrove boards. I have been wanting to try that method of swarm control.

Alex


----------



## elmer_fud

JWPalmer said:


> New queens are spotty as they get the laying thing down. You have single eggs in the bottom, a good sign. Not sure why you would have anything capped at this point.


My concern is that all of the capped cells that I found and a lot of the larve that I found (and could tell) were drone cells. None of them were worker bees. The Larve that looked like drone cells were getting walls that were pulled up high around them. I think may have also found a queen cell which I dont think is a good sign. I will check again sunday, monday or tuesday and go from there. I was also concerned that I already had some capped cells and found a atleast 1 (there were probably more) cells with 2 eggs on the side. There are some places locally that stock queens so I was going to get a queen locally rather than having one shipped if stuff still does not look right sunday evening/monday/tuesday. 

The other reason that I am concerned is the hive that I started with for the split that I left the queen in had the queen crash on about april 25th. I found 4+ superseeded cells on april 29th and didnt find any eggs or small larve. The next week there were no Larve. When I inspected the original hive on may 16 there was a new queen with a good laying pattern, a few capped worker cells, and a lot of eggs and larve. 

I am hoping that if the split is starting to go laying working that I caught it early enough to stop it. If the split is queen less/has queen problems I am expecting I may find some queen cells on that frame that I moved over yesterday. 

On the bright side my original hive is now at 1 deep and 4 mediums and gaining about 3 lb per day when the weather is nice. I run a deep and 2 mediums for the winter brood nest. If this hive does like it did last year and keeps gain weight until mid august again I am going to have a lot of honey


----------



## JWPalmer

It FINALLY stopped raining so I was out in the beeyard this morning around 9 am. What an eye opener. Now I know why mating nucs are best left for mating queens and not for starting new hives. So the two 2 frame nucs had a frame of capped brood and some larvae but few eggs. They were running out of room too. Moved them both to 5 frame nucs. The five frame nuc started at the same time had four frames of capped brood and eggs in an outside frame the bees were still drawing out. The parent hive, also with a newly mated queen of the same batch had seven frames of brood with a massive amount of honey in the top of the dome. They got a medium super today. So while it is certainly possible to make these little baby splits, it is clear to me that brood rearing is very much a factor of the total number of bees in the box and adding nurse bees once the queen is mated and starting to lay may speed up the process. Good news is that there are enough frames in the original parent hive to make two more nucs next weekend! Probably enough in the hive that I moved the queen to to make another one from it also. In one of the splits I made last week from swarm cells, I had one properly emerged qc and three more with their sides torn open. Did not inpect the others but saw the bees bringing in loads of pollen. I guess they are getting ready for the return of their respective queens. Hopefully, I will be at fifteen hives by Memorial Day weekend with 12 having mated queens.


----------



## frogpondwarrior

first round cold,wet and windy. no matter how I tried we had 20 queen cells dry out after they started drawing them out. Larva still in bottom of cups dry as a bone. the 3 more didn't take so that just leaves us with 7 cells going in mating nukes. hope to have at least 2 dzn late next week. That will take a big bite out of my resources so may have to farm a few out. will make up a new cell starter tomorrow. then time to try again.


----------



## elmer_fud

Today I replaced the queen in that was only laying drones in one of my hives. I never did find the queen but I think I isolated her to a ball with about 2 cups of bees after a lot of work. I had to removing all of the bees from all of the frames, putting all of the frames back into the hive (in a weird stack,deep frames in a a medium with a few spacers), and put queen excluders on both ends of the hive. I separated the bees into a lot of different groups and watched for which ones had their buts in the air to find the queen. I then put the other groups of bees back on an empty box on top of the hive (above the excluder). I put the group that I think the drone laying queen was with in a nuc and will see what that nuc does. The bees in the existing hive seemed to accept the new queen in the cage after this so I think I am going to be ok. 

I am going to leave the hive alone for the next 7-10 days and hope the new queen is released and starts laying. I figure the few bees in the nuc will eventually die off or join another hive.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Finished moving 36 sealed grafted queen cells to hair rollers.

Checked 51 more colonies just for the heck of it.

Painted brand new never before used nuc covers a much lighter color.

Adjusted nuc box entrances to the lowest part of the box.

Prepared to box scrape new bee yard for new nucs.

Prepared vehicles for moving many colonies to blooming, irrigated clover and alfalfa fields.

Discovered I am suppose to be checkerboarding honey supers NOT brood [oh my, what have I done]!

Gonna post on the general bee forum asking how badly I have been screwing up my colonies by checkerboarding brood for the last two years...


----------



## JWPalmer

soarwitheagles said:


> Discovered I am suppose to be checkerboarding honey supers NOT brood [oh my, what have I done]!
> 
> Gonna post on the general bee forum asking how badly I have been screwing up my colonies by checkerboarding brood for the last two years...


Soar, I am sure someone who got their first bees at the beginning of this month will enlighten you.

You will know them by their other thread, "Why won't my bees draw out comb"?


----------



## JWPalmer

Got a chance to inspect the nucs yesterday. Neither of the queen castle nucs have eggs yet. Two of the three five frame nucs had a queen that was just starting to lay. The other five frame was a suprise. First, I had "forgotten" to put in all five frames and the inner cover. Pulled up the lid and found a beautiful piece of new comb that perfetly fit into the foundationless frame I quickly rubber banded it into, and it was full of eggs. The next three frames all had varying amounts of eggs, larvae, and CAPPED BROOD! This nuc was supposedly started with a swarm cell on May 12th. Best I can figure, hive 3 was in full swarm prep with several capped swarm cells, but had not yet swarmed. I somehow unknowingly manged to move the queen to the nuc. The new queen in hive 3 is laying well in the first super. Both deep hive bodies and the second super are filling up with honey. Rotated the second deep, which is mostly new comb this year, to position three and put the medium in position 2. I pulled another couple of frames of brood from hive two and made another split. That will be the sixth split from this hive this year, and I still expect to get around 30-40# of honey from this hive alone.


----------



## soarwitheagles

We have begun to set up various bee yards and nuc yards.

Here's our latest nuc yard. 

Hoping we did it right!


----------



## odfrank

Are you going to be selling these nucs?
Price?




soarwitheagles said:


> We have begun to set up various bee yards and nuc yards.
> 
> Here's our latest nuc yard.
> 
> Hoping we did it right!
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 40629
> View attachment 40631


----------



## soarwitheagles

odfrank said:


> Are you going to be selling these nucs?
> Price?


Hi Frank!

Well, to honest with you, I am not so sure about selling nucs. To recoup costs, we would like to sell at least some of the nucs. Not sure how much to ask! Never sold even one bee or one drop of honey to be honest with you...

We hope to make 100-200 more nucs in the next month, then see if anyone is interested in 50 nucs to recoup our material and labor costs.

What would be a good price to charge for healthy robust, strong nucs?


----------



## VickyLynn

Five frames of over-wintered bees and queen cost between $190. - $220. here in New England.


----------



## JRG13

Won't get that here in Cali.


----------



## odfrank

There are $70 nucs in SF Craigslist this week. Probably old queens off the almonds.



JRG13 said:


> Won't get that here in Cali.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Set up my first cell builder today did it Michael Palmer style. Never thought it would work but he's right again just put the frames of capped brood in the box with all the bees that were covering them and not a bit of fighting.:gh:


----------



## soarwitheagles

We sealed, loaded, and transported more colonies over to the flowering clover/alfalfa fields. I think it was our 5th load.

Leveling ground there for our ant proof bee hive stands requires the most time.

Today, will check 36 nucs that had queen cells installed 10 days ago.

Last night I picked up 20+ sheets of the used election corroplast for my trays in the SSB's. Should be enough to do 320 SSB's.

Oh, we also drilled 2 inch holes in many covers and installed quarts of sugar water due to horrific robbing at our place. Robber bees took massive amounts of honey [we had the entrances fully opened]. Learned my lesson the hard way.

Last, we installed screens in bottom entrances, reducing all entrances to 1 inch by .75".

Hope it works...


----------



## JWPalmer

Busy weekend in the apiary. Set up another hive stand, cinder bocks and 4x4s. Will hold 5- 10 frame hives. Moved a nuc to a hive. Moved my two mating nucs to 5 frame nucs and split hive #5. Made a starter with bees from hive #2 and grafted 24 larvae from hive #4. Took the remaining open brood from the grating frame and installed it in my tree trapout along with an escape cone. Finally, I bought some more wood at Lowe's and am back in nuc building mode. Cut and milled wood for 10 inner covers and 10 telescoping tops. Assembled the inner covers last night.

Bees are drawing out both the rewaxed plastic foundation and building some real pretty foundationless. There are a lot of drone sized cells on the foundationless frame. Hopefully they will use them for honey and not more drones.


----------



## JWPalmer

I waited all week for this? What a day. Checked on my grafts to confirm number of capped cells. Total is down to 12 and they are all real small. Going ro try again tomorrow. Lost the bees in my bee tree trapout. Where they went , I have no idea but they abandoned the brood frame I gave them last week. Finally, went over to one of my mentees beeyards. One hive was queenless, no brood at all and no qc's. Gave that one the brood frame I had that was for the bee tree. His other hive swarmed twice. The new queen has yet to be mated. Found about a dozen open swarm cells. Not sure how many are recent. Still a fair number of bees in the hive so I am pretty confident we can get them both to pull through.


----------



## Michael Palmer

JWPalmer said:


> I waited all week for this? What a day.


Well, sometimes S**t happens. Hang in there. Agriculture isn't a get in-get out thing. Over time, with persistence and hard work, things work out.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

M.P.,
Well said!
Steve


----------



## Levi's Bees

well today i check some hives. came across a hive that i started over 3 weeks ago. has decent amount of bees , 6 to 7 frames of honey , 2 or 3 frames of newly laid eggs , larva , very little capped brood . BUT i noticed they had NO Pollen stores at all ???????????. how can that be. never seen this before?? Has any one had this problem ?? and i would say theres at least a full deep of bees more the enough to gather honey but no pollen.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Busy bees here...

1. We began to house the last of our swarms...was a bit messy due to bees producing lots of free hanging comb...
2. Continued to set up system for larger scale queen raising.
3. Ordered one incubator.
4. Ordered the parts to make a much larger incubator.
5. Finished covers, ssbs, and boxes.
6. Began spraying all wood with Behr's best primer [darn, it is 106F today and I am sweating like a pig]!
7. Designed a way to cage sealed queen cells on the JZ cups. Pics soon to come!
8. A darn paper wasp/yellow jacket flew inside my right nostril and stung me! It hurt like heck but the good new is, it only stung me once!
9. Played around with variations of Randy Oliver's mason jar soldered feeders. Tried a .22LR and hope to pick up some 1/8" copper tubing and try that too later today.
10. Opened all corroplast sticky bottom boards to provide ventilation because it will be 106F later today.

PS No one came to my paint party except for me!


----------



## JWPalmer

I did not get the memo advertising "free beer, bring paint brush". At least you're using a power sprayer, I have to paint all my stuff by hand. My incubator is a glass front merchandising refrigerator with a heating unit controlled by a thermostat. Not very sophisticated but the fridge part still works. When I am done with queens for the year, I can unplug the heater and plug the compressor back in. The bottom shelf has the heater and a pan of water with washcloths for humidity. The top shelf has the plywood rollercage holder I mentioned yesterday. The shot glass has honey in it to feed the newly emerged queens.


----------



## soarwitheagles

JWPalmer said:


> I did not get the memo advertising "free beer, bring paint brush". At least you're using a power sprayer, I have to paint all my stuff by hand. My incubator is a glass front merchandising refrigerator with a heating unit controlled by a thermostat. Not very sophisticated but the fridge part still works. When I am done with queens for the year, I can unplug the heater and plug the compressor back in. The bottom shelf has the heater and a pan of water with washcloths for humidity. The top shelf has the plywood rollercage holder I mentioned yesterday. The shot glass has honey in it to feed the newly emerged queens.
> 
> View attachment 41517
> View attachment 41519


JW,

Who ya tryin' to fool?

That shot glass has Jose Cuervo Tequila...I could even smell it from here!

Cheers!

Nice incubator by the way!

I am preparing to build a somewhat large incubator using this item:

Temperature Controller Bayite BTC201 Pre-Wired Digital Outlet Thermostat, 2 Stage Heating and Cooling Mode, 110V - 240V 10A

And I just put to use the dry cleaner racks I won at the auction!


----------



## JWPalmer

That is a pretty clever way to hold the migratory tops. 

At some point I am going to buy a smaller heater and wire in the fan so it runs all the time. The heater in there now only runs about 15 seconds before it reaches temp and cuts off again. Obviously it isnt a serious problem since most of my poor grafts actually emerged. Good luck with yours. The thermostat is probably the most expensive part!
Now, I'm gonna grab a few limes and have a chat with my good friend Jose'.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Queen cells will go into the mating nucs today. good luck to all the new queens.


----------



## JWPalmer

Today was moving day for the grafts I started Sunday a week ago. 7 cells were moved to mating nucs with one solid frame of mixed brood and bees per nuc. Of course, it was raining so the bees were very upset at the intrusions. I did not have the time to get into one of the hives so three cells are in the incubator. I hope to get them moved tomorrow since I dont seem to have much success keeping the virgin queens alive for any length of time. Keeping the fingeres crossed that I didn't accidentally move a queen into one of the nucs. I was having to look the frames over pretty quick in overcast skies. A couple of nucs from May are looking real good. May throw a med nuc super on them for room and to get some medium frames drawn out.


----------



## JWPalmer

Well, I guess one of my larvae was a tad older than the rest. Came home today at 6:30 and found an emerged queen in the roller cage. Grabbed the two cells and the princess and headed out to the bee yard. Made two more mating nucs, direct releasing the emerged queen into one of them. We will see how that goes. The third cell I put above the queen excluder in the finishing hive. This hive had made a supercedure cell a week or so ago, which I put in a nuc, and probably needed to be requeened anyhow. She is last year's swarm queen so may be 2 years old already.

I think the flow is over here. The nucs are taking a pint per day of syrup and the production hives are getting testy with no apparent increase in the amount of honey. Will be pulling supers July 4th and putting the feeders on. The hive I did not get to yesterday is packed with bees. Two 10 frame deeps and two mediums, one full of brood. I will probably pull two nucs and do a fly back split with them. New frames are supposed to be here Tuesday. Splitting season is about done here. Now it is time to take care of what I have already split, plus the splits from the parent hive after the fly back produces queen cells. If evey split I have so far makes it, it will put me around 26. Realistically though, I don't expect them all to survive and will be happy with 20 going into fall.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

13 days after grafting and had to take a peek in a mating nuc the queen has emerged and seen her walking on the comb. now waiting for the mating flights and egg laying . hope the other 21 are doing just as well.


----------



## JWPalmer

Ok, it is the official start of robbing season here in Richmond. I went outside to feed the mating nucs and queen castles. All the pint jars were empty. Strange as there is only a frame of bees in each. Barely made it to the end of the nuc line when I noticed lots of activity at the entrances of the hives I just refilled. Uh oh. Pulling honey supers on the forth and will be feeding all the hives with hivetop feeders so hopefully it will stop soon. 
I spot checked a few of the grafted cells and saw that they had emerged properly. Did not see the queens in any that I checked. The queen cell that went into the queenright hive above an excluder was gone, as in empty plastic cup and qc protector. Put a shim with an upper entrance on that hive in case she survived.
Saw some moss growing around the entrance to a swarm trap I had set up in a tree. Nope. Bees. Crap. I haven't been checking this trap for over a month. No telling how long they have been there or even which hive they came from. Been meaning to get it down and pull the frames for other hives and splits. Shot that idea down.I will give them another week and then put them in a nuc and take them to the outyard downtown. Probably better forage in the city anyhow.


----------



## marymg

Today I stood and watched the bees fly in and out of the hive. Four days ago I had two beekeepers over to check out my hive since I have only been a beekeeper for 8 weeks. Between the two they had 60 years of experience so I felt pretty blessed to hear their opinions of how my bees are getting along. They agreed that I did have some chilled brood but they felt things were on the upswing. They recommended that I try not to disturb the bees so much since I was checking on them almost daily. They said to recheck in a month but we compromised on three weeks. This is going to be difficult and I need to remember what JWPalmer said in the previous post: _"Thankfully, the bees are smarter than I am. They are doing well, in spite of my efforts to help them."_


----------



## soarwitheagles

Drove around with JRG a couple of days ago looking for more places to place colonies. Hunting for the flowers and the flow!

Began to modify all .22LR syrup feeders due to the mouth being too large of a diameter for it work right [we were watching quart jars of syrup drain in front of our eyes]. Mod entails soldering a piece of 3/16" brake-line tubing inside the .22LR brass shell. Sure made a lot of extra work. I should have field tested the .22LR feeders before mass production!

Beginning a new batch of brand new nuc boxes and covers. Aiming for another 100 of em'.

Experimenting with syrup and pollen sub. Both are giving wonderful results and I think this is unusual as it is still early summer.

Ordered some of the brass inserts Randy Oliver suggested.

Trying to figure a way to easily make 100 lbs of pollen sub per set up. It is beginning to appear much easier to simply purchase pollen sub from Keith Jarred. Hope he will sell us 1,000 lbs.

Gonna whack some more weeds at a farm with irrigated pastures tomorrow so we can place another 60 colonies.

No time for fireworks at all...


----------



## elmer_fud

Found and marked my 2 unmarked queens. Almost lost one trying to find her, found her on a rock away from the hive where I set a box to try and isolate the queen. Oops. She is now back in the hive and hopefully they are happy again. 

Did a sugar roll on my hive that has been having problems (2 months without a good queen, population problems) an found way to many mites so I started treating it. The other hive (that is strong) seemed fine when I sugar rolled it last week.


----------



## elmer_fud

I accidentally killed my queen in my strong hive  I got her taking apart boxes 3 and 4


----------



## soarwitheagles

elmer_fud said:


> I accidentally killed my queen in my strong hive  I got her taking apart boxes 3 and 4
> View attachment 42059


Elmer,

So sorry to hear the bad news! Wow, may I ask, what are you using to catch your queens?

Two weeks ago we had the wonderful experience of seeing a new virgin queen fly away immediately after releasing her into the top of a frame on a nuc! What a horrible feeling!

Here's what's been going on in our bee yard:

Trying to mass produce as many nuc boxes and covers as possible.
Been doing massive feeding of syrup and pollen sub on every colony we can. Seeing wonderful bee number increase results.
Grafted another 120 queen cells, 90 on the 9th, 30 on the 11th. Many are being built up. Appears to be highly successful!
Gathering material to make many more ant proof beehive stands before next Wed. Using a combo of wood and metal now.
Preparing myself mentally and emotionally for making up many new nucs and then install many sealed queen cells.

How ya gonna replace your queen Elmer?


----------



## elmer_fud

soarwitheagles said:


> Elmer,
> 
> How ya gonna replace your queen Elmer?


Hi Soar with Eagles,

Right now my plan for replacing my queen is:

Plan A - there are still eggs and larve in the now queen less hive so I am going to wait about a week for the hive to make queen cells. I am then going to go thru the hives and split the frames with queen cells between 2-3 nucs and boxes. I still have drones and drone cells in 2 of my hives and there are 2 other people with hives in the area so hopefully I get atleast 1 good queen from this

Plan B - Buy a queen locally

Plan C - combine this hive with my weak hive that has a good queen now. The week hive was queenless for about 2 months then it started having mite problems. 


I only have 3 hives right now (I had 1 last year) so I have not had a queen fly off. I used a 1 handed queen catcher to catch and mark my queens. It took a long time to find all 3 queens, but I eventually did.


----------



## Cloverdale

At this time of year I would combine them with the weak hive.


----------



## Knisely

This year's been one that I've started in earnest to try to raise queens that'll be heading strong side-by-side 4 over 4 nucs going into the winter and be ready to 'grab a gear' next spring. 

I decided that the time to get going on this was as the nectar flow tailed off here in south-central CT, at the end of June and the beginning of July. I established a 9 frame colony of frames of capped brood in mid June (I'm a weekend warrior, and this job thing that pays the bills really gets in the way of beekeeping at times.) and started feeding them carbohydrates & protein so that the bees that emerged would be well-nourished and ready to raise strong queens. The following weekend, the queen cells that had been started were cut out, and grafting from one of my best hives into EZ cups with a Chinese tool got underway. I did the grafting sitting out at my picnic table, and didn't keep the grafted larvae moist enough (at least, that's why I think my yield was only about 20%). Those cells got put into nucs that were made the following weekend (June 30th/July 1st), and I'm unsure whether or not the queens emerged successfully or whether they got chewed up by the bees in the nucs. I can imagine them growling: "Grrr. Take us away from our queen? You want us to accept this queen cell?" This is what we think of your queen cell!" as they begin to tear into it. I also grafted some more cells that weekend from an II queen that expresses VSH.

I haven't been able to see any activity from those first queens, making me think that the queens didn't emerge successfully (they weren't yet at the stage where the wax around the tip of the cap got scraped back by the nurse bees), or they didn't make it back from their mating flight. I was hoping to see eggs and milk larvae this weekend, but didn't see any in any of those hives. Sigh. I grafted another round of larvae that weekend and kept them moist with wet paper towels while grafting. 

All of the cells I grafted from the II queen were pulled the following weekend and put above a queen excluder into a 'holding' colony for another couple days of ripening before they were to go into additional nucs. When my son checked them on Tuesday to move them to the nucs, all had emerged, and he couldn't recognize any virgin queens among the bees above the queen excluder. I couldn't either, when I went home this past weekend. All of the queen cells had emerged from the tip (as opposed to being chewed open), and I suspect the last queen crawling from above the excluder was able to wriggle through the excluder and go below it to make that colony her own. I saw milk larvae, but no clear eggs in a one-time pass through that deep super, so perhaps she's out being eaten while on her mating flight, or perhaps she'll make it back and establish a new colony with that VSH bloodline.

I had much better success (about 67%) with my 3rd go-round of grafting, and those queen cells are now going into nucs that my son and I made up yesterday. We have high hopes for getting about 15 nucs established. I am loath to count those chickens before they hatch, however, given that there are so many steps where something can go wrong, and based on my experience so far, so many of them are ones that I'm learning what not to do (for the next time, and the time after that, and the time after that). 

I hope that when I go and check nucs this following weekend, the ones that got queen cells 2 weeks ago will have some eggs and early milk brood in most of them. The most difficult thing for me to accept is the time that it takes between placing a queen cell and seeing the results with a (hopefully good) brood pattern.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Good job Knisely!

Hope your queen raising endeavors continue to experience great success!

Busy few days here...

Scrambling to get everything ready for the new queens...ran into some more challenges...and learned a lot from them!

1. Emptied all 5 frame nucs by transferring all of these colonies into the full 10 frame deep box. Lots of work and challenging due to near 100F weather. Got it done anyway.
2. Continued to play the juggling act of keeping the incubator at 90-93F and RH at 70-85%. Finally was able to keep it within those parameters.
3. Marked all colonies with either weak queens or no queens. Used blue painters tape to keep it simple.
4. Loaded the newly emptied nuc boxes and then raced over to our beeyard and installed a frame or two or three of brood, honey, eggs.
5. Race back home to the nuc yard and unloaded all nucs.
6. Carefully began installing what was suppose to be sealed queen cells only to discover a 10+% of queens either emerging or already emerged! Ouch! A day early!
7. Did my best to install the emerged queens into colonies that had been queenless for over a week, installed the sealed queens in the new made up nucs.

What was suppose to be 2 hours turned into 8 straight hours with some of it in super hot temps. We sweat like piggies. Felt sick afterwards even though I stayed well hydrated.

Main lesson learned: don't wait until 24 hours before predicted emergence date, instead, install sealed queens 48-72 hours before predicted emergence date!

Last, we hope to graft and make more nucs in two weeks...this should take us up over 200 colonies. Not bad considering we started with 20 in the spring!

Up, up, and away!

PS Another great lesson: Always make many more queens than you need. Then you can give them away and put a smile on other beeks faces~!


----------



## elmer_fud

elmer_fud said:


> I accidentally killed my queen in my strong hive  I got her taking apart boxes 3 and 4


yesterday I went thru this hive and split up the frames with queen cells. I found 3 frames with queen cells with a total of 10-15 cells. I created 2 nucs with the queen cells so hopefully one of the queens succeeds in mating. 









I think I still have enough drones to make this work. This is one of the frames from one of my other hives (I have 3 hives)


----------



## soarwitheagles

Pumping out new nuc boxes as fast as we can.

Still grafting queen cells every one to two weeks.

Non-stop work. 

Received a call to remove a monster swarm. Never seen such a large build up in such a small window of time. We would like to move this swarm to one of our bee yards and then definitely graft from this queen. Hoping we catch her with most of her bees...

This weekend will be busy...make up large number of nucs on Sat am. Sat pm. move the swarm. Sun am move all new queen cups to incubator. Next week, install ready to emerge sealed queen cups!


----------



## elmer_fud

This explains why I had so much trouble getting honey out of thre frames, the extractor, and almost everything else


----------



## JWPalmer

Wow. Little dry there in CO?


----------



## Michael Palmer

Extracted the first ton of 2018 honey. Beautiful white honey with mild flavor. 30 more to go after EAS.


----------



## gww

Michael P.
It sounds like this year is back to normal for you compared to last year.
Cheers
gww


----------



## elmer_fud

JWPalmer said:


> Wow. Little dry there in CO?


Just a bit. I am not sure if it is the fact that we are almost in a desert, that the honey sat on the hive for 2 months, or that I put in in the fridge that caused it to get so dry. I checked the meter with oil like the instructions said and it was within about 1/2% so I figured it was close enough for what I wanted. Tomorrow afternoon the relative humidity is supposed to drop to about 20% during the heat of the day.


----------



## JWPalmer

How long was it in the fridge? I am trying the fridge route to dry out some already extracted honey. It appears to be working but the surface area of the open mason jar is pretty small. 

Most people think of mountains when talking about CO. I know that half the state is high plains and semi-arid. Considering all the rain we have been getting here, that climate is sounding better all the time


----------



## cconnell

My tasks today:
1) reduced a large hive (3 deeps) to two deeps and removed 10 frames: two had capped honey on one side of frame; 2 of undrawn foundation; t6 with an array of drawn or partial drawn empty comb; scattered honey; 1 with small amount of pollen. There was a lot of commotion from the bees nut they've all settled down and gone home. I just hope I didn't damage/kill the queen. 

2) Added the two frames of honey to each side of a double nuc that I just split. The donor hive was so weak they had very little honey to put in the nucs.

3) added mated queens to the nucs.

4) distributed the other frames among several newer hives and a nuc that can benefit from drawn comb, a little honey, etc.


----------



## elmer_fud

JWPalmer said:


> How long was it in the fridge?


I put 3 supers in the fridge for about 2 weeks. I put a large cookie sheet down and stacked the boxes on them. It is my garage fridge so it does not get a lot of traffic. 



> Most people think of mountains when talking about CO. I know that half the state is high plains and semi-arid


This is correct. I think it is more than half is high plains and semi-arid. Denver and all of the big cities are actually on the plains/semi arid places. 

To make it sound a bit nicer (other than being expensive) I dont think we have many problems with hive beetles and wax moths here. Houses and land anywhere near the bigger cities (with technical jobs, I am an engineer) is getting really expensive though


----------



## Viking Bees

Checked the hive, pulled the two medium boxes and then pulled out a frame on the top brood box, and there, pretty as you please was my young queen. My first sighting of a queen, this being my first year. My packet queen left with a swarm so this Royal Lady is home grown and newly mated. I immediately panicked, How was I going to get her back in the hive without injury? I have never taken so much time trying to slide a frame into a hive. Feeling pretty pleased with myself I closed things up and moved to my experiment hive. This one was the result of moving a frame of three queen cells into a box and setting it up with a couple of frames of workers. I was not expecting much, but to my surprise and delight there was another queen, brood cells and the beginnings of another honest hive. Two queens spotted in less than 30 minutes, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself so I went and bought a two frame extractor.


----------



## JWPalmer

Found another use for the queen catcher today. It also works well as a hornet catcher. This pretty lady was buzzing around the light on my ceiling fan inside the house. No idea how she got in.

Well darn, the manage attachements site is down so I can't post the photo I took. Take my word for it, hornets are BIG.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Made up another shipload of nucs and installed two sealed queen cells per nuc. We were sweating like pigs even working at 9pm! We were in the mid to high 90's most of the week. Now I see temps will drop into the 70's and 80's later this week. Appears as if the hot part of our season is hereby over...

Been doing massive feeding too. Half gallon of sugar syrup twice a week per colony and about 2 lbs of pollen sub patties per colony.

Will apply Apivar later this week to all colonies and then call it a year...most of the hard work is finally done.

Only thing left now is to continue to feed pollen sub every couple of weeks and maybe some sugar bricks if the sweets go low.

Oh, and hopefully haul lots of colonies to the almonds in January!


----------



## Oldtimer

This cheeky thing almost got my lunch


----------



## Gypsi

Today in the apiary I checked on the bees that I worked on Sunday and added fondant on top of the inner cover of the 2 best provisioned hives. Looks like our rains are going to continue. 8.5 inches since Sunday evening.

Sunday I winterized. I found a queen in my little robbed out nuc with a handful of bees, enough handful for a medium nuc, I found my 3 box nuc stuffed with bees and needing a 4th, so stole their deep, put them on the bottom of the robbed nuc, with newspaper between and shut the front door, gave the top box fondant and syrup. 

My big 2 box hive (well big for me) was also stuffed with bees but needed a new bottom board that didn't have a back door on it, so I shifted them over, setting the medium super aside (it was heavy and full) and moving the deep first. I stole 2 frames from the medium and added a frame of comb to each outside wall, to give a bit of room until the brood in the center of the upper box hatched.... (besides a bit of fall honey is always nice)

and my outyard hive in a single deep had a good quantity of bees but only one frame of nectar/honey as that yard had no flow, so I moved them home on Friday and fondant over their inner cover, and syrup on the drilled opening on a summer migratory cover, with a medium box and telescoping lid over all. 

There's big wild hive nearby that's been robbing so all entrances are down quite small and I'm working on building population up. I'm gonna have to open feed that wild bunch next spring, near THEM, and get them to pop some swarms. They took out 4 or 5 of my small cutout hives this summer. (I thought it was my big one)








I treated every hive for mites last week, glad that's over, my ventilator was fairly miserable.


----------



## JWPalmer

Of all the stupid rookie mistakes...I got home early today, great, I can feed and give the second of this round's OAV treatments. So I feed the hives syrup, refill the pollen feeder, and treat all sixteen hives. Now it is time to sit back and enjoy watching the bees which are very active at about 55°F. Lots of activity at one of my strong hives. Too much activity. Looked a little closer and realized I had not gotten the tele top properly set back on the feeder. Oops. I was totally unprepared for the hundreds of bees swimming and drowning in the freshly filled feeder. Spent about 10 minutes scooping them out with the hive tool and dumping them and syrup on the top of an adjacent hive. Got all the bees out and closed up the top. Bees do a pretty good job of cleaning each other up and I was suprised that after another half hour or so, most of the bees were walking around although still wet with syrup. Casualty count may end up being as low as 50 out of at least 400. Really hated putting syrup on top of a hive but had little choice at this time. Robbing however, did not appear to be an issue at the nearby hives.


----------



## JWPalmer

It appears the bees are slowing way down on syrup consumption. Fed everyone Thursday evening. Today, only two nucs had emptied their pint mason jars. The other seven looked barely touched. Same with the big hives. All seven had plenty left from the 1/2 gallon they each got the other day. Checked the extended forecast and we won't break 60°F for at least the next two weeks. Temps tonight at 27°F. It will be our first freeze of the winter. Guess the majority of the 100# of sugar I just bought today will be fed as sugar bricks instead of syrup. Time to get the feeding shims on and make sure the hives are configured for winter.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Didn't do anything with bees today. My wife says it feels good but weird.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Put half of my hives inside today. temps are down in the teens at night 20s during the day and its not going to get warmer in the next few weeks. Need to keep a close eye on them some were light on food Im hope putting them in the garage will buffer the cold that we get, they can go through a lot of food just to keep warm when we get those -20s or even colder. 11 five gallon pails of syrup and some were still light. the fall flow was a big bust in central Wisconsin.


----------



## Cloverdale

Oldtimer said:


> This cheeky thing almost got my lunch


He actually looks like he’s got the upper hand 7ntil he looked at the camera!


----------



## Charlie B

Still 60-65 degrees here. Finally pulled my second round of fennel honey supers. Puts wets back on for pending Eucalyptus flow! It’s seems all I ever do is extract!


----------



## odfrank

Charlie B said:


> Still 60-65 degrees here. Finally pulled my second round of fennel honey supers. Puts wets back on for pending Eucalyptus flow! It’s seems all I ever do is extract!


Since you didn't medicate you might get a break in all that extracting when you have to bring in robbed out dead hives.


----------



## Charlie B

odfrank said:


> Since you didn't medicate you might get a break in all that extracting when you have to bring in robbed out dead hives.


Thanks Dad!


----------



## Cloverdale

Charlie B said:


> Still 60-65 degrees here. Finally pulled my second round of fennel honey supers. Puts wets back on for pending Eucalyptus flow! It’s seems all I ever do is extract!


Same here in our area, we worked our butts off extracting honey; gave me a new respect for those that don’t have equipment to help extract and have good flows and lots of hives. I’m trying to stop complaining because I have a feeling next year our flow might be minimal. Had a terrible time with varroa this year too. As of now though, it was a great exhausting season, hives wrapped, some snow flurries, and hoping the last treatment got those mites. Deb


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Feeding done over a month ago, last week queen excluders under the hive (= mouse guard) and tar papers around (used the same as last winter). 
Pictures taken at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, getting dark...

next beekeeping work in March...


----------



## Charlie B

Juhani Lunden said:


> Feeding done over a month ago, last week queen excluders under the hive (= mouse guard) and tar papers around (used the same as last winter).
> Pictures taken at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, getting dark...
> 
> next beekeeping work in March...


Hey Juhani,

Where are you in Finland and what flows are there?


----------



## Juhani Lunden

Ruovesi, "Southern Central Finland" I suppose 

dandelion, starting end of May
forest berries
rawsberry 
clovers
oil seed rape
fireweed July
heather, end of July early August (some odd year when warm and rain)


----------



## Charlie B

Looks like a beautiful area with good fishing, very nice Juhani!!


----------



## JWPalmer

Miserable, cold, rainy day today. Stopped by the big box store and picked up 2-1"×8"×8' southern yellow pine boards for a total of $26.79. Ripped it all up into 1-1/2" strips and made 10 nuc feeding shims and 2 10-frame shims. That makes it just about $2.25 per shim, not counting nails, glue, and my time. My nucs are all still light on stores with no time left to build. I will put the shims in this weekend with some sugar brick under the mason jar feeders. Any dripage from the mason jars should get caught by the sugar and make the sugar easier for the bees to eat. Virginia will still have a few days over the next month when temps should be in the mid 60s, so the jar feeders stay on until mid Dec. Then nothing but sugar bricks for a month. Around mid Jan. I start feeding for the spring build up but we will have to see what kind of winter we get.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

had a hundred pounds of sugar that i picked up a few weeks ago finally got it all on top of the hives. most had nice large clusters and if they all make it through the winter I'll be making a lot of boxes to put them in. Next spring should be a busy one for me.


----------



## Tim KS

Today in the apiary it's colder than (fill in the blank). 27º with a "breeze" from the NW at 35-40mph with gust to 50mph ....with snow....sideways.


----------



## Charlie B

Oliver is hot on my trail trying to outsell me in fennel honey. He even designed a new label. Should I give him marketing advice???


----------



## odfrank

Charlie B said:


> Oliver is hot on my trail trying to outsell me in fennel honey. He even designed a new label. Should I give him marketing advice???


YES PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!

I desperately need your 8 years of experience sage advice to help me after my 48 years of experience. Please tell the crowd how my advice to you on how to capture fennel honey is what got you a crop. I missed out on some because I chose to end of summer medicate instead. 

If I knew you were going to go worldwide with my picture I would have sent one in focus.


----------



## Oldtimer

Wow I like that label. I'm just about to have a new label designed myself, just for sales within New Zealand. The honey could also be described as "wild", as it is a bush honey from a remote area. Hope you OK if I show that label to my designer for some inspiration!


----------



## Michael Palmer

Wild Bush, eh OT. 

How'r things?


----------



## JWPalmer

Today turned out to be pretty nice, mid 60s. Too bad I had a service call that ate up my afternoon. Did have the opportunity to do an upper hive inspection on five of the big hives and three nucs before it got dark. Inspected hives all had good numbers of bees and most had adequate stores. Put on feeding shims with a chunk of sugar brick and added a little to the syrup feeders. Next nice day will be Dec.1st. Think I will play hookie from work and get the rest of the hives inspected and do an OAV treatment.

Nice label.


----------



## Oldtimer

Michael Palmer said:


> Wild Bush, eh OT.
> 
> How'r things?


Going OK Michael, this season the bees have got far more honey on so far than they did the last 2 seasons, I'm expecting an excellent crop, except for one particular area that has performed poorly third time running I'll be pulling all hives out of there once the honey is off. We have also just had a week of solid rain, so that's going to keep the soil moist for longer into summer and hopefully do good things. 

Remember on your New Zealand trip, the cliffs where we went to see the gannets breeding colony? I'm gradually accumulating bee sites around that area and it's looking very productive, guess honey from there could be called "wild" LOL.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

https://youtu.be/oBfMtBSSKxI

Getting into a breeder colony and fixing to provap the colonies.


----------



## JWPalmer

Flying weather today, near 60°F. Checked on stores and found a few hives had eaten the better part of their sugar bricks. Some mason jar feeders were empty, some half full. All the Styrofoam feeders were empty which reinforces my belief that the heat from the hive is retained better and allows the bees to keep feeding longer. Added the rest of the sugar bricks to the hives and made more for later. So far I am 16/16. Even the two dink nucs are still full of bees and are on three frames each.


----------



## Charlie B

Eucalyptus in bloom. They’re stuffing supers already. I have to extract again???


----------



## soarwitheagles

Charlie, that must be the red gum eucs. It has been blooming here along 99 for several weeks. I see some of our bees near 5 returning with rear pollen sacs full of red pollen. Some are also returning with white pollen.

Hoping for a much better [as in 100%] bloom of our ******** this May. Last year was only 2-3 percent, year before, only 10%. JRG feels they are stressed due to drought. 5 years ago, it was a 100% bloom and was totally outrageous for 5-6 weeks.

Let's see, here we are...

1. Adding the sugar bricks/empty comb loaded with sugar selectively to colonies that need it.
2. Built, leveled, installed many more of the ant proof stands [colonies without stands ALL have massive numbers of ants in them].
3. Adding pollen sub repeatedly to all colonies since September.
4. Working on large numbers of risers so we can install thicker sugar bricks.
5. Just finished making a 16 ft. workbench today with special lighting...getting ready for mass production of boxes and frames for spring time.
6. Keep cutting, splitting, and selling the eucalyptus firewood.
7. Contacting honeybee brokers in an attempt to find a place nearby to place our colonies in the almonds in late January.

Busy, busy bees here...

PS Hey Charlie, how did you like the el cheapo way we make those grease caps now?


----------



## Charlie B

Soar,

I like what you did with the cheaper grease cups. 

You know Soar, I think we can contribute our success in part to our deligence in using ant proof hive stands. Don’t you agree?


----------



## odfrank

Charlie B said:


> Eucalyptus in bloom. They’re stuffing supers already. I have to extract again???/QUOTE]
> 
> Charlie your are an incredible beekeeper. Your bees filling supers on the euc bloom. Down here, just half an hour away, the weather is foggy, cold, rainy and overcast. The bees only get out an hour or two or three a day if that and we ain't getting nuttin.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Charlie B said:


> Soar,
> 
> I like what you did with the cheaper grease cups.
> 
> You know Soar, I think we can contribute our success in part to our deligence in using ant proof hive stands. Don’t you agree?


Charlie, I totally agree. I hope to take some pics of colonies that had no ant proof stands...massive numbers of ants...and the ants definitely causing losses.

I attribute a large degree of the success to people like JRG, Old Timer, Michael Bush, Charlie, and others here. We would have been totally lost and probably would have lost most colonies if it weren't for the help we have received here.

Thanks again everyone for taking the time to share good advice and helpful ideas that have so wonderfully contributed to our bee success!


----------



## Charlie B

Soar, don’t forget Ollie!!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Charlie B said:


> Soar, don’t forget Ollie!!


Ollie is overly sensitive and gets his feelings hurt too easily...so I did not include him on the list....:no:


----------



## Tim KS

..if yesterday is close enough.....I check the hive to see how the sugar is holding out. I had to add a bit to about 10 or 12....the rest were still surviving in good shape. :applause:


----------



## soarwitheagles

Tim KS said:


> ..if yesterday is close enough.....I check the hive to see how the sugar is holding out. I had to add a bit to about 10 or 12....the rest were still surviving in good shape. :applause:


May I ask, what are your average lows and highs temps?


----------



## soarwitheagles

Fed most colonies Mann Lake Pollen Sub and some of Lauri's sugar mix recipe. Purchased two commercial dehydrators. Will start pumping out the sugar bricks in the next few days.

Building many risers using 1"x2"x8' from Home Depo...that way we can fix half inch to one inch thick bricks in each colony.


----------



## odfrank

soarwitheagles said:


> Fed most colonies Mann Lake Pollen Sub and some of Lauri's sugar mix recipe. Purchased two commercial dehydrators. Will start pumping out the sugar bricks in the next few days. Building many risers using 1"x2"x8' from Home Depo...that way we can fix half inch to one inch thick bricks in each colony.


I question if all that feeding is required in a Sacramento eucalyptus grove? You only have like 40 colonies? My 40 in San Mateo are surrounded with eucalyptus bloom and getting a few hours flight time most days.


----------



## VickyLynn

It was a flying day today. Occupants of all 16 of my hives were out and about in the middle of the day when the sun was shining on them. I checked stores and ventilation in 10 hives - of those ten, only four had bees below the top deep; the others were all in the top. I gave all of them sugar bricks, as much for me as for them. It seems early to me to have so many bees up top.


----------



## JWPalmer

65°F this afternoon. Topped off the feeders on all 16 hives with rhe last of the 2:1 syrup. From now on it will be 1:1 going in. Checked the sugar bricks and all are being consumed at a pretty good rate. Did full inspections on 4 of the nucs, hoping to see eggs. Nothing yet but saw plenty of polished cells. Noted that my weakest nuc has practically no stored honey and still has a good three frames of bees. By comparison, the other three had three to four deeps solid capped and some that was new. One nuc, a double deep, was solid bees on nine of the frames. Looks like they will be getting a full sized hive very early in the season.The pollen feeder is still very active but I am not seeing much in the combs I checked. Helps to confirm my belief that adult bees do eat pollen, even when there is no brood. Getting ready to go back out and give them their last OAV treatment this year.

Done. Happy bees.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Lifted lids today to see if any were eating in the sugar that i put on them so far only a couple of nucs have made a hole to the top of the sugar. I do have them in the garage so they don't have any wind and the seem to be eating a lot less food. but i'm going to have a mess of bees to sweep up. the two small nucs that I have wintering in the closet are doing fine too I checked the temp in there and it's staying at 42 those clusters are soft ball size and I don't think they would of made it in the garage. So far it's 17 of 17 still alive.


----------



## JWPalmer

Good job Dan. The bees in the closet thing had me a little worried but it looks like it is working out.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

JWPalmer said:


> Good job Dan. The bees in the closet thing had me a little worried but it looks like it is working out.


Thanks JW
I have changed a lot of what i do with the bees this year I'll put up a list on what i changed this year when I know how it turns out this spring.


----------



## Cloverdale

VickyLynn said:


> It was a flying day today. Occupants of all 16 of my hives were out and about in the middle of the day when the sun was shining on them. I checked stores and ventilation in 10 hives - of those ten, only four had bees below the top deep; the others were all in the top. I gave all of them sugar bricks, as much for me as for them. It seems early to me to have so many bees up top.


Most of mine are at the top and I think it’s too early also. I use a sugar shim with upper entrance so they’ve been up there for about a month or so. Next year I won’t put the shims on so early.


----------



## mgolden

Cloverdale said:


> Most of mine are at the top and I think it’s too early also. I use a sugar shim with upper entrance so they’ve been up there for about a month or so. Next year I won’t put the shims on so early.


Nothing to worry about. My bees spend a good part of the winter milling about in the feed shim and consuming the sugar. In really cold temps they cluster tight and move lower in the two broods. Replenish the sugar blocks and they will always be on carbohydrates. Warmer?, fresh air?? Upper ventilation and modest hive venting seems to work very well.

I do not use a plastic sheet over the sugar blocks. There was a thread a year ago and discussion was that this may extend the life of the bees as bees will cluster and there will higher CO2 in the cluster. I don't experience hive loss with the looser cluster.


----------



## soarwitheagles

odfrank said:


> I question if all that feeding is required in a Sacramento eucalyptus grove? You only have like 40 colonies? My 40 in San Mateo are surrounded with eucalyptus bloom and getting a few hours flight time most days.


Thanks for your concern Frank! In June, we were up past 150 colonies...but we have dropped in numbers since then...mainly due to poor feeding on our part. If I knew what I know now, we would be well over 500 colonies in this year alone...live and learn I suppose...

I believe most eucalyptus groves in your area Frank are the red gum. Here, we are surrounded by millions of ******** and it usually does not bloom until May. The last two years, this area only bloomed 3% last year, 5-7% the year before. JRG believes the groves here are stressed due to the drought. 5 years ago, we had an outrageous 100% bloom.

Strange as it sounds, for some unknown reason, some of the blue gums just started to bloom this week. I have never seen that here. The red gums along highway 99 have been non-stop blooming since November and show no signs of letting up. But one of our bee yards is too far from 99.

I did a careful inspection of the forest today and noticed the trees are preparing for a massive bloom...stronger than anything we have seen in the last 4 years. I kinda have mixed feelings because we were hoping the eucs would bloom in April/May when we could take full advantage of the pollen. If these blue gums bloom in Jan/Feb then our bees would miss out due to them being relocated to the almond orchards...

Today in the apiary...we again fed both sugar and pollen to every colony...trying to build up even more for the coming almond tree bloom...

Also continuing to pump out as many risers as possible so we can add much larger amounts of sugar and pollen to each colony.

Pics soon to come...

Here's the pics...you can actually see the cotton ball like bloom in the one pic. That pic is from a neighbor a mile from us...


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Just barely got my bee truck and a full load of unassembled equipment unstuck before a flash flood went thru the location. It would have been up to the bench of the seat deep atleast. Hopefully 2019 will be less fun but I somehow doubt it!

Happy New Year!


----------



## Cloverdale

mgolden said:


> Nothing to worry about. My bees spend a good part of the winter milling about in the feed shim and consuming the sugar. In really cold temps they cluster tight and move lower in the two broods. Replenish the sugar blocks and they will always be on carbohydrates. Warmer?, fresh air?? Upper ventilation and modest hive venting seems to work very well.
> 
> I do not use a plastic sheet over the sugar blocks. There was a thread a year ago and discussion was that this may extend the life of the bees as bees will cluster and there will higher CO2 in the cluster. I don't experience hive loss with the looser cluster.


I don’t use sugar blocks, the 2” shim is packed with sugar with the area around the entrance void of sugar. I never heard of using plastic sheeting over the blocks though. I also wrap and put insulation on 3 sides and in the outer cover, so our bees have that looser cluster also with good ventilation. Today, the temperature outside at 6:00 am is 49*! Usually where I am it’s cold and snowy. I have already put Winter Patties in some of the larger hives. Thanks for the support. May our bees have a good new year!  Deb


----------



## mgolden

Cloverdale, some of the reasoning comes from Scientific Beekeeping

http://scientificbeekeeping.com/old-bees-cold-bees-no-bees-part-1/

O2 ages bees. Bees supposedly age slower in a cluster where CO2 levels are higher. Suggestion is to try to encourage clustering via a lower interior hive temp and a cover on sugar blocks. ie a piece of feed sack.

I have never fussed much with this.


----------



## Tim KS

soarwitheagles said:


> May I ask, what are your average lows and highs temps?


My weather app says that the average high & low temps are 45 & 24 for Dec. Jan. drops to 44 & 22, but there are some wider swings in temp like today....the low last night was around 10º with a forecast high of 23º. Next week's temp forecast is for highs in the low 50's....lows around 30º.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Tim KS said:


> My weather app says that the average high & low temps are 45 & 24 for Dec. Jan. drops to 44 & 22, but there are some wider swings in temp like today....the low last night was around 10º with a forecast high of 23º. Next week's temp forecast is for highs in the low 50's....lows around 30º.


Tim,

Thanks for the info. Dang, I never thought Kansas got that cold...perhaps I watched the Wizard of Oz too many times... never did see Dorthy with a jacket or sweater on!

Here, we have been averaging highs of 60's and lows of 45's.

Today, back to the grind...

More risers...


----------



## JWPalmer

After putting brood builder patties and more sugar on the nucs today, I went to retrieve a swarm trap that I had left out at a farm. Yikes! What a cornucopia of creepy crawlies. Ants, (which is why I had left it for so long), roaches, stink bugs, wasps, spiders, and even a dead tree frog. Fortunantly, the frame of drawn comb was still in perfect condition so nothing wasted but a little hot water and some elbow grease. This coming year I really need to be better about getting these things picked up on time.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Completed another workbench keeping ergonomics in mind. Kinda nice to sit down now as we assemble boxes, frames, risers, etc.

Installed new 20 amp electrical runs for better electro for our compressors.

Made up more batches of sugar bricks and pollen sub.

Continued to call and email people in our attempt to find almond growers to place our bees.


----------



## little_john

Another unseasonably warm January day - all colonies flying - tomorrow afternoon is forecast to be shirt-sleeve weather. If history repeats itself, this scenario will continue until late Feb (by which time stores will have been exhausted) - then we'll get hit with some Siberian weather. 

Spent the day making a prototype multi-configuration hive base.
LJ


----------



## GregB

Us too had another unnecessarily warm day on Saturday (+8C and sunny).
Back to more normal 0C today and should be dropping down fast to -10C and more (this includes freezing rain and icy roads).
Not good.

My "southern" bees did enjoy it though and went for a pooping flight, just as they always do given a chance.
My "northern" bees stayed put down and did not even make much noises (how we like it here).

I checked the smallest nuc I have left - there were no signs of life and that got me worried.
Had to actually pry a frame apart to find them well and alive, and just really, really quiet.
Good insulation and low temperature heating helps to keep them asleep.


----------



## mischief

What is a multi configuration hive base?


----------



## little_john

mischief said:


> What is a multi configuration hive base?


It's a base which can have a solid floor, an Open Mesh Floor (SBB), or a slatted rack - or any combination of these. So, you could have an OMF over a solid floor, a slatted rack over a mesh floor ... and so on - any permutation you like, which can be changed in seconds. Everything slides in and out, so there's no box-lifting and no colony disturbance. 

The idea started-off as being an Easy-Clean floor - a solid floor which could slide out for cleaning-off the crud without any need to dismantle the stack first. And it just morphed from there onwards ...

The icing on the cake for me is that with the mesh removed and a solid floor in place, there's then plenty of room to install a non-inverting band-heater vapouriser of which I now have several 

Whether this idea has any mileage in it or not, only time will tell - it's just one of those ideas I woke up with recently and felt compelled to make and try out.
LJ


----------



## mischief

That sounds really interesting...and multi functional.
I hope you let us know how it goes.


----------



## Charlie B

Little John,

I would love to see pics or a video showing how it works.


----------



## little_john

Hi guys - thanks for the interest, which has surprised me a little. Do be aware that this is only a prototype - the idea could always fall flat on it's face. It works ok in the workshop - but hasn't yet had the all-important 'Bee-Test'. 

Right now the base has been made using pallet wood - so it'll look pretty rough to the expert woodworkers on here. I'll take a few photographs later today before applying some wood filler and a lick of paint, so that I can then post some 'before and after' photographs in a new thread in the Equipment/Hardware Section.

It's really quite a simple idea of all horizontal surfaces being in the form of 'slides'. Not really suitable for use in SHB territory I'd suggest, due to the gaps which of necessity exist at the edges of those slides.
'best
LJ


----------



## mischief

Recycling is good!
Looking forward to your pics.


----------



## Charlie B

Little John,

You chaps across the pond are keen on new and different ways to do things.


----------



## gnor

Cleaned the snow and ice off the entrances today. One of the Hawaiian colonies is still tossing out corpses, but they were a big colony to begin with, they are healthy, and have lots of stores. They can figure the rest out themselves. The local girls don't show their faces unless it's a lot warmer. Starting the Winter building program.


----------



## JWPalmer

The temps are projected to get into the teens tonight and it has been a week or two since I checked on the girls. Outside temps this evening were low 40s so what the heck, let's do it. All 16 are still alive and all the nucs still had sugar bricks and pollen patty. Some were just about done with the 1/3# patties I put in earlier. Two nucs and 1 hive had emptied their syrup feeders so they got topped off. One of the medium strength nucs seemed a little light on bees but the weak ones were still kicking. None of them were happy when I lifted the inner covers. Did not mess with the 10 frame hives as they are all heavy, except for the one with the empty feeder. Small areas of wax debris and larva poop on many of the bottom boards so hopefully I have some brooding activity taking place. The pollen feeding station was empty so I will need to fill it back up before we get some warmer flying weather next week. Still dreaming of Spring.

John


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Mid January checked the bees and seen they ate a lot of the sugar bricks also noticed that they moved down into the combs are they starting to raise some brood. The next time I add sugar bricks I might give them a pollen patty.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Worked the bees for most of the day and kinda feel tired...been a long time since we worked an entire day on them...

Much to our delight we discovered massive amounts of fresh brood, queens laying like crazy. Quite different than last year! I think it is due to higher temps this January.

Discovered drones and fresh drone cells...another surprise for us here because last year did not see drones until March if I remember correctly.

Forager bees are bringing in white pollen...the rear sacs are bulging with fresh pollen. Our ******** eucalyptus trees have begun to bloom 4-5 months early this year and I have no clue why.

Moved many, many 5 frame nucs that were bursting at the seams...transferred every one of them into the full 10 frame boxes to avoid swarming...

Added sugar bricks and pollen sub even though I do not think they really need it.

Massive numbers of bees out foraging...not cleansing flights, but foraging. Never seen honeybees so active in January ever.

Preparing all colonies for the almond orchards...

So much work, but it sure is a lot of fun!

Ordered the Testor's Florescent Green Paint in preparation for 2019 queen rearing...

Oh, watched the video, "More than honey." I watched the section describing parts of China where pesticide over use has killed literally every honeybee. Now they must use human hands to pollinate everything. That kinda scared the heck out of me...I also felt ticked off!


----------



## Charlie B

Charlie B said:


> Little John,
> 
> I would love to see pics or a video showing how it works.


Hey Little John,

:waiting:


----------



## soarwitheagles

Charlie B said:


> Hey Little John,
> 
> :waiting:


Me too!


----------



## little_john

Charlie B said:


> Hey Little John,
> 
> :waiting:


https://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?351483-A-Multi-Configuration-Base

Been there for over a week. Maybe I should have posted a link earlier ?

Nothing much to get excited about, but I hope somebody finds this of interest (#) - or provides stimulation to experiment with their own ideas. The MkII will be a lot more compact (screw-ups being a common feature of prototyping  )
LJ

(#) could be one possible solution for those who suffer from a build-up of dead bees on the bottom-board in winter ?


----------



## soarwitheagles

gnor said:


> Cleaned the snow and ice off the entrances today. One of the Hawaiian colonies is still tossing out corpses, but they were a big colony to begin with, they are healthy, and have lots of stores. They can figure the rest out themselves. The local girls don't show their faces unless it's a lot warmer. Starting the Winter building program.


Snow and Ice? What is that? Never seen it here before!

:scratch:


----------



## KevinWI

Started two weeks ago organizing and hosting an Upper Midwest Beekeeping Video Chat to talk wintering bees in the UMW.....very cool to talk with other beeks in UMW.

Then proceeded to design and build 6 German hive bottom boxes. Cannot wait to try them out. 

Built a hive handle jig for the radial arm saw...then discovered my radial arm saw doesn't raise high enough even with a smaller blade...so had to remove the table.

Cut wood for six 4 frame nuc boxes and four 5 frame nuc boxes.
Cut handles into all the nuc box sides including the German hive bottom boxes

Cut and painted four 10 frame hive box covers and bottom boards and two 5 frame top/bottoms.

Made up extra 13 lb candy board.
Checked on my hives yesterday to check on candy boards I put on three weeks ago. All is good. Decent cluster and only went through half of candy in 3 weeks. 
Checked hive top temperature while it was -10°F....got a reading of 90.7°F at the top of the cluster.

Looking forward to hosting another UMWB video chat tonight.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Spent the weekend loading more sugar bricks and pollen sub. Bees are demolishing both at extraordinary rates. Never seen them eat so much so fast. All colonies building up super fast. Queen laying like machine gunners. Warm enough to switch this week back to the sugar syrup top feeders. Super early symptoms of spring. Weatherman says maybe no rain for another couple of weeks. Wow, beekeepers dream...


----------



## little_john

Today is very cold, but with a strong sun. Decided to do my weekly fondant check a day early, as snow is forecast for tomorrow.

'Tis just as well I did, as one colony had nearly emptied it's 'fuel-gauge' jar, which I much prefer to use rather than crystal ball gazing in view of our erratic winter temperatures. Here's what I found (with replacement jar next to the empty one):



But in view of how early this has occurred - with still a good 6 weeks to go - I decided to give them 'double bubble' over the brood frames, leaving the empty jar at the back to be cleared.



Not overly surprised to be seeing this in view of the very warm winter we've had so far - so I'll be checking these every 3 days from now on - and as long as they keep scoffing the fondant, I'll keep supplying it. 
LJ


----------



## cconnell

Winter has been relatively mild after a frigid start. It's been unseasonably warm here the last couple of days so I checked hives two days ago. All 8 colonies look good, even the weakest one, much to my surprise. I gave them sugar blocks around Christmas: three have finished them, two are in process, and the rest haven't touched them. Yesterday my strongest was very active with foragers and orientation flights. Some bees were bringing in pale orange pollen--willow I think. Though I've looked down into the hives and separated boxes to get a quick look, it still hasn't been warm enough to take frames out. Maybe later this week.

My worry is that we will get real winter coming back soon. This has been the pattern the last couple of years, so I'm hoping they haven't been building up too much or too quickly.

I've been putting my new table saw to good use making bottom boards, inner covers, and outer covers (20 of each), nuc boxes and double nuc setups and some 3-frame mating boxes. 

Making more sugar blocks tonight or Wednesday night.

It's going to be a busy spring, and I'm happy about that.


----------



## JWPalmer

I made it home in time to feed the nucs and do 1 hive inspection before darkness set in. Several nucs had finished their pint mason jar of 1:1 and four of the full sized hives had empty feeders. The big hives are all heavy still so they are good but most of the sugar in the nucs is gone, just little pieces left. The nuc I inspected is the swarm I caught in the fall. Originally a very small cluster, they now fully cover three frames. This is a good thing as those three frames all have capped brood and larvae on them. The center frame was about half laid. Woohoo! Even saw her majesty strutting around on the next frame over. And, they are already starting to draw out new wax on some of the partial combs I put in back in October. No drone cells in this hive but I did not expect to see any since this is still a young colony. Friday should get to mid 70's and Saturday we are expecting snow. Don'tcha just love crazy weather?


----------



## JWPalmer

The weatherman lied, really? Forecast today was 70°F and sunshine, woke up to mid 30s and rain. But, by 14:00, it did turn nice and so out I went to the beeyard. For anyone who has done this and is laughing, I knew how the girls would react but time waits for no man. If you are a new beekeeper, do not inspect your hives right after it stops raining. The bees are going to be at their worst behavior.

Anyhow, did full inspections on 4 production hives, made two walk away splits, and moved one of the double nucs to a 10 frame box. Also inspected two of my other nucs. One has a very small patch of brood and the nuc next to it has two frames half brood, half capped syrup and is rapidy drawing and laying into a foundationless frame that was untouched a few weeks ago. My blue hive, the strongest, had lots of drone brood and a few drones walking around on the frames. I hope to start grafting next week. Is it Spring yet?


----------



## Scitfrostbite

"If you are a new beekeeper, do not inspect your hives right after it stops raining. The bees are going to be at their worst behavior." I can absolutely second that. Worst sting to my face ever was right after it stopped raining, bees came charging out of the hive as soon as the cover was cracked. lol


----------



## elmer_fud

This weekend I compiled all of the data that I have from a data logger on one of my hives. 

Weight over about 2 years















Humidity (inside and outside the hive)
















I am splitting the pictures between 2 posts


----------



## elmer_fud

Temperatures





























Some notes looking at the data: 

I should have added another super or 2 during the summer of 2018. I stopped adding suppers because the hive was 6 boxes high and almost 6 feet at the top of the stack
 I added a quilt box in april/may 2018 after lots of mold and condensation problems. The humidity in the hive looked better (not always maxed out) after this
 some of the up down zigzags in the weight were when I was feeding syrup. 
 the temperature in the hive center is a thermistor embeded in the middle of a frame. This thermistor has been flaky, but you can see at some points the frame is kept at about 90


----------



## cconnell

Elmer, that's a nice collection of information. Any ideas about how you will use it?

JW, splits already? Man it's still cold here and rain and snow predicted for the next 10 days. Winter decided to arrive in February.


----------



## cconnell

After 3 + weeks of bad weather we reached close to 45 degrees and went to look at the bees yard to seer if I needed to add more sugar blocks. 1 hive was a dead out. Something happened since my last visit which was January 31. I was surprised, as the hive seemed all right three weeks ago. They hadn't taken any of the sugar blocks, but I figured that was because they had plenty of honey still in the hive. No brood at all. Many bees on the bottom board. Bees on the comn were all over the hive, though. After very mild winter temperatures it got cold very cold fairly quickly in February. I wonder if they were in fact too weak to make a cluster? This was one of two weak hives. Ironically the weakest hive in November seems to be going really well.

On the other hand the other 7 hives look good. The two strongest hives are very active, and the double nuc box looks full. Still another couple of weeks of cold temperatures and rain and snow. I'm hoping by the middle to end of March things will warm up enough to start working with the bees.

Finished cutting and gluing the frames for outer covers today; now a thein masonite top and cover with sheet aluminum. Started gluing and nailing inner covers together after getting all the cutting done. Next I have to cut and assemble some double nuc hives and then start in on frames and hive boxes. I made a new, larger jig, so now I can turn out 12 deeps or 16 mediums in about an hour and 10 minutes. I should be able to make 80-100 frames in an hour, too.


----------



## dddillon

Scitfrostbite said:


> "If you are a new beekeeper, do not inspect your hives right after it stops raining. The bees are going to be at their worst behavior." I can absolutely second that. Worst sting to my face ever was right after it stopped raining, bees came charging out of the hive as soon as the cover was cracked. lol


.....and I thought it was only me who keeps ignoring the lessons of of the past. Notice I said 'ignored', not forgotten 

I went out yesterday to fill top feeders since its been raining for days and days and the production hive and two 5x5 nucs are heavy with bees, I was afraid of them going hungry. It was still drizzling and my stupid brain convinced me that it would be ok to just lift the top, and quickly swap out the quart jar feeders...... hahahhahah. I'm never listening to that voice again, no matter how may times it triple dog dares me. Well, I was stupid, not insane, as I didn't have a smoker going, but at least I still had a couple brain cells firing since I took the 5 seconds to strap on a veil. They didn't even wait for me to knock on the box a few times to let them know I was there (lol) before streaming out of the top box like a tornado and strait to my face..... hahaha, I have magic shield and you cant get through  I guess the drizzel was a good thing for me as I just backed off about 10 feed and they quickly re-treated to the sanctuary of hive. I snuck back up to the hive, and quickly put the cover on... Plan B was to go get the smoker and new jacket/veil and do the job right, which worked much better. I smoked the hell out of the hive and got the new jar in there.... Boy, the buzz in there sounded like a squadron of bomber jets 

I'm sure it will be at least 3 weeks before this lesson has softened enough in my mind and I'll repeat it again..... doh!


----------



## elmer_fud

cconnell said:


> Elmer, that's a nice collection of information. Any ideas about how you will use it?


I am not sure how I am going to use it long term. Right now it is taking up space on my hard drive (about 3.5 gigs worth) and is interesting. I should slow down the logger from sampling 4 times a minute, but I have not yet. I found someone else who made a beehive data logger (https://makezine.com/projects/bees-sensors-monitor-hive-health/) and it seemed interesting so I made my own before getting a hive. The humidity sensor and mold has shown my hive was to humid and led to me deciding to add quilt boxes. 

On the monthly graphs you can see the bees come and leave in the morning/evening. 








It also seems like the bees have brood on the temperature sensor, then it hatches out, and the cycle repeats. I have seen several times where the temperature in a frame is warm for a while (15+ days) then it dips for a few days, then it warms back up. The temperature sensor in the frame is the purple data in the graphs. 
















edit: fixing a description since I was not paying enough attention last night.


----------



## Cloverdale

elmerfud “It also seems like the bees have moved brood on and off of the temperature sensor in a frame a few times. This thermistor has gone out of whack a few times though, so I am not terribly confident in the later readings. I think the data was ok in the graph below. The temperature sensor in the frame is the purple data in the graphs. ”

I don’t think the bees move brood around; they might consume it but not move it. Deb


----------



## elmer_fud

Cloverdale said:


> I don’t think the bees move brood around; they might consume it but not move it. Deb


I should have worded that better. In the graph I think one round hatched. another was laid, and the cycle was repeated. My bad, I was not paying enough attention last night. I think the lower temperatures are when there were no eggs or something like that because the dips are about 16-18 days apart. I have seen spaced out dips in temperature in a frame a few times. 

I have also seen times where I think they were drying honey on/near the temperature probe because it was cooler then other places (top of hive). I am sort of thinking that the evaporation of the water was causing the frame to cool down a bit. I dont have anything to prove it was evaporation and not the probe going out of whack though.


----------



## JWPalmer

Today finally got above 50 around 14:00 and I was dying to see how the walk away splits that I made last week were doing. Looks like one of them has made a qc, yet uncapped, and was consuming pollen patty and syrup. The other must have had a lot of foragers in it as there were only a couple hundred bees in there. Lots of chilled brood too. This was the stronger broodwise of the two. Oh well. I combined the bees with the other nuc. My #4 hive that swarmed last year around Oct. and got one of my last two queens is absolutely packed with bees. Plenty of honey in the top deep and 7 of the 10 frames in the lower box have capped brood, and a lot of it. Got the girls riled up as I was cleaning up some burr comb with drone brood so I will go back tomorrow with a third deep and do a little checkerboarding to help prevent swarming. Stuck one open frame in the #3 position before I closed it back up.

Inspected the weak nucs also. The weakest had a nice small brood pattern going, about what I expected. The other had brood on three frames and is closer to needing a hive than I thought. Almost messed up really bad while doing this inspection. Seems the queen was on the first frame, no brood and only a little drawn comb. Unbeknownst to me, she fell to the ground and was crawling on my leg. Well, I went to brush away the annoying bee and realized just which bee I almost crushed. I was able to pick her up and put her back into the nuc without further incident. Whew!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Working day and night here...

We keep feeding all colonies in the almond orchards due to repeated atmospheric storms coming though...kinda feel sorry for all almond growers because no joke, one storm after another and the bees have had very, very little flight time. Good news for us is nearly every colony keeps growing in bee numbers.

Indoor work consists of making 5 frame nuc boxes and tops, assembling deep frames with plastic foundation, building brand new deep boxes. We are trying to get far ahead of the game...last year we had far more bees than boxes and had to turn bees away. 

We keep looking for at least a two day period of dry weather so we can set up for airless spraying outside. We would like to prime and apply final 1 and final 2 all in one day, but weather is not cooperating.

Everything is super saturated. I heard February rainfall broke all know written records in this area. Drought got its butt kicked, so that is good.

Preparing colonies today for Cloakeboard queen raising. Hope to start mass producing queens and nucs and package bees this month.

Hey CConnell, where are you in Plumas county and how's the weather been there?

Soar


----------



## cconnell

Soaringwitheagles, I'm in Quincy. Since the beginning of February, the weather has been mostly rain or snow with only a few "dry" days and fewer with sun. At the beginning of this week there was almost 2 feet of snow on the ground but that has mostly melted due to the warmer rains this week. There rain or snow predicted for every day of the next 7-10 days. At least temperatures have moderated, but the first half of February was unusually cold for this time of year--10 F one morning at my house, so a few degrees colder than that in the bee yard. I don''t think it's hit 50F at all in the last 30 days, so I haven't been able to check the bees more than opening the lid and looking at sugar blocks. In January they were bringing in pollen, willow I think. I anxious to know if there was an early build up and the good or bad results now. 

Sounds like the almonds have been keeping you busy. Tough year for the farmers, though.


----------



## soarwitheagles

cconnell said:


> Soaringwitheagles, I'm in Quincy. Since the beginning of February, the weather has been mostly rain or snow with only a few "dry" days and fewer with sun. At the beginning of this week there was almost 2 feet of snow on the ground but that has mostly melted due to the warmer rains this week. There rain or snow predicted for every day of the next 7-10 days. At least temperatures have moderated, but the first half of February was unusually cold for this time of year--10 F one morning at my house, so a few degrees colder than that in the bee yard. I don''t think it's hit 50F at all in the last 30 days, so I haven't been able to check the bees more than opening the lid and looking at sugar blocks. In January they were bringing in pollen, willow I think. I anxious to know if there was an early build up and the good or bad results now.
> 
> Sounds like the almonds have been keeping you busy. Tough year for the farmers, though.


Connell,

Thanks for your reply! I did some reading and wow, 3400 ft. elevation. So that is why you receive the snow! You are north east of Oreville. It appears to be a beautiful place to live. Quaint little town for sure!

One of my workers told me his dream is to eventually move to Quincy. After reading more about Quincy, now I will be able to connect better with him.

You do receive a lot of rain!

Many moons ago I lived for 6 years in the Santa Cruz Mountains, up near the top, near Summit Road. In January 1982, we received 24 inches of rain in 24 hours. It was insane and I will never forget it. I suppose the clouds drop significantly more water when they must go up and over mountains... 

Hope all is well with your honeybees! Here, I noticed a number of colonies had completely demolished [again] all the pollen sub and sugar bricks. So yesterday we fed again. Hope to get out to the almond orchards to feed those colonies tomorrow because we have a short break in the rain.

BTW, I noticed today two colonies that were singles and just finished filling a second double deep completely. We added a new deep super yesterday to these colonies. I wanted to turn them into Cloakeboard queen cell builders but got too busy. Hope to do it this week and get a jump on the queen raising and nuc building.

Due these two queens traits [excellent over wintering qualities, excellent layers, excellent gatherers, etc.] I plan on using their eggs/larvae too. Most of our colonies came from swarms and/or swarm splits last year.

Have a good one!


----------



## cconnell

Santa Cruz! My home town, believe it or not. My family moved there in 1965 when I was very young and then after 1982 I started living there on and off for awhile. I remember that storm. That was the year of the Love Creek mudslide. And the San Lorenzo taking out half of the Soquel Ave bridge. 

I hope to make up some pollen sub patties later this week; I thought I would be feeding by now, but as long as I can start around mid-march I'll be in good shape for the main flow. My last brief check the hives look pretty good, looking from the top, so I'm excited to see what's going on. I've got two hives that will be my production hives, but their queens are strong, and have overwintered very well. I will be trying my hand at grafting this spring if all goes well. 

Good luck!


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Checked my Splits I made on the 1st. The bees don't seem like they are happy about the cold but they are snug as a bug in a beebox


----------



## JWPalmer

It will be dropping back down into the teens tonight so I went to feed the bees and check on the remaining split. Good sized cluster of bees and all the previously capped brood has emerged. Found two additional qc's, now all capped so I feel pretty good about this one. Assuming the queens have not emerged by Sat., I may take one qc and put it in a styrofoam mating nuc along with a handful of bees or two. Weather will start being seasonable next week.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Temp almost got to 20 today so I got on my garage roof and shoveled off 3 feet of snow. More snow coming this weekend. Oh the bees are in the garage they will need some more sugar blocks so I'll make them up Friday to put them on Saturday.


----------



## soarwitheagles

After repeated "atmospheric rivers," we're finally getting some sunshine. I read somewhere we got more rain in Feburary than ever in recorded history. I do know our Sierra snowpack doubled in 30 days. 

I feel sorry for the almond growers because during the heaviest almond blooms, bees did not fly due to cold and large rain storms...

Today, finally got in some really nice painting of new boxes and tops and bottoms...then it rained right after applying the darn primer...but it was only a sprinkle, so I think we are ok.

I grafted many many queen cells on Saturday and hope to take a peek tomorrow. Never grafted this early in the season, but thought I would try to get an early jump on the queen raising. Hope to graft new queen cells every 5 days...for the next three months.

Here's a pic of the paint yard! We primed today and hope to apply bus yellow [Home Depot $30 per 5 gal whoops paint] tomorrow!

Picked up large numbers of pre-made frames from Mann Lake and took my friend JRG out to lunch. Always a pleasure to spend quality time with him!


----------



## JWPalmer

Beutiful weather today but a bad day in the apiary.

For starters, my weak nuc that I had nursed through winter and was building up, succumbed to the worst thing possible for a beekeeper, no not AFB, STARVATION. Empty comb, empty feeder, bad bee daddy. Then, my fly back split is not working out like I thought. I carefully transferred the frame with the queen into the new box but now I have five almost capped qc's. The split off hive does not have any qc's, but I did not see eggs either. There was plenty of fresh hatched brood that would have been eggs on Sunday when I made the split. Maybe I accidentally killed her, maybe she's in the other box(unlikely), or maybe...? Anyhow, I am going to cut out three of the five cells and put them in mini mating nucs this weekend after they are capped. If it turns out there is no queen in the split half, I will use that hive as a cell starter for grafting. It is packed with nurse bees.

All the hives are starting to get light so I started to lay the syrup to them and added patties where necessary. Done complaining. Most of the production hives are bursting with bees and brood looks good. I am having my first state inspection tomorrow so I should know how my bees are doing compared to others in my immediate area


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Bees bringing pollen in from dawn till dusk man that is a welcome sight. Orientation flight going on like crazy bees everywhere. I was stuck building more equipment inside bah!


----------



## soarwitheagles

JWPalmer said:


> Beutiful weather today but a bad day in the apiary.
> 
> For starters, my weak nuc that I had nursed through winter and was building up, succumbed to the worst thing possible for a beekeeper, no not AFB, STARVATION. Empty comb, empty feeder, bad bee daddy. Then, my fly back split is not working out like I thought. I carefully transferred the frame with the queen into the new box but now I have five almost capped qc's. The split off hive does not have any qc's, but I did not see eggs either. There was plenty of fresh hatched brood that would have been eggs on Sunday when I made the split. Maybe I accidentally killed her, maybe she's in the other box(unlikely), or maybe...? Anyhow, I am going to cut out three of the five cells and put them in mini mating nucs this weekend after they are capped. If it turns out there is no queen in the split half, I will use that hive as a cell starter for grafting. It is packed with nurse bees.
> 
> All the hives are starting to get light so I started to lay the syrup to them and added patties where necessary. Done complaining. Most of the production hives are bursting with bees and brood looks good. I am having my first state inspection tomorrow so I should know how my bees are doing compared to others in my immediate area


JW,

State inspection? Mandatory or voluntary?


----------



## JWPalmer

State inspection is required only if you are selling bees or hive components with comb. VA requires a certificate of health to accompany each such sale. I passed with flying colors. 0 mites, no brood diseases.
So an update on my missing queen, hmmm, ended up in the box that was supposed to be queenless. Very strange because the first frame I put into the fly back box was the one with her on it. Oh well, it will turn out almost as well. Both boxes are drawing comb rapidly. My hives are the first the inspector has seen this year with new frames drawn. I guess that is a good thing. I have about 300 that need it (200 mediums on Acorn and 100 deep foundationless). Still thinking about grafting this weekend. Will post photos of my efforts.


----------



## dddillon

Couple pics and vid of my main hive and what is currently blooming around here in Richmond Va on my farm.

This hive has been sucking down 1/2 gallon of syrup a day. It is a deep and 2 mediums coming out of winter and is quite heavy just to tilt up from the back. I think I'm done feeding this one and will put on a super soon... all three boxes are stuffed with bees.

The red maples and white pear trees don't really show that well in the dark pictures, but they are really starting to fill out and the bees are bringing in lots of pollen now.


----------



## odfrank

Sounds like you've got it well primed to pitch a beautiful swarm. 



dddillon said:


> Couple pics and vid of my main hive and what is currently blooming around here in Richmond Va on my farm.
> 
> This hive has been sucking down 1/2 gallon of syrup a day. It is a deep and 2 mediums coming out of winter and is quite heavy just to tilt up from the back. I think I'm done feeding this one and will put on a super soon... all three boxes are stuffed with bees.
> 
> The red maples and white pear trees don't really show that well in the dark pictures, but they are really starting to fill out and the bees are bringing in lots of pollen now.
> 
> View attachment 46693
> 
> 
> View attachment 46695
> 
> 
> View attachment 46697
> 
> 
> View attachment 46699
> 
> 
> View attachment 46701


----------



## althea

Dddilion where in richmond about are ya?


----------



## JWPalmer

Don, Ollie is right, I think it is time to split Sun and put Mercury and Venus in 10 frame equipment. Maybe put those supers on to get drawn out. I threw some of my new Acorn mediums in already and the bees really took to them.
Althea, Don lives in the Montpelier area. We are in the same bee club.


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Caught a swarm today earliest for us by far!


----------



## Alex Madsen

The bees were going crazy yesterday bringing in pollen. It was 65 degrees. They all took cleansing flights and apparently dive bombed my wife's car. Cats approve the activity.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Got out today with my shovel and got a spot 6 feet by 20 cleared of TWO FEET of snow so I could get my bee out of the garage. Forecast for 50 by Friday pollen patties are ready to go on. We need a mild month of weather this winter here was hard.


----------



## Tim KS

The last two days have been in the 60's and the bees are really hauling in pollen. Of the 23 colonies I have, there were three that were not bringing pollen, so I dug into them today. Two were queenless and had dwindled to just a handful of bees and the other, I did find a patch of open brood. I added a couple of frames of honey from the other two, and hopefully they will survive.

I was getting a big head thinking that I was going to get through the winter without any losses, but a 10-15% loss if bearable. Hopefully they can survive the next few weeks without upping the percentage of loss.  They should make it if the weather cooperate just a little.:thumbsup:


----------



## Cloverdale

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Caught a swarm today earliest for us by far!


That is unbelievable!


----------



## zando

first few days of above freezing temperatures around Calgary, Alberta. We had one of the coldest February's on record... I still have more than a foot of snow in the yard, but the bees are inpatient and do cleansing flights ...
Question - after 6 weeks of super cold weather, and now a few days of just above freezing, what should I expect for spring brood in the hives? I haven;t opened them yet to have a detailed look, I just looked at one that had lots of bees, but I did not see brood. The queen is taking a break? was too cold? when should I see the first spring brood?


----------



## elmer_fud

I went thru the hive that I thought died and it was dead.  

It was still alive in January but it died sometime between then and now. I think the cluster got stuck during a cold spell, was unable to move, and starved. There were still 1.5+ mediums of honey on the hive and I removed about 2 quarts of dead bees (mostly off frames) from the hive. I treated (with apivar) in the fall for mites and the hive was small but seemed to be doing ok after treating. There were a lot of bees with their heads in cells and butts sticking out when I cleaned it out today.


----------



## dddillon

JWPalmer said:


> Don, Ollie is right, I think it is time to split Sun and put Mercury and Venus in 10 frame equipment. Maybe put those supers on to get drawn out. I threw some of my new Acorn mediums in already and the bees really took to them.
> Althea, Don lives in the Montpelier area. We are in the same bee club.


Funny you say that. I did split out of the 10 frame hive into a 10 frame medium on that day. I added extra bees from the 5x5 nucs to pack it out. The nucs were loaded and I wasn't ready to rebox them yet. I wanted to make sure the new split had plenty of bees to cover the brood as there are still cold nights forecaster from that day (mar 16 til next Thurs). After that the nights are staying above the 40s and 50s so that is when I'll re-box the nucs into 10 frames. A bit of a gamble for the split as I hope it's not too early for them to raise a new queen in the new box.

I put the new box between the nucs, and shook bees from the nuc into the new hive. A few days later there were still lots of nurse bees and foragers going into the new box, so that worked well, and the brood was covered well. fingers crossed. I'll check the hive tomorrow to see if there are any queen cells.

I'm going to split the nucs (each one has a 5 frame deep and med) into (1) 10 from medium and (1) 10 frame deep, and add supers on both. Doing this on Thursday, as the night temps are looking much more favorable.

The big hive has a deep and medium brood and a super on it from winter, and it is now full of sugar honey from post winter feeding. I'm going remove that and put on an empty super for real honey, and split those sugar frames between the other three (new split and the nuc updates). I'll mark these frames as sugar so they don't get harvested in the future, and might be able to use them as future split resource food.

... wordy response, but this helped me plan it out by writing it out


----------



## soarwitheagles

We prepared and loaded another 30 nuc boxes with frames. Later today we will add one frame of brood, one frame of honey to each nuc, then tomorrow install the sealed queen cells. Queen cells are scheduled to emerge Thursday and/or Friday, but we often see em' hatch a day early.

Almond orchard owner called and informed us the almond bloom is over and now we can remove all the colonies. Hope to move them this weekend weather permitting.

Hope to do our 3rd grafting of the year today or tomorrow.

Queen builder colonies are cranking out super healthy queen cells as fast as we can graft...so all good news for now...

Weather has been unusual. 22 inches of rain [127% of average] and over 50 feet of snow in our nearby Sierra Nevada mountains...

Fava beans are in full bloom at our ranch...and the eucalyptus trees are blooming too...


----------



## dddillon

odfrank said:


> Sounds like you've got it well primed to pitch a beautiful swarm.


Well, you called that one right, ODFrank. Major swarm set up.

Main hive is chockablock full of capped and uncapped beautiful queen cells 

pulled the queen and some frames and set this as a fly back split.
the rest of the box is going to be split into 2 or 3 nucs in the next day or two.
lots of cells in there to get them going on their way.

The 2 overwintered 5x5 nucs are getting upgraded to 10x boxes and will be nominated as the honey production boxes.

wasn't the exact plan I had, but the bee's didn't ask me, it will still work


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Yesterday it finally got back up to the 50s but it was overcast and windy. this morning we have some sunshine guess I'll put the patties on today. Still have a foot of snow in the yard


----------



## Dan the bee guy

it's been over two weeks and in between we had a good snow storm, finally looked in one hive the one I had put in the closet and we have eggs, it was boosted with bees before the snow storm and given two frames of honey right now it's in a four frame box and doing well. It also had some bees with pollen on their legs. Looks like I'm starting this year with eight hives. 
And the snow is still here but it's melting.


----------



## alf1960

I made my first ever split today from my survivor colony. I gave them two frames of brood, a partial frame of brood and honey , a full frame of honey and a foundation comb in a 5 frame nuc with a caged queen. I had a few drones and saw my first pollen. It was bright yellow. This is fun!


----------



## soarwitheagles

Feeling kind of exhausted...honeybees keeping us super busy due to spring growth...

Boxed 6 swarms last week.

Building massive numbers of tops, bottom, and boxes.

Keep making more swarm traps and hanging them.

Created 16 new nucs today, will install q/c tomorrow.

Getting everything ready for 100+ grafts on a weekly basis and making many, many, many more nucs.

Transferred 19 five frame nucs with freshly mated queens into large deeps. We experienced a 19/20 success rate with the first graft of the season.

Second graft/nuc is a 28/28 success rate.

Not sure what happened, but the first grafting back in March appeared to be 100% failure rate...I gave up on them. But two days ago, we opened everyone of them to install frames of brood and and sealed Q/C's. Was shocked to find laying queens in 19/20 of these nucs. Have no clue how this is even possible.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Soar,

Congratulations! Phenomenal success rate.

Would you provide a brief step by step outline of your grafting process? 

Thanks,
Steve


----------



## Chicago_ks

Today I started my Apiary. I installed two packages.
ks


----------



## snl

Chicago_ks said:


> Today I started my Apiary. I installed two packages.
> ks


Congratulations! We all started somewhere!


----------



## JWPalmer

Chicago_ks said:


> Today I started my Apiary. I installed two packages.
> ks


Woohoo, you got BEES! 
Installing your first packages is both nerve wracking and exhilarating. Congratulations.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Bear Creek Steve said:


> Soar,
> 
> Congratulations! Phenomenal success rate.
> 
> Would you provide a brief step by step outline of your grafting process?
> 
> Thanks,
> Steve


No problem Bear Creek!

1. Select the queen you know makes the bee with the qualities you most desire: Prolific layer, excellent brood patterns, excellent overwinter qualities, gentle, yet strong in collection of both nectar and pollen, good mite resistance, etc.
2. Create a queen cell builder: we have often used the Cloakeboard method. You can find it online in many places. It helps you create queen cells with the least amount of disruption to a colony. A more professional method for monster queens, simply take 20-30 frames of sealed brood with nurse bees, install in 2-3 deeps, and let them be for 10 days, then it is ready. Make sure you add lots of pollen frames and honey too and I still include sugar syrup and pollen sub too.
3. Graft the 1 day old larvae. I like using normal frames with 14-16 cups per frame [two lines of 7-8 per bar]. Keep the frames you are grafting from and the nuc grafts moist with super damp towels the entire time!
4. Gently install the grafted larvae now in the cups attached to the frames into your cell builder.
5. Leave it totally alone, undisturbed for 6-7 days, then gently examine your results.
6. Move the capped queen cells to the desired colonies or nucs.
7. Check back in approximately 21 days for eggs.

I highly suggest Susquehanna Valley online Queen Rearing Calendar. I use it EVERY TIME simply because we are doing grafts so often and it is so easy to forget or get lost in the process. With the calendar, with just one glance, you remember exactly where you are in the process.

https://thebeeyard.org/queen-rearing-calendar/

Hope this helps!

Soar


----------



## Chicago_ks

snl said:


> Congratulations! We all started somewhere!





JWPalmer said:


> Woohoo, you got BEES!
> Installing your first packages is both nerve wracking and exhilarating. Congratulations.


That's a big 10-4 on that. All the videos and reading don't really compare to doing it. The feeling of bees walking on my hand when I brushed them off the queen cage to see that she was ok was amazing. They were dive bombing the sugar water. It was a bit of a pain to get it covered without leaving some to drown. The journey begins. Thanks for the words of encouragement.
ks


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Soar,

Fires,

First: Happy Easter to you an yours.

Second: I know how busy you are at this point in your season and I appreciate your taking the time to spell out your detailed procedure. I intend to emulate your success rate.

Cheers,
Steve


----------



## Cloverdale

One of the overwintered Mike Palmer queens looking very nice for Easter, all she needs is a big fancy hat. Another hive went queen-less, took care of that, moved stuff around, now it’s time for dinner in a few hours.


----------



## Gray Goose

Chicago_ks said:


> Today I started my Apiary. I installed two packages.
> ks
> 
> View attachment 47681


Congrats, the first step is the scary one, now you need to step up and make the decisions your bees will be impacted by. Look into treatment, IPM, and make a plan to follow, keep notes, things often go in a direction and looking back we can try to discern when the turn started. Be ready for 5 ways to do everything  lots of way to get where you are going. enjoy 
GG


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Looked in some hives yesterday they are brooding up nicely. Looking out the window this morn that darn frozen water was coming down from the sky. Wisconsin weather sometimes I hate it.


----------



## islamabdelradi

Good Man Lovely-pic


----------



## alf1960

I took two splits from my colony that survived winter yesterday afternoon. . I put them in a Palmer style 4 frame divided deep. I gave them caged queens. An Ontario Buckfast and a Caspian queen. That is my third split from that colony this spring. The first one got an Aurea Italian queen. With a nuc that I got on 4/8 that puts me at five colonies.


----------



## KevinWI

Splits for new queens on Friday, 4 package install on Sunday, queen release check on Thursday, weak hive position swap inspection on Friday.

Started my new commercial beekeeping job today (Saturday). Only stung twice.


----------



## Chicago_ks

Between when I installed my bees on April 20 and today we've had 4 inches of snow and 6 inches of rain, overnight lows in the 40s and highs in the 50s. I have Mann Lake top feeders and the 1:1 seemed kind of funky. I took them off and replaced them with quart mason jars. I found both queens, larvae and capped brood. I didn't see eggs but my eyes are middle aged and I wanted to get out of their way. All is good in my little world.
ks


----------



## Kamon A. Reynolds

Just sold the last of the nucs for the season and caught and marked a bunch of queens. Then I had a swarm lands on me probably due to the queens I had in my pockets. Nothin like a 90 hour work week to make you appreciate the 60 hour ones.


----------



## rkereid

Tennessee's Bees LLC said:


> Nothin like a 90 hour work week to make you appreciate the 60 hour ones.


Isn't that the truth.


----------



## QNBKPR

MariahK said:


> I really am not proud of this but as your the only people who will hopefully laugh with me here it goes... "
> with, not at! Why is it always the pissy hive that gets goosed!?!?!


----------



## Bill007

First year student. Here it goes, I installed 3 packages, 2 Saskatraz, 1 carniolin on April 10. I left for work one week later, I returned yesterday. This is what I abseved, both saskatraz hives had 3 frames of bees and 2 frames of brood, the carniolin hive had 2 frames of bees and 3 full frames of brood. I located the Queen in all hives. I live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Pollen is coming in, I work a 3 and 3 schedule, 3 week son and 3 weeks off. All in all I believe all is good, only time will tell.


----------



## Gray Goose

Bill007 said:


> First year student. Here it goes, I installed 3 packages, 2 Saskatraz, 1 carniolin on April 10. I left for work one week later, I returned yesterday. This is what I abseved, both saskatraz hives had 3 frames of bees and 2 frames of brood, the carniolin hive had 2 frames of bees and 3 full frames of brood. I located the Queen in all hives. I live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Pollen is coming in, I work a 3 and 3 schedule, 3 week son and 3 weeks off. All in all I believe all is good, only time will tell.


Bill,

Did you install on comb or foundation or foundationless, are the frames deep or medium? Sorry, to ask for more detail, but your numbers seem a bit low. Also if not on comb did you feed? All the details matter. Sounds like no feed ,no combs, if that is the case you are doing as expected. I put two packages on comb with some honey they are at 4 frames of brood on one and 5 frames of brood on the other. My packages were 3 pound, am i am a couple hours south of the Mac. Also if the Carniolin really have 2 frames of bees and 3 frames of brood that is bad. really the bees need to cover all the brood. Shy of some details you may want to feed a bit of 1:2 syrup, especially if you are on foundation or foundationless. once the dandelions pop out you do not "need" to feed. It would take 3 weeks to have new bees hatching, you will see a draw down between week 2 and 4, by week 5 you really should see more bees than you started with. Reason being bees die every day and it will be 3 weeks till the first egg laid hatches, the first month is critical. if you have not yet, reduced the entrance to 3 inches, I would, on the hives till they hit 7-9 frames. this will help with robbing and heat retention.


----------



## Bill007

Gray Goose said:


> Bill,
> 
> Did you install on comb or foundation or foundationless, are the frames deep or medium? Sorry, to ask for more detail, but your numbers seem a bit low. Also if not on comb did you feed? All the details matter. Sounds like no feed ,no combs, if that is the case you are doing as expected. I put two packages on comb with some honey they are at 4 frames of brood on one and 5 frames of brood on the other. My packages were 3 pound, am i am a couple hours south of the Mac. Also if the Carniolin really have 2 frames of bees and 3 frames of brood that is bad. really the bees need to cover all the brood. Shy of some details you may want to feed a bit of 1:2 syrup, especially if you are on foundation or foundationless. once the dandelions pop out you do not "need" to feed. It would take 3 weeks to have new bees hatching, you will see a draw down between week 2 and 4, by week 5 you really should see more bees than you started with. Reason being bees die every day and it will be 3 weeks till the first egg laid hatches, the first month is critical. if you have not yet, reduced the entrance to 3 inches, I would, on the hives till they hit 7-9 frames. this will help with robbing and heat retention.


Sorry I transposed the carniolin #’s, I have all deep plastics foundation frames, I fed 1:1 sugar water. They were 3# packages. I also lived below the bridge, it is a different climate down there.


----------



## Gray Goose

Ok Bill.
You did feed so good,, they had what they needed to build comb, it still needs to be built however. Deep 3 frames of bees is like 5 mediums so then that is good math.
As they are all "similar" I would say you are doing good. next 3 week stint you will likely be good but for the 1 after that be sure to add some space before you leave.
So what i have found is they "can" double in a month, however I give comb. so in 3 weeks when you next leave they should be 5 or so frames.
in 6 weeks when you get back, likely you will be at 9ish frames so when you get back certainly check them for space. If you have your first super built it would not hurt to add it before you leave, as a just in case. also when to you head out keep in mind when they are bigger they could fill a super in 3 weeks. Have fun.
GG
P.S. when I start a package i do 1st brood box to start them in, then add 1st super, then add second brood box, as you have foundation, there are several ways to do that. then add the second super. If you add the second brood box as the second box they will likely fill it with honey.


----------



## Bill007

Thanks, will do. I realize that I have to do my due diligence, work has a funny way of messing with your fun/hobby.


----------



## Gray Goose

Bill007 said:


> Thanks, will do. I realize that I have to do my due diligence, work has a funny way of messing with your fun/hobby.


I Hear you. I often let the bees alone for 3 or 4 weeks, you just need to plan ahead a little. the 3 week break is not really a significant determent to keeping bees. take care of business when you are there and let them do their thing. stay 1 box ahead when in doubt till August then stay even. A big hive if you are near hay fields in July can put up a super every 2 weeks. The bees will show you


----------



## Bill007

Gray Goose said:


> I Hear you. I often let the bees alone for 3 or 4 weeks, you just need to plan ahead a little. the 3 week break is not really a significant determent to keeping bees. take care of business when you are there and let them do their thing. stay 1 box ahead when in doubt till August then stay even. A big hive if you are near hay fields in July can put up a super every 2 weeks. The bees will show you


That’s the funny thing, I have a 60 acre hay field where they are located. No worries tho, it’s still kind of crappy weather wise. They are bringing in pollen and nectar with eggs larvae and capped brood present. I suspect that they will double in a week or so.


----------



## Westy53

Checked both of my hives to see if the queen had moved up (added a 2nd hive body last week) and started laying in the top box. Went and checked on a trap I put out...nothing.


----------



## nhoyt

checked yesterday and noticed they had not moved up into the honey supers, checked tonight and they where a noticeable amount of bee in the honey supper so i think they have.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Temps in the low 60s and rain again. I WANT TO START BEEKEEPING!!!!


----------



## alf1960

I brought a Nuc home from my brothers last night. It is still sitting in the garage. My brother is a commercial beek. I`ve been helping him in exchange for bees and equipment. Yesterday we added honey supers and put nucs in deeps all day. It has been very windy and raining off and on since about 5:30 yesterday evening. It is supposed to clear up and get nice late this afternoon. I`ll get my new nuc placed in the bee yard then.


----------



## soarwitheagles

So far, its been kinda good.

One bee yard went from 23 colonies up to 173. Can't complain!

Been doing a lot of queen cell grafting and nuc making!


----------



## JWPalmer

Today I installed the power conversion kit on my Maxant 3100 9-frame extractor. OMG, this is gonna be SO much easier than hand cranking the darn thing.

Bees are really bringing it in, well, by Virginia standards at least where the average yield is just under 40# per hive. 5 more weeks and it is all over for the year. So hard to stay out of the production hives and just check progress on the supers. I can only hope they are all queenright after several of them swarmed last month.


----------



## tycrnp

Today I found and marked the queen in 1 of my hives. :banana:


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Made up a cell starter yesterday and grafted queens. I used a new jig that fits on a steering wheel to hold everything.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Dan,

Did you make the jig? Send a photo.
I like jigs.

Cheers,
Steve


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Bear Creek Steve said:


> Dan,
> 
> Did you make the jig? Send a photo.
> I like jigs.
> 
> Cheers,
> Steve


Never posted a photo this old fart just might have to learn how to do that


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Dan,

I'll bet I'm an older fart than you! Will be 80 before year end. 

Here's the procedure for attaching a photo to your BS message. I had to step through the process with this photo taken last week of one of my neighbors. Another neighbor took the photo and shared it with me. (Now you know why I have an electric bear fence around my apiary.) 

A) Click on the small square ikon at the top of this page that looks like a tree in the middle and has tiny black squares in the corners. (Third from the right)
B) Select "From Computer"
C) Click "Select File" 
D) Find your photo and select it
E) Click "Open"
F) Click "Upload File(s)"
G) You'r done. The photo is attached, so send it.









Cheers,
Steve


----------



## JWPalmer

Go to:
http://dcsgadgets.blogspot.com/p/beekeeping-gadgets.html


----------



## Dan the bee guy

JWPalmer said:


> Go to:
> http://dcsgadgets.blogspot.com/p/beekeeping-gadgets.html
> 
> View attachment 49059


Looks like that only made of wood


----------



## Gray Goose

Dan the bee guy said:


> Start counting days from when the egg was laid. From egg hatching to emerged queen is 13 days. MP I think does his on day 10.


I guess the bees used older eggs as today is day 14 since the split.

Concur, an egg hatches in 3 days, they can use up to a 2 day old larvae, queens hatch in 16 days so if they use a 2 day old larvae,,,, this is 5 days from egg laying. so on a split you will want to open/check make the NUCs in 10 days from the split, which for the 2 day old larvae is day 15 of the 16 day hatching. It can be 16 days if they use a fresh egg or it can be 11 days if they use a 2 day old larvae, to have queens hatch.
Happy grafting
GG


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Gray Goose said:


> I guess the bees used older eggs as today is day 14 since the split.
> 
> Concur, an egg hatches in 3 days, they can use up to a 2 day old larvae, queens hatch in 16 days so if they use a 2 day old larvae,,,, this is 5 days from egg laying. so on a split you will want to open/check make the NUCs in 10 days from the split, which for the 2 day old larvae is day 15 of the 16 day hatching. It can be 16 days if they use a fresh egg or it can be 11 days if they use a 2 day old larvae, to have queens hatch.
> Happy grafting
> GG


When I graft I can hardly see the larva so it's not even close to being a 2 day old larva it's more like 12 hours old . I go by the if you can see it it's to old.


----------



## Cloverdale

I think Mike P uses 1 day old larva.


----------



## Gray Goose

Cloverdale said:


> I think Mike P uses 1 day old larva.


ok if grafting with a 1 day old larvae the queen would hatch 12 days later, do we agree?


----------



## Cloverdale

Thinking on the biology of a queen she usually takes 15 ½ -16 days to emerge.


----------



## Gray Goose

Cloverdale said:


> Thinking on the biology of a queen she usually takes 15 ½ -16 days to emerge.


Right, However we do not graft with eggs, we graft with Larvae which a 1 day old larvae is a 4 day old from time of egg laying. Also in a split the bees "could" use a fresh egg or they could use a 1.5 day old larvae, egg "hatches" in 3 days, so the 1.5 day old Larvae is 4.5 days from egg laying. I would think if you are grafting "young larvae" you would place the cells in the mating NUC by 11 days after graft or sooner.
GG


----------



## Cloverdale

Hmmm, I don’t graft at all. The biology doesn’t change because you are grafting. That is what I said, 1 day old LARVA, not egg. You know it is day 4 from a newly laid egg, so count back from 15 ½ days. In 11 1/2 days from a grafted one day old larva you’ll have an emerged queen. Whether you graft or leave it be the days are the same from a newly laid egg. Maybe I’m missing something here?


----------



## Gray Goose

Cloverdale said:


> Hmmm, I don’t graft at all. The biology doesn’t change because you are grafting. That is what I said, 1 day old LARVA, not egg. You know it is day 4 from a newly laid egg, so count back from 15 ½ days. In 11 1/2 days from a grafted one day old larva you’ll have an emerged queen. Whether you graft or leave it be the days are the same from a newly laid egg. Maybe I’m missing something here?


Cloverdale, I originally commented on a post stating that queens were hatching 11-12 days after grafting and wonder why. no worries we are on the same page.


----------



## Cloverdale

Whew!


----------



## JWPalmer

Not technically 'in the apiary". Today I had a chance to hear Kirsten Traynor give a presentation at a special meeting of our bee club. I was very impressed with her knowledge, delivery, and the amount of information she was able to convey in a short period of time. Can't wait for the workshop with her and Zach tomorrow!


----------



## Cloverdale

JWPalmer said:


> Not technically 'in the apiary". Today I had a chance to hear Kirsten Traynor give a presentation at a special meeting of our bee club. I was very impressed with her knowledge, delivery, and the amount of information she was able to convey in a short period of time. Can't wait for the workshop with her and Zach tomorrow!


How was the workshop?


----------



## JWPalmer

Cloverdale said:


> How was the workshop?


Deb, it was great. Weather was overcast and she went through a couple of the host's hives, only one was hot and that was because they were queenless. Did a demo on catching queens and attendants and putting them in cages, followed by placing another qc in the mating nuc. Also demonstrated alcohol washes and doing mite counts, including an easy way to collect the bees. Zach gave a really good demo of grafting and I was able to get some pointers for my own attempts, such as grafting from old comb to avoid the tool poking through the bottom of the cell. :doh: Only drawback was that there were a lot of new beeks in the group of about 70 and she ended up fielding a bunch of Beekeeping 101 questions and did not have time to get into the creation of starter colonies, something I was interested in. Zach came through after the workshop and answered a few of my specific questions.


----------



## dddillon

JWPalmer said:


> Deb, it was great. Weather was overcast and she went through a couple of the host's hives, only one was hot and that was because they were queenless. Did a demo on catching queens and attendants and putting them in cages, followed by placing another qc in the mating nuc. Also demonstrated alcohol washes and doing mite counts, including an easy way to collect the bees. Zach gave a really good demo of grafting and I was able to get some pointers for my own attempts, such as grafting from old comb to avoid the tool poking through the bottom of the cell. :doh: Only drawback was that there were a lot of new beeks in the group of about 70 and she ended up fielding a bunch of Beekeeping 101 questions and did not have time to get into the creation of starter colonies, something I was interested in. Zach came through after the workshop and answered a few of my specific questions.


Highlight of the demonstration was when we found out that the neighbor called and complained that there was a 'Clan' meeting going on in the field. LOL. Guess there was an awful lot of white hooded attendees


----------



## JWPalmer

Last week I grafted 38 larvae into both JZBZ and Nicot cups and placed them in my nuc cell builder. The grafting itself went very well as I used the maginfiying lamp both to select and pick and then to place them in the cells. Only four were accepted and they were all in the Nicot cups on the top rail. Friday they should have been capped. I pulled the cell bar out today and found that all four cells had been torn down with gaping holes in their sides. Looks like a virgin queen dispatching the competition, but I am certain that no rougue cells emerged prior to this. Will try one last time this July 4th, after that it will be the flyback splits making my queens for me. Whatever queens I have come August will be it for the year. Had hoped to get about 20 nucs made and I still do have a shot at it, but now I am racing the clock.


----------



## Gypsi

My colonies are working a mesquite bloom and bearding quite a lot. Today, I put a canopy up over the pond closest to them, which they use for a water supply sometimes. Apparently they didn't like the canopy because when I stood under it to feed the fish, with 2 grandchildren, they chased us out. Went to a different small pond, other side of the fence, squished the headbumper bee on my lip between nose and mouth, and got myself stung. I would say today is warm.


----------



## Cloverdale

I had to buy a few queens; checked on them yesterday to see if they were released (it’s been 4 days) and found the queen being balled in one; I had put her on the bars (this was a split done end of May) to see how they reacted to her and it seemed they wanted her so put the cage in. Got her out and away from the bees in the clip. I had just done another split 2 days ago, so I put the clip on the bars of that hive and these bees started balling her! They managed to get into the entrance of the clip, it’s one of the metal ones which I don’t like, and what a mess. We managed to get the bees off of her, then she flew, I caught her in my hands, she fell on the ground, picked her up trying to get her into a cage and she flew again. My question is why did that second hive start balling her too?


----------



## JWPalmer

This Independence Day holiday gave me four wonderfull and very hot days to work in the apiary. Made some summer walk away splits after realizing I did not have the deep resouces to do the fly back splits I had wanted to do.

Assembled, waxed, and strung 40 deeep frames so far. Repaired and painted my eight feeders and ordered another 12 of the Betterbee Beemax hivetop feeders. The feeders that are already on are empty in a day. 1 gallon of 1:1 per feeder, and poof! it's gone. Started feeding Ultrabee pollen sub and the bees are all over it. Proof that the dearth is really on us in central VA. 

Gave the girls their first OAV treatment of the year. Will check the boards in two days to see what the infestation levels are. No mites after one hour is good, but does not tell a real story.

Walmart sugar is .10 cheaper than last year at 3.20 for a ten pound bag. Estimate I will need around 1500# this year with the hives and nucs, about double last year's requirements.

Received my copy of Tom Seeley's book" Honey Bee Democracy" and pretty much read it straight through. Did not care for the last two chapters comparing swarm think and decision making to primate neurology or the New England Town Meetings, but otherwise thoroughly enjoyable reading and very enlightening.


----------



## Charlie B

JW,

Seeley was here in the Bay Area not too long ago. Very good speaker as well as a writer. You should have him come out there to speak at your local club.


----------



## JWPalmer

Charlie, that is a good idea. I will float it by the board. We already managed to get Dr. Sam Ramsey scheduled for August 2020. Very excited about that!


----------



## Cloverdale

Received the Mike Palmer queens 7/2, made up a dbl nuc, and put one in a newly split hive. All’s well with the hives (I had bought other queens earlier and not one was accepted). The only struggle (somewhat) was getting the attendants out of the cages first. I didn’t do a press in cage because I didn’t think it was needed with these new hives. I am so impressed by his queens. Now age is creeping up on me (just a little bit ) and I’m starting to feel my years; I want to enjoy beekeeping, so next year I’ll go down in hive numbers, 20 is too much now. This is what I said last year too


----------



## JWPalmer

Another sweltering day in the apiary. Made another two walk away splits, one each from hives 1A1 and 1A2. I realized that Hive 1A1 is capable of supporting another three frame split next week as it is absolutely overflowing with bees. This gives me 8 new nucs "cooking" of the 20 total I hope to have by mid August. I have two others that are already established and may end up in 10 frame equipment just to free up the limited 5 frame stuff I have. The summer dearth has shut down brood rearing on the hives I do not have feeders on. Those that do have feeders have a noticable gap in uncapped larvae. It is either eggs or capped brood. Broke out the pollen patties and the bees have eaten about half a pound each in the hives I placed it in. More patty on the way. Let the bees clean up the extractor and was able to get a few close ups of the various color bees I have. At least four distinct coloring groups. Mostly black, black and grey striped, black and yellow striped, and yellow/orange with a black butt. I think the local DCA's are well represented.


----------



## Cloverdale

JWPalmer said:


> Charlie, that is a good idea. I will float it by the board. We already managed to get Dr. Sam Ramsey scheduled for August 2020. Very excited about that!


That is a good idea! We heard him speak at the Southern Adirondack Beekeepers Assoc. about 2 years ago, he is very approachable and so darn innovative!


----------



## elmer_fud

My big hive with a data logger on it is going crazy right now. It is gaining about 3 pounds/day right now. I have the stack sitting at 1 deep and 6 mediums, and I need to add another super.


----------



## JWPalmer

Added pollen patties to the nucs and checked the two that were due to have queens by now. One for two on that set. I have been lamenting that my carni/Caucasian mutts have been getting yellower. The returned queen in the one nuc is golden orange. Would pass for an an italian queen any day. The full sized hives with feeders on them are still drawing comb. Found several of the new frames put in when I did the splits to be better than half drawn. Not going to the races, but any comb in a Virginia summer is bonus. I made two more walk away splits, both from swarms caught earlier this year. Next week will be the last week for splits as I will need a good six to eight weeks of brood production before the autumn shut down.


----------



## Cloverdale

elmer_fud said:


> My big hive with a data logger on it is going crazy right now. It is gaining about 3 pounds/day right now. I have the stack sitting at 1 deep and 6 mediums, and I need to add another super.
> 
> View attachment 50127
> View attachment 50129
> View attachment 50131


What is the name of your data logger? Thanks, Deb


----------



## Cloverdale

I found a charged queen cup in a centrally located honey super. The cup was near the top of that frame but not on the edge. The frame was newly drawn white wax, did not see any sign of any brood having been raised in that frame, and it had at least one full capped honey super above it and below it. I inspected the rest of the hive and found eggs, larva and capped cells, and room for her to lay, no other charged cells anywhere. I’m guessing here, but could it have been laid by a worker for whatever reason?


----------



## elmer_fud

Cloverdale said:


> What is the name of your data logger? Thanks, Deb


It is a homebuilt system. It is very loosely based on one that Sparkfun made several years ago with a lot of changes and additions.


----------



## Cloverdale

It looks great, easy to read etc.


----------



## hagane

That data logger idea sounds fun. Maybe you can do a post about it.

Don't have bees yet, but I see them going to town on the sunflowers today and especially this morning. The activity died down when the heat came out after around 12-ish (not exact). And the best activity seemed to be around 8 to 11 before the heat set in. Some of the sunflowers had 4 or 5 bees on them at a time, and it was neat to see them going at it. (But not all of them were apis mellifera. Some were some kind that looked like 'midget' apis mellifera but like 30% of the size and length.)


----------



## elmer_fud

hagane said:


> That data logger idea sounds fun. Maybe you can do a post about it.


I will try to make a post about this later when I have more time to do a good writeup. That hive stack is now at 360+ lbs and still gaining about 2 lb/day.


----------



## hagane

Last night something really interesting happened.

I was using a jigsaw to cut up a bunch of lumber for making a cheap tripod. I must have sawn through maybe a dozen cheap throw away beams that had the thickness of old 2 by 4s. And the wood was kind of worn and easy to split, (possibly a redwood mix?)

Anyway, where I'm going with this is that I was only there a few minutes and had accumulated a really big pile of saw dust. And just like that all the sudden there's two big bumble bees flying around the sawdust. 

I found this quite interesting. They were attracted to the sawdust for some reason. (I guess some big bumble bee types are attracted to it.)

So my theory on this is that maybe some bumblee bee types in nature probably have their behavior ingrained genetically to seek out woodpecker holes in wood, or other types of birds when they hammer into wood and old trees to make nests that its very possible the bumble bees or even other types of bees may be attracted to the saw dust smell because of this type of nest seeking behavior by following where birds went?

Curious what others thing. 

(I still think honey bees are more interesting than the bumblee bees by far still.)

And on the sunflowers in my yard, I've been seeing all kinds of bees going after them, not only honey bees. Some are a much smaller vee, sometimes bumble bees, and others. I'm puzzled also why the honey bees are going after cucumber blossoms, pumpkin blossoms almost more than the sunflowers right? Could it be they don't like the competition with the other bees and went to the least guarded stuff? 

I also forgot to mention this...it was odd. 3 days ago when I was checking on the garden plants, I saw what looked like two honey bees sting and kill each other in a large pumpkin or squash flower blossom. I meant to try to get a picture of it but when I was trying to get something for it the sprinkler came on and washed it away before I could snap a pic. But I do remember that the second bee of the two that were killing each other over nectar ...didn't quite look entirely like a normal honey bee. (It wasn't a wasp, but looked a bit different. Not sure what it was.)


----------



## elmer_fud

hagane said:


> I was using a jigsaw to cut up a bunch of lumber for making a cheap tripod. I must have sawn through maybe a dozen cheap throw away beams that had the thickness of old 2 by 4s. And the wood was kind of worn and easy to split, (possibly a redwood mix?)


any chance they were some sort of carpenter bee?



hagane said:


> And on the sunflowers in my yard, I've been seeing all kinds of bees going after them, not only honey bees. Some are a much smaller vee, sometimes bumble bees, and others. I'm puzzled also why the honey bees are going after cucumber blossoms, pumpkin blossoms almost more than the sunflowers right? Could it be they don't like the competition with the other bees and went to the least guarded stuff?


I have seen this also with my sunflowers vs other plans. I have wondered if the honey bees do not have long enough tongues (wrong name, but right idea) to easily get the sunflower nectar so they go to other plants that are easier to get to. I have seen bees of various varieties everywhere from about 3/16" long to big bumblebees that are near an inch long. I have seen at least 5 different varieties of non honeybees at my house, and there are probably more.


----------



## Cloverdale

Started mite rolls today, got 4 done with 2 hives zero mites (one a Mike Palmer queen) the other an overwintered Sas. hive, and 2 swarms from last year 6 and 3 mites. I checked the weather and it said a high of 79; Used FormicPro and now it’s 84!!!!!


----------



## HeadofMeadow

Yesterday I lost a queen I had just marked, how maddening to see the yellow dot flying around me as she orientated. It was very frustrating and nerveracking! Today, she found her way home. My wife and I were so happy!!!!


----------



## hagane

elmer_fud said:


> any chance they were some sort of carpenter bee?
> 
> 
> 
> I have seen this also with my sunflowers vs other plans. I have wondered if the honey bees do not have long enough tongues (wrong name, but right idea) to easily get the sunflower nectar so they go to other plants that are easier to get to. I have seen bees of various varieties everywhere from about 3/16" long to big bumblebees that are near an inch long. I have seen at least 5 different varieties of non honeybees at my house, and there are probably more.


My knowledge of bumble bees and carpenter pees is pretty limited. Its very possible you are right. Sorry I don't have a better answer. 

It seems like honey bees really like sunflowers though?


----------



## Chicago_ks

Yesterday actually. This is my first year with bees. Two packages on Good Friday. One of them I killed the queen when I was centering the frames in the brood box. Bees roared and I didn't know what it meant. The hive went laying worker before I knew what was wrong. My eyes aren't good enough to see eggs. So I shook that hive out some weeks back. The other hive filled two deeps full of honey and swarmed, all in three weeks. I found that they swarmed three weeks ago. There were six swarm cells so I left three in the hive and moved three to the empty hive I shook. I roughly split the bees between the hives. Yesterday I found capped brood and larvae. I guess I'm going to have to figure out magnification to see eggs. The problem is worse with one veil over another.
ks


----------



## hagane

My yard is being taken over by wasps.

Today a family member and I decided to go to war against them. If I don't make it back, you'll know what happened to me.

We got some wasp killer, and some duct tape. The wasps are nesting inside an old school hollow iron T section clothesline from way back in the day. We're covering the openings with duct tape when the wasps are unaware and while 'hit and run' to avoid getting stung. The war effort will concentrate on sealing the little buggers alive inside buried alive. 

We had to pause because they got all riled up. I'm hoping to finish tonight when they are unaware or asleep. 

The little terrors have been messing with my garden and chewing up the leaves.

Yesterday also we put out a was trap made from a 2 liter soda pop bottle, with apple juice and bacon inside like others showed to work. But for our yard for some reason its not working to trap them that way because there's too much delicious garden plants that they can smell.


----------



## JWPalmer

HeadofMeadow said:


> Yesterday I lost a queen I had just marked, how maddening to see the yellow dot flying around me as she orientated. It was very frustrating and nerveracking! Today, she found her way home. My wife and I were so happy!!!!


Yellow dot? Just poking fun. I marked a queen with a white dot two months ago while waiting for the green paint pen.

And on the topic of doing things in a less than optimal manner, circumstances required that a virgin queen that emerged two days ago be placed in a nuc this evening. So, grabbed a nuc, took it to the apiary, pulled three frames of bees and brood from another hive, and set the cage on top of the frames. No interest by the bees. Good, opened up the cage and let her walk in about 10 minutes later. I can think of about six things that should have been done differently. Did I mention it was raining?


----------



## elmer_fud

JWPalmer said:


> Yellow dot? Just poking fun. I marked a queen with a white dot two months ago while waiting for the green paint pen.


mine are all green because I think it stands out better than any of the other colors


----------



## little_john

elmer_fud said:


> mine are all green because I think it stands out better than any of the other colors


Mine are always blue - same reason.
LJ


----------



## hagane

JWPalmer said:


> Yellow dot? Just poking fun. I marked a queen with a white dot two months ago while waiting for the green paint pen.
> 
> And on the topic of doing things in a less than optimal manner, circumstances required that a virgin queen that emerged two days ago be placed in a nuc this evening. So, grabbed a nuc, took it to the apiary, pulled three frames of bees and brood from another hive, and set the cage on top of the frames. No interest by the bees. Good, opened up the cage and let her walk in about 10 minutes later. I can think of about six things that should have been done differently. Did I mention it was raining?


Pretty cool!

Thanks for telling us about it. Its fun to hear about playing with the bees. What color was the queen? And what type? (Yeah, yeah, someone will say it won't matter, but thats the fun part.) Hope more people post their bee playing scenes. 

How long do you think it will take for this nuc to take off? And how does the queen act? Did she try to avoid you? Is she a peeper? Does she move constantly? 

I keep wondering if the number of guard bees also is any indicators of the resilience to survive of a hive?


----------



## HeadofMeadow

JWPalmer said:


> Yellow dot? Just poking fun. I marked a queen with a white dot two months ago while waiting for the green paint pen.


I don't know why I said yellow, maybe it looks yellow as it flashed in front of my eyes  I meant green, well Greenish yellow . I will be introducing some virgins this weekend although the weather looks good for it. Hope your virgin finds some nice strong drones.


----------



## elmer_fud

You know your bees like propolis when you need 2 hive tools at the same time to pry boxes apart because the first one starts to bend before the boxes move. 

This was my experience with a few boxes on one hive yesterday. My hives are getting ready for winter even though they still have capped drone cells.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

I always have a few that want to swarm in august so I make a few new queens with the cells. Only need one to requeen a hive so I'm swimming in queens right now. Just might have to bust up that hive into nucs so I have some place to put them to over winter.


----------



## mischief

I spent the day trying to finish making the next long hive. Got three walls and the floor finished. Just have to hurry up and decide whether to have a top or bottom entrance so I can finish the last wall.
Had to walk away a few times and wound up spending way too much time watching my bees. Tomorrow should see it all finished, except for the base that it will sit on, but I have at least a month yet before I can make a split for it so...no hurry yet.


----------



## little_john

mischief said:


> I spent the day trying to finish making the next long hive. Got three walls and the floor finished. Just have to hurry up and decide whether to have a top or bottom entrance so I can finish the last wall.


 If it's proving a difficult decision to make - why not provide both, and simply block one off ? That way you could test which entrance the bees' prefer.



> Had to walk away a few times and wound up spending way too much time watching my bees.


 LOL - I know that one only too well ... 
LJ


----------



## GregB

little_john said:


> ...*why not provide both, and simply block one off *? .....LJ


I have been running mix of top and bottom second season now.
What I see - both are beneficial to have available and this is what I am doing forward on.
Just back from the backyard - my main resource hive uses the top entrances to haul in pollen loads (bees are fighting for the holes) and the bottom entrances to ventilate.


----------



## Cloverdale

My “Yesterday in the Apiary” story. I posted this on another forum but wanted to share here.
We went out to the apiary to check on the hives; it’s flow time here and the knotweed is busting out. As we were watching the incoming bees, a hive swarmed. As usual, it took a lot of the incoming bees with it in the apiary, and was swarming up to the highest pine tree, up they went. In that moment I remembered something a friend told me she read in an old old bee book, that if you bang pots/pans/anything loud the swarm would come back. So we figured why not? I had two metal old bird feeders on a metal stake which I pulled out and my husband and I started banging. Well, we couldn’t believe out eyes, the bees started coming down again!
They were at least 30 feet high! We kept banging until they settled on a lower branch and we hived the swarm. It was amazing. Deb


----------



## elmer_fud

One of my (4) hives I think decided to kick out the drones today, but 2 of the other ones (5 feet away) still have capped drone cells (and a few drone larvae). I am thinking the size imbalance caused one hive to kick out the drones while 2 others were still making drones.


----------



## VickyLynn

I checked several hives yesterday and was surprised that they still were making drones. But, the fall flow is just beginning - there are still goldenrod varieties and all the asters that haven't bloomed yet. They are storing a lot of capped honey for winter - I have already taken 250 pounds and don't want any more. It will be the first year in a while that I won't have to feed.


----------



## rflindall

New beekeper here - did another hive inspection this weekend. I lost my queen mid summer, but fortunately there were a number of queen cells on the bottom of two frames so I made a split and let nature take it's course. Fast forward to this weekend and both hives are happy and healthy - the new queens in each are very productive. My original hive is filling up a second honey super slowly but surely, but the new hive is lagging behind in filling a super due to the late split. The golden rod here (Peterborough, Ontario) has just started blooming so I'm hopeful it's a decent flow to help the bees fill up the supers. I'm hoping to have 1 full super per hive heading into winter, where I'll also supplemental feed with sugar water and then a candy board for the winter. Quick Question : how significant can a fall goldenrod flow be? aka - Is it significant enough that I should have extra supers on standby?


----------



## JWPalmer

One should always have at least one extra super per hive ready to go. You do not want to be sitting on the sidelines while everyone else's bees are having a record breaking year.

On 8/19/19 I made up my last walkaway split. On 8/25 I had two capped cells and several almost capped ones. I removed one capped to a queenless nuc and decided to wait to remove the others. Sunday, 9/1 I removed four capped cells and found two that were already open. Oops. Probably should have done this on Sat. Set one cell in a Q- nuc and put the other three in the incubator. Well, two actually. One emerged while the roller cages were still sitting on the kitchen counter. The remaining queens emerged overnight. Today, one queen went into another Q- nuc and two went into a queen castle. The cell that went into the first nuc had fallen out of the comb and was destroyed, but the cell placed the day before in a different nuc had emerged successfully. Several of my hives still have an ample supply of drones, one I know has a bunch of capped drone cells even. Mating should not be an issue, but predation still is. Back on 8/13 I installed two virgins into nucs, only one made it back.


----------



## dddillon

Looks like day one of Goldenrod for my apiary.

Been feeding heavily to get the girls to draw comb. Was gonna stop, as it seemed that they were just back filling space with syrup, and they're already heavy going into a fall goldenrod season (the GR flow is not very heavy in my location). But looked in today, and most of the frames are half drawn out already. I just put the frames in last Wednesday with all new foundation. Good Girls !!!! As long as you keep drawing frames, I'll feed ya  They are taking a gallon a day if I give it to them, but I'm just filling up the Rapid Feeder once a day. Walmart sugar is cheap, so I don't mind.

So shoutout to Nick at Accorn for some awesome waxed frames that the bees just went to town on. BTW, lots and lots of feeding is the tip if you want to draw wax out of season.


----------



## soarwitheagles

Temps here are finally cooling off. Had triple digit and high 90's for weeks on end.

With the lower temps, we are now scrambling to produce as many queen cells as possible with accompanying two frame nucs. Figure we may have 30 days left to successfully make nucs with new queen cells.

Have no clue what the bees are bringing in, but lots of nectar and pollen all summer long. This is unusual for our area. Noticed massive small yellow flowers, mile after mile of it, but not sure what it is.

Happy with the Oxivap 110. Sure makes things a lot easier and does a number on the mites.


----------



## elmer_fud

Having a bee fly into your ear and sting you on the tragus is rather unejoyable. 

pic with the parts of an ear since I had to look it up
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auricle_(anatomy)#/media/File:Slide2COR.JPG

backstory: I went out to burn off a wasp nest on the other side of the fence from my beehives (about 3 ft from them) and a bee decided it didnt like me, flew into my ear, and stung me. Not an experience I want to repeat and my first sting this year (I think). My ear isn't swelling up and I got the stinger out quickly so I think I am fine. It has been about 24 hours since this happened.


----------



## VickyLynn

Wasps and hornets are really bad this year. I have seen them snatch bees sunning themselves on their hives, and when I put out the extractor for cleaning, there were at least fifty at a time keeping the bees away.
I just read this article from Rusty Burlew about a wasp trap that I plan to try. https://www.honeybeesuite.com/lesso...mpaign=news_from_the_hive&utm_term=2019-09-04

We never had a dearth this summer. The Japanese knotweed and the tall goldenrod are just out, soon to followed by the asters. I don't think I will have to feed this year. There is a lot of pollen coming in, white, tan, yellow, and gold. I took about 250 lbs of honey but have left the rest for them.


----------



## rflindall

Made two sets of these today. Candy board on the right and a quilt box on the left (minus the wood chips).

Started feeding the bees today as well with sugar water. Golden Rod is going strong, but I think the girls need some extra feed through September.


----------



## LAlldredge

The bees didn't get the memo that fall is here. Some backfilling but lots of new bees still. Focusing on two things- final mite control and feeding. Indecisive about feed on or off. Have fed probably 4 gallons per hive. Scale comes next week thank god. They are swimming in propolis and feed and happy as clams. Planning hive hut to go over smallest colonies. (mini greenhouse idea with hoops and clear vinyl over top) Boyfriend has no choice but to help. He was informed yesterday. Resistance is futile.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> The bees didn't get the memo that fall is here. Some backfilling but lots of new bees still. Focusing on two things- final mite control and feeding. Indecisive about feed on or off. Have fed probably 4 gallons per hive. Scale comes next week thank god. They are swimming in propolis and feed and happy as clams. Planning hive hut to go over smallest colonies. (mini greenhouse idea with hoops and clear vinyl over top) Boyfriend has no choice but to help. He was informed yesterday. Resistance is futile.


Hi LAII, wow 4 gallons, I get close to a frame of honey (medium) to a quart, so that is 16 medium frames of feed. Take a bit away for the comb building and what they ate, and they should have a super of stores. How much do they need in your area? the scale would be nice, I just lift and relate if it is heavy or not. I would rethink the clear vinyl. My worst bee, over winter experience, was when I made a quick lean too, with OSB roof and clear Vinyl sides.When the sun shined it warmed up "like a greenhouse would" then the bees came out and were on the plastic. Nite time happened , the bees were on the ground dead, or in tupor, by morning. By spring there were 6 inches of bees on the ground around the Vinyl and hardly any in the hives. I lost 4 of 5 in that set up. As well the temperature will go up and down. Studies show that this will cause the cluster to expand and then contract, this is not good for winter cluster. a steady state is better, IE less swings in temperature. I now have a wood structure and keep them in the dark. I would re think the clear Vinyl, Not Good IMO. Carry on if it has worked for you in the past. if you do it then be ready to feed as well , more activity/ higher temp may have them start brood earlier and run out of stores. good luck.
GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Gray Goose said:


> I would rethink the clear vinyl. My worst bee, over winter experience, was when I made a quick lean too, with OSB roof and clear Vinyl sides.When the sun shined it warmed up "like a greenhouse would" then the bees came out and were on the plastic. Nite time happened , the bees were on the ground dead, or in tupor, by morning. By spring there were 6 inches of bees on the ground around the Vinyl and hardly any in the hives. GG


Super helpful GG. I have the yips right now over over wintering. Lost my first two hives last winter. Okay, no clear vinyl. Will work on wind block and insulation.


----------



## elmer_fud

Over the last 2 days I extracted honey. I extracted 39 frames from 2 hives and ended up with about 8 gallons of honey  I still have 3 frames to make into cutcomb, but I am happy with this years haul, and it is much better than I was expecting this spring (based on last year)


----------



## soarwitheagles

We made up many 5 frame nucs...gonna be interesting to see the results this late in the year. We are still finding drone cells and drones flying, but I we are also seeing what appears to be the beginning for the ladies kicking the gentlemen out!

Now working on 20 mini nucs just to see if it is even possible. Got lots of extra capped queen cells so what the heck. I like to experiment...even if it is outside the box at times. It sure would be nice to have some extra mated queens for next year...

We also began the long and tedious process of equalization along with cleaning bottom boards.


----------



## mischief

I went to pinch the last, so called, empty frame this afternoon, late; only to find they had already filled half of it with honey AND capped it.....within the last week.
Gotta love Spring!


----------



## LAlldredge

Things got a little spicy this morning when I went to remove my Beesmart robbing screens in favor of mouseguards. It seems bees like to cluster in the panel and didn’t like waking up to having it pried off. And of course I’m in my bathrobe, a quilted jacket, a veil and garden gloves. Not exactly formal bee attire. It was one of those “just take a minute” tasks. You know those...


----------



## mischief

Did an OAV yesterday after clearing the sticky boards and heavily oiling it to try to stop any other insect from eating any mite fall.
Got home from work this afternoon and checked the boards....1 mite.
I dont know what to think. I'm pretty sure they couldnt have been eaten but....


----------



## JWPalmer

That is excellent! Best count is after 3 days, but a 24 hour drop would have shown a whole bunch if the hive was infested. I really like how fast-acting OAV is.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

It's been a while since I posted. Did a lot of helping other beekeepers this summer. Made a few queens to many for myself gave away a bunch of them to friends that needed them. had a bear reach over my fence to knock over a hive. It only got to eat one box that had mostly the honey for winter. Right now doing a little combining of hives taking brood from some that are to strong to boost some nucs that were made late. It's been awfully wet here had a week of rain that stopped the goldenrod flow. Met a guy in the bar that had bees a few years ago he said if you can get bees through the winter in Wisconsin you'll be a millionaire didn't have the heart to tell him plenty of people do it bless his heart. My bees are looking great this fall didn't get much honey but I made a lot of splits to.


----------



## HeadofMeadow

Spent the weekend combining weaker hives to get them ready for winter. Needed to give some queens the hive tool test and then got a call from my brother and law who needed a queen! What are those odds! Its always sad to be shutting down the yard for winter.


----------



## Banjer

Moved 2 likely looking 5 over 5 hives down to my City Island Bee yard - Hoping the extra 3-4 weeks of warm weather allows them to build up for winter. My awesome little Russian mutts were hauling tons of pollen within 2.5 hrs of opening up the hive after the move, the Sask hive was still doing mainly orientation flights lol.


----------



## AR1

Saw a worker dragging a dead drone out and flying away with it. Getting to be about that time. First frost around here is usually late September.


----------



## AR1

AR1 said:


> Saw a worker dragging a dead drone out and flying away with it. Getting to be about that time. First frost around here is usually late September.


And today saw a worker dragging a struggling drone away. Poor little guy. Funny though, that hive has a patch of drone comb about 4X4 inches capped. Do workers destroy the drone larvae too in Fall or just kick the newly hatched drones out?

Saw eggs in a nuc that had queen cells on 9/11. Pretty late for Chicago area.


----------



## VickyLynn

I saw drone cells a couple weeks ago in my last inspection, thinking well, it_ has_ been a warm fall. A few days later, white pupa carcasses were scattered on the walkway in front of my bee house. They take out the pupa as well as kick out the drones. We used to have a first frost about September 15, but this year it will be closer to October 15. I'm concerned that the bees will eat up their winter stores before Thanksgiving.


----------



## donbrownny

Bear Interuppted (Hudson Valley NY)
Feeling pretty badly right now but know this could have been worse
We have a good fence charge I think - Parmak MAG12-SP, which is rated 30 miles / 3.1 Joules and I regularly test and always get 10K+ volts, no shorts. 
Bear visited @ 4:15 AM this morning. From inside I heard a loud CRACK, then crash - then another. On 2nd one I knew what it was and went out to yard making a racket but only heard / did not see bear scampering away.
2 of three hives knocked over and I know my mistake - we added a third hive this spring and spread the two outer hives apparently just close enough to fence perimeter. Argh.

Bear could get close enough to knock over outer two but never entered bee yard and never touched center colony.
BTW - hives were at least 14" from hot wire fence and both are three deeps high - this was not a baby bear.

Good news is I scared bear away probably within 5 minutes of it's visit - bear got nothing but 3.1 Joules and a lots of stings. Not a single frame was damaged by bear other than obvious comb damage from the knock over. All wooden ware is fine as are plastic hive stands.

At 5 AM still too dark to see anything and was getting lit up so put large tarps on each colony pile of knocked over equipment and bees and waited for light.

Still - A lot bees died from knock-over and exposure and my work putting all back together.
No idea if queens alive or dead yet
They were so upset. With gear on I still got many stings - stopped counting how many.

Hives relocated further inside and I need to do some fence repair but it is back on / running.

Don't make my mistake - I THINK my fence discouraged bear for most part, but she/he could STILL reach two of my hives!
Lot of respect for that bear, but so disappointed that I let this happen - wanted to remind all about these smart / hungry / Winter-minded bears!

Last part is I am also going to bait fence tonight with bacon. Even though this bear got no reward this morning, I don't rule out more visits


----------



## LAlldredge

Today I did a brief inspection of resources in my big hive and the swarm nuc sitting next to it. The goal is to be sure everyone has enough stored for winter. The nuc got 2 full honey frames for the goal of 3.5. The big hive is getting maybe 1 gallon more to top it off. Taped the box seals to keep robbing pressure down. It really takes the edge off. They followed me back to my workbench looking for food so I’m giving it to them. Light snow predicted for Sunday. Then it warms a bit. Finishing first stage of winterization- mite control and feeding the living daylights out of them.


----------



## elmer_fud

I measured a random sample of this years honey from one of 2 hives that filled suppers last night. This honey took forever to extract.


----------



## mischief

I couldnt check the boards on day three the weather was just plain nasty.
Today, I managed to do the next OAV, I dont like doing it when its raining or really windy, but this morning,I nipped out in a lull.
I only use the board right under the brood nest now. Hopefully, things will stay settled so I can check before the debris builds up.
Orientation flight was so loud I could hear it from 4 meters away even without my hearing aids in.


----------



## mischief

48 hour mite count= 4.
Had a hard time counting due to debris, mostly pollen and wax moth poop. 
Somehow they get in and wind up hatching out under the mesh screen.


----------



## AHudd

The brood nests are contracting and a lot of stores are going into the brood frames. Some colonies are putting small amounts of nectar in the honey supers, although very little is being capped. Maybe, this year they will make some fall surplus for me as the Goldenrod is just beginning to open.
There is one colony, however, that has a lot of capped and emerging brood, larvae and not much honey. This one has been the weakest of the bunch all year due to swarming this Spring, despite my efforts of prevention, even with the use of a Snelgrove board. Maybe, they are playing catch-up for Winter, but I think I may pinch this Queen and divide the resources with the nucs I recently moved into ten frame hives.

Alex


----------



## AHudd

mischief said:


> 48 hour mite count= 4.
> Had a hard time counting due to debris, mostly pollen and wax moth poop.
> 
> 
> Somehow they get in and wind up hatching out under the mesh screen.


Check out this video from UoG, if you haven't already. He addresses this issue fairly early in the presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Emlvx53iOZ4

Alex


----------



## mischief

Thanks, somebody sent me the link for this university to look at splitting, so i'll add this to my studies.


----------



## elmer_fud

not in my apairy, but I found out I could get my garage freezer to -30F freezing frames. I removed an air duct to fit a box in, and apparently it really messed up the control of the freezer.


----------



## LAlldredge

Switched to dry winter feed as of 10/1 (bakers sugar, winter patties). Finished small square internal feeders and put in a winter pattie and bakers sugar to take the hunger edge off the colonies. I really like peeking in and seeing them eating. Yes, I talk to them too and say hi. Everything here is running at least 2 weeks later than last year. Finished 2nd round of OAV on a high mite count hive in a 4 day interval just to punch the mites in the face. Strong colony though at 30k I'm betting. The other hives are not dropping near as high a count so I'm betting they robbed a failing hive out. Will continue the series until mites are massively decreased. LOVE my new Varrox. Super fast result.


----------



## gnor

Bottled up the last of the honey yesterday and put the wet stuff out for the bees to clean up. No use wasting it. 
Today, everybody gets weighed. 
Thinking ahead to the Winter building program.


----------



## AHudd

We have had two nights in a row of frost heavy enough to kill the garden. At 10:30 this AM the bees are flying as though it is a nice Spring day. 

Alex


----------



## JWPalmer

Gave the hives and nucs another OAV treatment this afternoon. Weather is great and the bees were flying hard although there ain't much out there as dry as it has been. Tossed another 20 gallons of 1:1 (100# dry weight) on the hives earlier this morning. Found one nuc that had been robbed out, dead bees all over the floor. The robbers were navigating the robbing screen like they had been doing it all their lives. Probably had. I have the same screen on all my nucs and there is a good chance it was another nuc that did them in. This particular nuc was much weaker than the rest having only a frame and a half of bees at last inspection. Did have a fair amount of brood so I had hopes. Oh well.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> Tossed another 20 gallons of 1:1 (100# dry weight) on the hives earlier this morning.


JW:

Good update- sorry to hear about the nuc failure. I was surprised to read that you are still feeding 1:1. When do you typically switch over to 2:1 in your locale?


----------



## JWPalmer

Beeks with light hives should have already switched in my area. Most of my hives are already at or near desired winter weight. Because it has been so dry, I chose to stay on the 1:1 hoping that the bees will use the excess moisture to their advantage. I am also trying to keep some brood rearing going as I may still need to boost a few of the other nucs. The one that got robbed out was supposed to get combined with another nuc that failed to have it's queen return. When I went to make the combine last week, I found that nuc had gone LW and I did not want to risk the queen. Sometimes things do not work out as planned.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> Because it has been so dry, I chose to stay on the 1:1 hoping that the bees will use the excess moisture to their advantage.


JW:

Thank you for clarifying- I appreciate education.



JWPalmer said:


> Sometimes things do not work out as planned.


I wonder if we could vote this in as the unofficial motto of beekeepers everywhere?


----------



## LAlldredge

Had some large ponderosa pines taken down today that were dead or dying from beetle kill. One about 10 feet from a hive. Told the very skilled forestry guy that if he accidentally cuts a tree down and it falls on the hive to leave the area and not wait. All went well and he said that it was a first. Never had to worry about bees before. 

He will be back to cut the 80 foot one down. Half of it is dead and it would either kill my horse or hit my neighbors house or mine. He's going to have to climb it and use ropes to section it off while he cuts it. I guess it's really interesting to watch. He just loves it.


----------



## JWPalmer

You might want to see if you can find sombody with a portable sawmill to cut those trees into lumber. An 80'er has got to be able to give you some nice boards for, oh, all the hives you will ever need.


----------



## LAlldredge

Good idea. I have about 100 trees on my acre. Many beautiful old growth Pondos. The irony about Oregon is- we are covered in forest but get most of our lumber from overseas suppliers. Makes absolutely zero sense to me. He's cutting a lot of it into firewood too. 

I asked him if he wanted to see something cool. I brought him over to 3 hives rolling out the front getting ready for afternoon foraging. He loved it, but kept his distance. The other guy stayed further back. Funny how we forget about it.


----------



## Cloverdale

Today we have a warmer day than the last few really COLD days here in the NE. The sugar shims are on all but 2 hives, and saw many hives that had orienting bee’s. I’m very happy with that.


----------



## gww

Cloverdale
I saw the same the last warm day I looked and was also happy to see it.
Cheers
gww


----------



## LAlldredge

51 and sunny. Flying kids are out. Lots of activity at the water. Opened all 5 up to spy into the covered feeding shim of the vivaldi board. 3 of 5 are actively eating winter patties, MC or fondant. I wanted them to have a buffet of choices. The other 2 are below the shim and happily hanging out on their honey. Mite counts are low to non existent. All is well.


----------



## Cloverdale

LAlldredge said:


> 51 and sunny. Flying kids are out. Lots of activity at the water. Opened all 5 up to spy into the covered feeding shim of the vivaldi board. 3 of 5 are actively eating winter patties, MC or fondant. I wanted them to have a buffet of choices. The other 2 are below the shim and happily hanging out on their honey. Mite counts are low to non existent. All is well.


Did you really mean “flying kids”? Cause I have some of them too.


----------



## LAlldredge

So you understand then. The way I dote and fuss and lecture them they may as well be my kids. We need to reach a better understanding over water safety. I’m leaving lots or rocks in their water hole but still find drowned bees. They are not good listeners sometimes. It may just be the teenagers.


----------



## JWPalmer

My day in the apiary is more about what did not get done as opposed to what did. I did not get my Thanksgiving OAV treatment done and I did not get more syrup in the feeders or pollen patties into the hives. Cold and raining all day. 

What I was able to do was a bunch of inside work. The hive bodies and supers that I scrounged yesterday got scraped, sanded, and repainted along with a solid bottom board and a tele top. The styrofoam feeders got scraped, bleached, (they were nasty), sanded, and painted also. One deep hive body had rot on all four corners of an end board. I was able to pull the nails and use the piece as a pattern to cut a new one. Had to free hand the box joints on the table saw as my jig is elsewhere atm. This box still needs to be sanded and painted.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Upgrading my Beekeeping-Honey Extraction room - lucky me - so I can clean it easily. Snow on the ground, building 5-sided insulation boxes next and waiting for winter solstice to perform the final OAV sequence.


----------



## mischief

On Friday, I did an OAV on both hives.
24 hour mite count on the original-21. A bit higher than I thought it would be 48hr 51(total), today, no change. Well, that went well.
With Number 2, its a bit hard to say cos the brood nest isnt over the single mesh screen yet. They had no mites on the board at all so I think i will just do the OAV with them as I do the first one, just in case.


----------



## LAlldredge

48 degrees and sun- winter OAV. DDC for 5 after 24 hours is 7, 1, 0, 0, 0. 4 full size hives plus nuc in the resource hive are thriving and flying. They are eating their snack food and have plenty of stores. It was this time last year that I lost my first two hives so this really gave me a lift. Checking the next few months for stores on nice days. Happy bees, happy beekeeper.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

mischief and Lalldredge: Dumb mistake i make on one OAV treated hive - I did not seal the sticky board until the 3-day DDC count. It was licked clean by mice ( I believe). I always seal the sticky board for OAV and use a wet towel at the entrance during OAV application. Then I wait 3-5 days to conduct the DDC. I have also see ants feasting on sticky boards and found a sticky board pulled out a couple of times on one hive. I use Crisco as the sticky stuff. Repetitive OAV counts resulted in an interesting 2019 DDC graph.


----------



## elmer_fud

I got a free gift with the boxes I ordered on black Friday
.
.
.
.
.
a spider crawled out when I opened the box


----------



## mischief

Robert Holcombe said:


> mischief and Lalldredge: Dumb mistake i make on one OAV treated hive - I did not seal the sticky board until the 3-day DDC count. It was licked clean by mice ( I believe). I always seal the sticky board for OAV and use a wet towel at the entrance during OAV application. Then I wait 3-5 days to conduct the DDC. I have also see ants feasting on sticky boards and found a sticky board pulled out a couple of times on one hive. I use Crisco as the sticky stuff. Repetitive OAV counts resulted in an interesting 2019 DDC graph.


I have to make sure my boards are heavily oiled or something- I think centipedes, eats them. Thankfully mice cant get to them.


----------



## Cloverdale

50 degrees F today, OX vaped 3 hives out of 20 (one a dbl nuc). :thumbsup::thumbsup: One has shrew poop on the drawer and another mouse. All are alive so far, one is small according to the debris on the drawer. Only 3 months to go....


----------



## Charlie B

Sunny and 52 degrees today at my Golden Gate Park apiary. I had one super on each hive. All full from Eucalyptus bloom. Checkerboarded another super on each. Let it flow let flow let it flow!!!


----------



## Oneshoo

55 degrees at the Jersey Shore today. Bees very active today in 2 double deeps. Watched them for about 1/2 hour. Both hives looking strong?


----------



## mischief

Inspection on Tuesday.
First hive still has alot of drones, moved 2 frames of open nectar that had capped drone brood over to the honey side. As of yesterday, they had moved the nectar from at least one side of one frame back over to the other frames-can see through the window. 
Had to move capped brood frames around so they were together by the entrance instead of all through the hive.
Couldnt harvest any honey cos the frames werent all capped yet, so next time.

Second hive is building up well. 
Had to trim off some uncapped honey comb that they had built joining two frames.
After I drained the honey, I checked out the 6 capped Drone cells= no mites, so pleased with that.

I added a frame each of the shaved down frames to both hives. The second got one that was accidentally shaved down to 30mm. Be interesting to see how they build that out.
Cant remember when I last did an OAV, but will do the first one tomorrow,just to see what/if anything falls this time.


----------



## Cloverdale

Checked the hives with the FLIR and took a pic of the double nuc. Clusters are next to each other’s middle walls (not sure how to say that?) but you can see from the image. This hive is composed of 3 deep nucs sugar shim on top with entrances.













And as a bonus a pileated woodpecker showed himself, very upset that we cut the dead tree down where he gets his treats from. He was pecking around on the downed tree making a whole lotta noise! (that was yesterday and didn’t have a camera with me).


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

https://youtu.be/6okD6Tnnk6s

Bees were flying in warm December weather here in Northwest Germany. I loved it. :thumbsup:

Included some slow motion, dark bees, two queen hives.


----------



## Cloverdale

What a great video Bernhard!


----------



## JWPalmer

Heute, alle kleine Madchen in der Sonne spielten.

Can't do Umlauts on my phone.


----------



## Litsinger

mischief said:


> I added a frame each of the shaved down frames to both hives. The second got one that was accidentally shaved down to 30mm. Be interesting to see how they build that out.


Mischief:

Glad to see you posting updates here- are you using narrow frames consistently now or is this just a trial?


----------



## Litsinger

BernhardHeuvel said:


> https://youtu.be/6okD6Tnnk6s
> 
> Bees were flying in warm December weather here in Northwest Germany. I loved it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Included some slow motion, dark bees, two queen hives.


Bernhard:

Enjoyed watching your video- it was neat to see the different hive set-ups that you have. 

A prosperous new year to you and your family.

Russ


----------



## ncbeez

The last two days three out of eleven hives are bringing in something that looks like pollen. It is a small load that is a tan color and so few are bringing it in. That is what makes it strange to me. I am also wondering if they are visiting an evergreen tree, our Leyland Cypress or the nearby greenhouses. I don't usually see pollen in noticable amounts this early. I am in western nc at 2200 ft.


----------



## gww

nc
Check chicken feeders or other type feed. The last few days that were warmer, I saw bees in the feed. Just a thing to add to look at.
Cheers
gww


----------



## ncbeez

Hey that might be it. There are a few hens a couple houses over. I probably won't go over there because those people think we are kindred spirits but I think they are strange. A lot of my bees do go in that direction.


----------



## JWPalmer

ncbeez said:


> I think they are strange.


Hate to break it to ya, but they may have a similar impression of you. After all, we beekeepers are just a bit on the crazy side.

The recent weather has me thinking about spring and that means honey supers and splits. There are four really disgusting jobs in hobby beekeeping. In order they are:cleaning frames slimed by SHB, cleaning frames covered in webbing and wax moth poo, rendering wax that has bee larvae still in it, and cleaning out dead hives full of moldy bees. 
Today I worked on disgusting job #2. The destruction was not as bad as I thought, maybe 30 frames. Found out I had 13 supers still on the hives and being cared for by the bees. Scraped and cleaned the frames and plastic foundation. It looks like I will recover about 3/4# of honeycomb wax. No cocoons, but lots of poo which required multiple water boils to remove. Also cleaned and waxed up the deep plastic Acorn frames I was given. Feels like I made progress today. I heard there were bowl games on, really? Sometimes it is nice not having network or cable tv.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> Sometimes it is nice not having network or cable tv.


JW: This I can completely identify with. Having now spent close to a decade without TV, I am not sure how anyone finds time to watch it.

I sincerely hope your overwintering efforts have proven successful thus far, and Happy New Year to you and your family.

Russ


----------



## little_john

Litsinger said:


> JW: This I can completely identify with. Having now spent close to a decade without TV, I am not sure how anyone finds time to watch it.


It was around 10 years ago that our analogue TV signals were switched-off in favour of digital - I decided at that time not to indulge in any more 'opium of the people'. Best decision I've ever made.
LJ


----------



## LAlldredge

All 5 alive and flying today. 6a high desert Oregon. Especially proud of the mid August swarm thats thriving in their resource hive. Kept the mites off and fed them heavily. Sold on 4 over 4 deeps for smaller colonies.

Something about seeing flying bees lifts the spirits.


----------



## JWPalmer

little_john said:


> It was around 10 years ago that our analogue TV signals were switched-off in favour of digital - I decided at that time not to indulge in any more 'opium of the people'. Best decision I've ever made.
> LJ


I live about 35 from the tv broadcast towers. When they switched to digital, I put a nice large digital tv antenna on a 30' pole and got a pretty blue screen. Haven't had tv since then. Still watch movies on the dvd player but no longer feel compelled to turn on the tube and turn off my brain to watch the garbage that passes for entertainment these days. The bees provide what entertainment I need.


----------



## Cloverdale

We keep our boxes and frames out in the garage, nice and tight so mice don’t get into them, and my husband sets mouse traps. One trap caught a mouse, and my husband went out the next day to throw it out and the trap with the dead mouse was gone. :s


----------



## elmer_fud

JWPalmer said:


> After all, we beekeepers are just a bit on the crazy side


I agree, I am also an engineer which probably adds to the strangeness compared with the general population. 



JWPalmer said:


> There are four really disgusting jobs in hobby beekeeping. In order they are:cleaning frames slimed by SHB, cleaning frames covered in webbing and wax moth poo, rendering wax that has bee larvae still in it, and cleaning out dead hives full of moldy bees.


I really hope I am not jynxing myself, but I have not had to deal with any of those, and I am glad not to have. The hives I had that died over winter dried out and were not moldy by the time I caught it


----------



## Litsinger

little_john said:


> Best decision I've ever made.





LAlldredge said:


> Something about seeing flying bees lifts the spirits.





JWPalmer said:


> The bees provide what entertainment I need.


I agree X 3!


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> We keep our boxes and frames out in the garage, nice and tight so mice don’t get into them, and my husband sets mouse traps. One trap caught a mouse, and my husband went out the next day to throw it out and the trap with the dead mouse was gone.


Cloverdale: 

I had this happen not once but twice last year. One ultimately ended up in our gray water drain and the other ended up in one of the roller tracks of our garage door- gruesome scene.

I switched to the following trap and I could not be more pleased:

https://www.tomcatbrand.com/en-us/products/mice/tomcat-mouse-snap-traps


----------



## AR1

little_john said:


> It was around 10 years ago that our analogue TV signals were switched-off in favour of digital - I decided at that time not to indulge in any more 'opium of the people'. Best decision I've ever made.
> LJ


Makes me wonder how many of us don't have TV. 2005 was my cut-off.


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

I don't have a tv since 2002. Never missed it.


----------



## little_john

Cloverdale said:


> We keep our boxes and frames out in the garage, nice and tight so mice don’t get into them, and my husband sets mouse traps. One trap caught a mouse, and my husband went out the next day to throw it out and the trap with the dead mouse was gone. :s


I've had that happen to me too - 'twas a rat which took it.

Sometimes rats get too fat for their own good - like this fella (or lady) who got itself stuck in a German man-hole cover by carrying too much 'flab':



Happy 2020, 
LJ


----------



## ncbeez

Orange pollen today. Must be very scarce though because I had to watch for a long time to see a little. As far as being crazy, I guess having thousands of stinging insects as pets could qualify you as crazy. However I have some neighbors who occasionally howl at the moon.


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> Cloverdale:
> 
> I had this happen not once but twice last year. One ultimately ended up in our gray water drain and the other ended up in one of the roller tracks of our garage door- gruesome scene.
> 
> I switched to the following trap and I could not be more pleased:
> 
> https://www.tomcatbrand.com/en-us/products/mice/tomcat-mouse-snap-traps


Thanks!


----------



## Cloverdale

little_john said:


> I've had that happen to me too - 'twas a rat which took it.
> 
> Sometimes rats get too fat for their own good - like this fella (or lady) who got itself stuck in a German man-hole cover by carrying too much 'flab':
> 
> 
> 
> Happy 2020,
> LJ


Why thank you very much LJ, I shall indeed have a good 2020. I think the critter might be a barn or river rat, no fat ones over here.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

A worthy movie to display on your computer using a CD - "Honey Land" - if you have time. I am assuming one can still do that in these days of rapid change for the sake of ........ increased profits I believe.


----------



## Cloverdale

Robert Holcombe said:


> A worthy movie to display on your computer using a CD - "Honey Land" - if you have time. I am assuming one can still do that in these days of rapid change for the sake of ........ increased profits I believe.


I believe we just recently viewed that; I was impressed with how someone who has nothing can survive, and how we, in our culture, have such an abundance, can manage to complain about everything.


----------



## JWPalmer

Just some random musings. I drove home today from Charleston (67°F) watching the temps all day. Planned on getting out in the apiary as I was going to be home an hour earlier than usual. Ha! 53° but windy as could be. Girls were not flying and I was not going to intrude. So instead I finished filtering the 15# of wax I bought from Harbo Bee Co. Amazing how clean solar melted wax is right out of the melter. Anyhow, finished that up and ordered the 2# block mold that I am going to use as a collector in my own, soon to be built, solar melter. Winter is the time to plan and get things done. In two more months, I'll be be too busy with the bees for this kind of stuff.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> Anyhow, finished that up and ordered the 2# block mold that I am going to use as a collector in my own, soon to be built, solar melter. Winter is the time to plan and get things done. In two more months, I'll be be too busy with the bees for this kind of stuff.


JW:

I look forward to hearing how your solar melter project turns out. Only two months left... I'm already behind.


----------



## Cloverdale

Me too JW, I would love to see some pics when it’s finished. As for those beautiful temps, low of 11 degrees tonight


----------



## HeadofMeadow

Well yesterday in the Apiary, checked all of their sugar stores, added if necessary, removed mouse guards let them clean out some dead bees, Oxalic all hives as planned, some with a glow plug others with a dribble (Brother Adam Doubles from Better bee), entertained adding a ProVap to my Christmas list!


----------



## Litsinger

HeadofMeadow said:


> Well yesterday in the Apiary, checked all of their sugar stores, added if necessary, removed mouse guards let them clean out some dead bees, Oxalic all hives as planned, some with a glow plug others with a dribble (Brother Adam Doubles from Better bee), entertained adding a ProVap to my Christmas list!


HeadofMeadow:

Glad to hear your bees are overwintering well thus far. I was curious about your 'Doubles'. Maybe you have written about this in other posts, but are you referring to some double Nuc set-ups you have similar to Betterbee's take on Michael Palmer's method? Just curious.

Have a great day.

Russ


----------



## AHudd

71 degrees and sunny today. 
I got all of my hives moved closer together a couple of weeks ago to facilitate treatments. I moved them during cool rainy weather so they wouldn't be flying much. I also installed robber screens to make them orient to the new location. Some of them are still going back to the old locations. I guess they go back to the new location after they check the old one, "one last time". Crazy bees.

Alex


----------



## Gray Goose

AHudd said:


> 71 degrees and sunny today.
> I got all of my hives moved closer together a couple of weeks ago to facilitate treatments. I moved them during cool rainy weather so they wouldn't be flying much. I also installed robber screens to make them orient to the new location. Some of them are still going back to the old locations. I guess they go back to the new location after they check the old one, "one last time". Crazy bees.
> 
> Alex


robber screens or sticks or brush "MAY" or may not cause them to reorient. Sure eventually they reorient or die in the snow at the old location
They would go back to the original spot if that was where they think the hive should be.
Not crazy bees , sneekey beekeeper. If some one moved your house while you slept.... not necessarily your issue.
GG


----------



## Cloverdale

All hives flying today except 2; checked drawers wax debris there so they’re alive. Did catch a mouse in a trap next to a hive. There are tons of those buggers around this winter.


----------



## AHudd

Gray Goose said:


> robber screens or sticks or brush "MAY" or may not cause them to reorient. Sure eventually they reorient or die in the snow at the old location
> They would go back to the original spot if that was where they think the hive should be.
> Not crazy bees , sneekey beekeeper. If some one moved your house while you slept.... not necessarily your issue.
> GG


Yes, "may" is the operative word in this case. I had read that foragers only have a three or four day memory. They were confined to their hives for a few days before and after the move. Along with the addition of robber screens I thought there would be no problem. I also thought there wouldn't be many foragers this time of year. I guess I thought wrong. :scratch:
We have cold weather coming for a few days so maybe things will be sorted out after that. I guess when warm weather returns I'll check them all to see how much drifting there was.

Alex


----------



## Gray Goose

AHudd said:


> Yes, "may" is the operative word in this case. I had read that foragers only have a three or four day memory. They were confined to their hives for a few days before and after the move. Along with the addition of robber screens I thought there would be no problem. I also thought there wouldn't be many foragers this time of year. I guess I thought wrong. :scratch:
> We have cold weather coming for a few days so maybe things will be sorted out after that. I guess when warm weather returns I'll check them all to see how much drifting there was.
> 
> Alex


Alex, I have moved hives in winter and seen "Some" bees go back to the old location even a month later.... As long as the bee loss is small no worries. I have also read several things that later seem to be different  good luck
GG


----------



## AR1

32 degrees in N Illinois. Popped open my 4 backyard hives to check sugar. They are eating a bunch; all the sugar blocks are hollowed out on the underside, but no shortages yet. Added a few chunks to the pile and closed them up. Just happy to see no losses yet this winter. In fact they all looked fine.


----------



## gww

ar1
Sounds like your late queen is going to make it.
Cheers
gww


----------



## AR1

gww said:


> ar1
> Sounds like your late queen is going to make it.
> Cheers
> gww


That hive had more visible bees this time than I have seen since fall. They were all up under the sugar block and had it hollowed all out. So, absent crushing cold in February, it looks good. 

I am considering making up some patty this year, which I have not bothered with before. Hoping to push for a bunch of queen cells early and do a lot of splitting. I shouldn't be counting queens before they are hatched, I suppose; it's a long time until cold weather is done around here.


----------



## Gray Goose

AR1 said:


> That hive had more visible bees this time than I have seen since fall. They were all up under the sugar block and had it hollowed all out. So, absent crushing cold in February, it looks good.
> 
> I am considering making up some patty this year, which I have not bothered with before. Hoping to push for a bunch of queen cells early and do a lot of splitting. I shouldn't be counting queens before they are hatched, I suppose; it's a long time until cold weather is done around here.


AR1, how soon do you add the patties to "instigate" the early build up? Have you done it in the past? Did they do swarm prep early in that case?
Just curious
GG


----------



## AR1

Gray Goose said:


> AR1, how soon do you add the patties to "instigate" the early build up? Have you done it in the past? Did they do swarm prep early in that case?
> Just curious
> GG


No real idea. But swarms here are May and June, so I am not in any hurry. I have never fed spring bees before.


----------



## Gray Goose

AR1 said:


> No real idea. But swarms here are May and June, so I am not in any hurry. I have never fed spring bees before.


I did once, was a bit wild. I used the patty from Dadant, added it when the snow melted as I recall, sorry I did not keep better notes.
They had lots of honey, was a 3 deep. 30 days later I open it for a "spring" inspection and found several capped queen cells had to do a unplanned same day split 4 or 5 ways. If you want to push them ,and you have normal swarms in May, meaning drones are present in May then April 1 , to add the pollen Sub ,30 days in advance of the swarm season would be a good dart to toss at the calendar. Be ready , check often all of a sudden they are swarming.
Good luck, Let us know how it went.
I may try a couple this year as well, I'll keep better notes this time.
GG


----------



## GaryG74

We've been having several days here in the mid to upper 50s and a couple of days into the 60s. The alder, elm, and red maple trees have started blooming and I see olive colored, brown, and cream colored pollen going into the hives almost every day. The daffodils, dandelions, and hen bit have also started blooming.


----------



## AR1

GaryG74 said:


> We've been having several days here in the mid to upper 50s and a couple of days into the 60s. The alder, elm, and red maple trees have started blooming and I see olive colored, brown, and cream colored pollen going into the hives almost every day. The daffodils, dandelions, and hen bit have also started blooming.


Ahh. To be in Alabama...


----------



## Gray Goose

GaryG74 said:


> We've been having several days here in the mid to upper 50s and a couple of days into the 60s. The alder, elm, and red maple trees have started blooming and I see olive colored, brown, and cream colored pollen going into the hives almost every day. The daffodils, dandelions, and hen bit have also started blooming.


lucky you
I look out and see snow. Glad you have some early foraging it will help ramp your bees up. Be a good time to check them for stores. Sure to be some weeks of cold coming.
GG


----------



## AR1

Gray Goose said:


> lucky you
> I look out and see snow. Glad you have some early foraging it will help ramp your bees up. Be a good time to check them for stores. Sure to be some weeks of cold coming.
> GG


Just over freezing here. A few bees are out and flying around, but not making it back in reliably as they chill. Supposed to have a 40-degree day next week. I keep waiting for real winter to hit, but it is still early days.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Weighed hives yesterday, all have good weight on, 50 - 60 lb except one.. My big, hot and humid hive is gobbling up stores. I may have to feed come March. I'm waiting for the cold spell but the plants here are getting fooled.


----------



## little_john

Today (Feb 3rd) was warm and sunny - snowdrops are out in force and there are even a few early daffodils making their presence known - nearly all hives put some bees into the air, but it's still too early to form any conclusions. 
One hive which had showed zero activity thus far this winter (and one I was beginning to become just a little concerned about) put on a good display of a 1000+ bees - in contrast to the few dozen seen in front of other hives - so that one had me well fooled. 
LJ


----------



## elmer_fud

Our weather is drunk again, we had a 70ish degree F change in 60ish hours, hopefully my hives got clustered well in the rapid temperature change. We had 70's on Sunday, snow on Monday, and hit zero overnight on Tuesday.


----------



## Litsinger

elmer_fud said:


> Our weather is drunk again, we had a 70ish degree F change in 60ish hours, hopefully my hives got clustered well in the rapid temperature change. We had 70's on Sunday, snow on Monday, and hit zero overnight on Tuesday.


That's quite a roller coaster! Good luck on your remaining overwintering efforts.

Russ


----------



## LAlldredge

2/6-6a but high 40’s low 50’s for a bit. Started with 4 of 5 flying and taking dry pollen substitute (Glad it’s not a door stop anymore). Guess that’s a testament to our local pollen. Got into very top of the nonflyer to see 3 frames of bees hunkered down on brood from an early laying queen would be my bet. Will not be pulling frames for a while. Dropped Baker’s sugar moistened with ProSweet right over them along with sliver of protein patty. Since nurse bees won’t move away from brood this seemed like a wise move. They were all flying after this.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Upper 30's to low 40's F here with two straight days of 100% RH called fog and mist plus some high winds today; dreary overcast seems to be the pattern versus snow. I have one hive indicating significant brood rearing, maybe two, based on weight loss week over week.


----------



## little_john

Bit of a change in the weather. Got hit by a storm last night which wasn't expected until later-on today - the site here looks pretty trashed right now: anything which wasn't firmly held down is now scattered all around.
Luckily only two hives were affected: one lost it's telescopic roof which was found in the next field; the other - a triple-5 nuc stack was lifted clean off it's stand and dumped onto the grass. It's bees are now exposed of course and can be seen clustered up together looking pretty frightened - I've thrown some covers over those boxes for the time being to keep the rain off, and will be restoring order in a couple of hours when the wind and rain have moderated a little. Could have been a whole lot worse.
LJ


----------



## Rigratt

Weather here in central Mississippi has been really wet. Temps have been from the 50s to upper 60s in the daytime and 40ish at night. Haven’t done a inspection since last fall but have been out and observed a lot of bees flying bringing in lots of pollen. My hive has a glass inner cover and I can see lots of bees but I’m also seeing lots of dead bees outside the hive mainly on nice days. So I’m thinking they are just cleaning up. This first year has been a challenge trying to learn what “not” to do so despite my best efforts I think they will survive.


----------



## Litsinger

little_john said:


> Could have been a whole lot worse.


Sounds like quite an experience, LJ. Hopefully the nuc colony will be able to pull through.


----------



## Litsinger

Rigratt said:


> This first year has been a challenge trying to learn what “not” to do so despite my best efforts I think they will survive.


It would appear you are off to a good start, Rigratt. In my very limited experience I have learned that it is better to do nothing than to do 'something' without a clear purpose in mind.

Best of success to you in this coming year, and I look forward to reading about how your apiary develops.

Russ


----------



## Rigratt

Thanks, it’s all been trial and error as I work a 2 week rotation (I’m gone two weeks and then home two weeks) hopefully I can harvest some honey this year.


----------



## Litsinger

Rigratt said:


> ... I work a 2 week rotation (I’m gone two weeks and then home two weeks) ...


You work in the inland river business? Maybe when you retire you can get a flatboat and participate in maybe the oldest example of migratory beekeeping in the US...

http://www.gregorylefever.com/pdfs/Beekeeping.pdf


----------



## Rigratt

Litsinger said:


> You work in the inland river business? Maybe when you retire you can get a flatboat and participate in maybe the oldest example of migratory beekeeping in the US...
> 
> http://www.gregorylefever.com/pdfs/Beekeeping.pdf


I was offshore on jack up drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. I now work on land rigs in South Texas.


----------



## JWPalmer

Cool. I used to work for Rowan on a semi submersible.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Cold snap again. Sounds like 20-30 degrees this week then a lot warmer starting next weekend. Had -19 F yesterday. I'm hoping a warm-up starts this week. I'd like to check feed and satisfy my curiosity. They were alive 2 weeks ago. this is always a nervous time for me. I'll feel better in a couple weeks.
Keep on buzzing!! 
Jerry


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> You work in the inland river business? Maybe when you retire you can get a flatboat and participate in maybe the oldest example of migratory beekeeping in the US...
> 
> http://www.gregorylefever.com/pdfs/Beekeeping.pdf


Thanks for sharing that brief history of early beekeeping in the US.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Update Mystery: Weighed my two lowest weight hives on the 14th, two weeks after the last weight check. The weights were UP about 12 lbs. and 5 lb. There is certainly no nectar around, temperatures have been around freezing, rain, fog,mist and grey skies fro a couple of weeks with one good in the 40s cleansing day. Why? I think it is mostly absorption of water by hte hive and brood comb as well as waste storage in the bees. Maybe some due to water foraging for brood rearing. Certainly interesting - weighting and knowing what it means is not as easy as presumed. Oh, checked one hive top / inner cover as my arrangement is not traditional - dry and warm.


----------



## VickyLynn

You probably have a busy queen laying eggs and workers taking care of young brood.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> Update Mystery: Weighed my two lowest weight hives on the 14th, two weeks after the last weight check. The weights were UP about 12 lbs. and 5 lb. There is certainly no nectar around, temperatures have been around freezing, rain, fog,mist and grey skies fro a couple of weeks with one good in the 40s cleansing day. Why? I think it is mostly absorption of water by the hive and brood comb as well as waste storage in the bees. Maybe some due to water foraging for brood rearing. Certainly interesting - weighting and knowing what it means is not as easy as presumed. Oh, checked one hive top / inner cover as my arrangement is not traditional - dry and warm.


Any chance they have been flying and robbing a dead hive somewhere? That seems like a lot of weight to gain from only air/humidity. 

How accurate is your scale and has it been affected by any temperature changes?


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I have been watching them and weather barely supports nearby water foraging. The weather has not been good enough for flying any distance except one 45F day I think. It has been miserably wet - even my dog is complaining. Now it's cold, warmer, cold again but drier. I already see a drop in internal RH values after two days. The next week or so with one rain day should show a significant weight loss. I will be checking weekly and if I get a 50s day I will check th etop super. My standard brood chamber is a composed of a 2 medium and a deep with 30 frames installed. Without actually testing ( maybe I will) I think the wood content can account for a large amount water absorption. I know when I was a "kid" I drove, via a water jet pump system, 20 -35 Ft. oak pilings. I specifically waited for spring to order what I needed because spring provided "soaked" oak tree trunk that would sink and stay put. Dry ones floated like bobbers - drove me crazy one time, had to float them all until they sunk. Native white pine sucks up a lot of water. 

The weight scale is a calibrated, spring/fish scale and mechanically adjustable for tare weights and changes to zero; 6-8" face diameter. I got tired of "convenient" digital junk. I also understand vector mechanics and correct my readings. Think I will go submerge a deep box with ten frames .


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"two recently installed packages" Wow! You guys get started early. It was 13F the other morning. It's still 2 months for packages around here. Last year I saw the first pollen on March 19. I also have a nursery near me


----------



## dddillon

Opened hives today (Richmond, Va) since a few of them needed supering, and saw this on one. Reminded me of a street I lived on with lots of busy-bodies that would peek out the window curtain when anything at all was happening outside their yards. I could almost hear a thousand tiny voices saying "Hey!!, What are you doing there. You don't belong on this street". lol


----------



## odfrank

If I saw that colony I would be worried it was short on stores.





dddillon said:


> Opened hives today (Richmond, Va) since a few of them needed supering, and saw this on one. Reminded me of a street I lived on with lots of busy-bodies that would peek out the window curtain when anything at all was happening outside their yards. I could almost hear a thousand tiny voices saying "Hey!!, What are you doing there. You don't belong on this street". lol
> 
> View attachment 53621


----------



## JWPalmer

odfrank said:


> If I saw that colony I would be worried it was short on stores.


We have nectar from something coming in already here in the RVA. Loads of uncapped cells full of nectar that were empty a few weeks ago.


----------



## dddillon

odfrank said:


> If I saw that colony I would be worried it was short on stores.


no worries, this one had a good heft, and like John said, they are finding something out there and the boxes are getting heavier every day.

The hive next to it had several frames of brand new capped honey? This is just from the last couple of weeks. And it only the middle of February. Crazy!!!

the little sugar up there was a small block I put on that they totally ignored, As most of my hives did.


----------



## althea

Interesting as I am not to far from u all, but I have not seen that kind of nectar build up, but all my hives have a lot of pollen, should be all natural since the 3 beekeepers around here do not use patties or put anything out.


----------



## Knisely

In New Haven, CT (USDA 6a) yesterday, numerous hives were bringing in pollen (two different colors) with the afternoon temperatures in the mid-40's. I have Crocus tomassinianus in bloom and saw bees working them. I'm not sure what else might have been a pollen source for them, but I'm glad to see them getting ready for spring.


----------



## AR1

40 degrees today, single digits tomorrow's forcast. So, a normal February or a bit warmer.

Checked my 4 hives and all look great, clustered up against the the sugar blocks. They were hollowed right out. I added sugar block to all of them. Expecting another month before any useful foraging.


----------



## Dan the bee guy

Another day that started below zero I've been checking on sugar and adding sugar blocks for over a month. April can't come soon enough.


----------



## Gray Goose

Checked some hive with my flir, seems they are still going. Days are getting longer and the sun higher spring is in the Air


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"In New Haven, CT (USDA 6a) yesterday, numerous hives were bringing in pollen" -- I think I am still a month away from pollen being 60 miles East, near Narragansett Bay / Pt Judith. Long Island Sound keeps you warmer I guess. Last year I saw pollen on March 19th. I will watch and see waht happens this year. Do you have a green houses near you? I get suspicious


----------



## Knisely

The few blooms are on the south side of the garage, and they are an early self-seeding species crocus (several weeks earlier than Dutch crocus)—Crocus tommasinianus.


----------



## mamm7215

Surrey, B.C. Canada here, near Vancouver. 8a I think, my bees bringing first pollen of year in today. Cream colored and bright orange. Cream I think is Hazelnut and the orange might be crocus. Still have a fair bit of capped sugar syrup honey left over I'll probably take out in the next couple of weeks if it warms up more and use for swarm traps...


----------



## Cloverdale

Knisely said:


> The few blooms are on the south side of the garage, and they are an early self-seeding species crocus (several weeks earlier than Dutch crocus)—Crocus tommasinianus.


Can this type be bought through a seed catalogue? Thanks, Deb


----------



## Knisely

Cloverdale said:


> Can this type be bought through a seed catalogue? Thanks, Deb


Yes. Now is not the time in the northern hemisphere to purchase the bulbs (corms). They can be bought in the late summer & fall. Here is a vendor (https://www.vanengelen.com/flower-bulbs-index/crocus/species-crocus.html) that I’ve used, and you can seek the same items out on the web as many people/companies sell them. Look for the species names. Crocus Tommasinianus is shades of lavender/purples, Crocus chrysantha is yellow. I’ve found tommies to be easy naturalizers (just don’t mow too early).


----------



## Cloverdale

Thanks!


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"my bees bringing first pollen of year" - I am still about a month away from natural pollen and I am in "Southern" Rhode Island. Today was the first day approaching 50F, actually 47F, so I ran a test. I put a tablespoon of UltraBee protien substitute on each of 9 entrances. Eight cleaned it up and he ninth pretty much ignored it. #9 is engaged in brood rearing right now as I see her hive warming up the others had lots of orientation flights - some really big. I think, have been developed from a nuc last Fall, she is a bit behind in schedule with a smaller cluster / work force. 

The surprise was the sugar syrup I put out. It was completely ignored. Could there prefer their own reserves over warm syrup. I have not tried this in late winter before so I was really surprised. I also noted there seemed to be little water foraging going on in spite of a nice day. Comments?


----------



## Cloverdale

I did the same yesterday; the hives were flying, put out the Ultra Bee pollen and they ignored it; they were flying but not far. Usually they take the whole pile down. I’m thinking it might be too old even though stored in the freezer, or they didn’t need it, which surprises me. As for your syrup, it could have been too cold to forage, or they just didn’t need it. You nicely put the pollen on their front stoop so they didn’t have to go anywhere.

I just went out now all hives flying and some taking the pollen. I think it’s the temperature, it may have read 47-50 but the air seems colder.


----------



## JWPalmer

I think my eyesight is going to hell. I went through 7 of my hives today, checking stores, scraping endbars, reversing boxes, cleaning bottom screems, etc. Also went looking for queens to do a queenright split in the hopes of having some of the hives produce queen cells. Plenty of bees, brood and eggs to be seen, could not find a single queen. Finally said to heck with it and made a walk away split. About 30% of the time I end up with the queen in the split anyway. We'll see what happens.


----------



## Cloverdale

JWPalmer said:


> I think my eyesight is going to hell. I went through 7 of my hives today, checking stores, scraping endbars, reversing boxes, cleaning bottom screems, etc. Also went looking for queens to do a queenright split in the hopes of having some of the hives produce queen cells. Plenty of bees, brood and eggs to be seen, could not find a single queen. Finally said to heck with it and made a walk away split. About 30% of the time I end up with the queen in the split anyway. We'll see what happens.


Sorry but :lpf: I am right with you.


----------



## gww

jw


> could not find a single queen.


Welcome to my world. Not from a lack of trying here and there though.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Robert Holcombe

" think my eyesight is going to hell." Well Jim, I think this implies you are getting old. I am told that kids who have never seen a queen can find them in minutes if you show them a pic and give a little explanation. I do not even bother looking anymore. I simply isolate the queen using QE's to one box by observing brood. Then move the box or call for help.


----------



## Cloverdale

Robert Holcombe said:


> " think my eyesight is going to hell." Well Jim, I think this implies you are getting old. I am told that kids who have never seen a queen can find them in minutes if you show them a pic and give a little explanation. I do not even bother looking anymore. I simply isolate the queen using QE's to one box by observing brood. Then move the box or call for help.


That works.


----------



## AR1

Yesterday, pollen coming in, heavy use of open feed. Today, snowing.
Gave a hive to someone last August and it died over winter. Took it apart today. Not a drop of honey. Classic starvation. A bit more education next time I give someone a hive.


----------



## Michael Palmer

JWPalmer said:


> About 30% of the time I end up with the queen in the split anyway. We'll see what happens.


Why don't you use the Doolittle method?


----------



## honeyhartbees

*Spring nucs in S. Carolina*

My daughter and I just finished checking for queen releases in our spring nucs. This is our 1st year selling nucs. We have a very short main fliw here, ending in June, so we decided to try and fill a void(early nucs) for new beekeepers just starting out in our area. We'll be delivering nucs before April this year. Goid feeling that all our nucs are already sold.


----------



## gww

Michael 


> Why don't you use the Doolittle method?


This was the only reason I bought my one queen excluder. I still have not tried my planned split with it. I know you make your own queens but do wonder if leaving the brood on top of a queen rite hive for a week would get queen cells started in it like seems to be implied in one of doolittles books?
So far I have just been doing fly back splits on the few splits I have made.
Cheers
gww


----------



## clyderoad

Seeing the bees corralling small hive beetles already. Looks like a larger population of SHB for this time in spring than I can recall, reminds me of late June.
Put some brillo basic reusable wipes on the top bars of the frames in the top box, a 1/4 of a sheet. 
Haven't 'treated' for SHB before now, hope the wipes work and trap a lot of them until the bees are strong enough to handle them without any help. 

Results of a warm winter? If so, tick season (started already) and mosquito season should be winners. Not to mention spotted wing drosophila damage.

GWW- Not him, but yes to your question.


----------



## gww

Clyderoad


> GWW- Not him, but yes to your question.


I take your answer just fine and thank you. It would seem a nice way to use several hives giving just a little at a time from each to make splits during swarm season with out completely killing honey production. Brood from some and bees from others and just a little tamp down to the hives being used.
I think about it every year but am happy with my hive numbers and never do it. I usually do a flyback sometime during the year just for the experience of some kind of split. Maybe this year?
Thanks 
gww


----------



## clyderoad

Thanks GWW- 
yup. Don't need to see the queen as the brood frames are put over the excluder after shaking the bees off. The nurse bees then travel up to the beeless brood frames to take care of them.
Could take a few frames of brood (less the attached bees) from a few hives and then place them over a QE on a strong hive so the nurse bees from that strong hive travel up and care for the brood frames.
Many use this method for swarm control as well as making some increase and getting some queen cells -and all three can be accomplished at the same time in the yard with nothing but a QE, replacement frames for those harvested and a empty box.


----------



## Michael Palmer

gww said:


> Michael
> 
> This was the only reason I bought my one queen excluder. I still have not tried my planned split with it. I know you make your own queens but do wonder if leaving the brood on top of a queen rite hive for a week would get queen cells started in it like seems to be implied in one of doolittles books?
> So far I have just been doing fly back splits on the few splits I have made.
> Cheers
> gww


The bees absolutely will start emergency cells in brood elevated above a queen excluder. But in the Doolittle method for making a split, the split...with all the bees brushed off...is only left above the excluder for a short time. Some leave overnight. Some smoke the heck in the bottom entrance and drive the bees up into the split. In both cases, the queen is left below...almost no chance of robbing the queen and having her in the split.


----------



## JWPalmer

Michael, I will be using the Doolittle method for populating the nucs afer I get a few cells. I had hoped to split out the queens on a few of the hives today. Two weeks ago I was seeing the queen every time I opened a hive. Next time I go out, I am taking my marking pen.


----------



## gww

Michael
I know Doolittle liked to remove almost all the brood from his production hives. I think he mentioned he would leave them for two hours to a day and then set on their own and add queen cells. He also mentioned leaving for a week and then setting on its own bottom board when you were not adding a cell. 

I only ask cause this was a discussion I had with a member last year or the year before as an option to get a queen cell and his bees did not end up making queen cells. I was thinking they would make a queen for him and was just checking with you guys that have more experience to be sure. 

I have loved the ideal of the doolittle method, using queen rite hives after reading two of his books. It is the reason I bought a queen excluder.  I have read both books a few times and his old english writing style took a bit of getting used to for an almost illiterate guy like me. So sometimes I ask more then once from people smarter then me. I loved the ideal of not having to find the queen and also the potential that clyderoad mentioned of swarm control and getting a few queens started.

The biggest reason I have not did it is that my ambition level is low and I don't want to fill all my extra emergency equipment and feel the need to start building again. 

If I bug you guys for info, it is because this method is still on my bucket list and also, I don't want to lead others astray when I discuss stuff with them like mentioned earlier.

Thank you and clyderoad for your info.
gww


----------



## little_john

clyderoad said:


> Don't need to see the queen as the brood frames are put over the excluder after shaking the bees off. The nurse bees then travel up to the beeless brood frames to take care of them.
> Could take a few frames of brood (less the attached bees) from a few hives and then place them over a QE on a strong hive so the nurse bees from that strong hive travel up and care for the brood frames.


The above is the core procedure of Doolittle's Method for isolating a bunch of nurse bees without the queen being present - and must be the easiest way of achieving this. Apart from the applications already given (making increase, raising q/cells, swarm control etc), I've used this method on a number of occasions for 'milking' nurse bees away from one colony to give to another. Totally painless, and almost zero risk.
LJ


----------



## JWPalmer

Rotated boxes on four more of the hives this afternoon and did complete inspections. Patties are gone, wax paper is gone, most of the old stores are gone (new nectar in some of the frames) and there are a ton of bees in the hives. As in 30 frames worth in each of the ones I inspected today. No charged queen cups yet. Pulled walk away splits out of three of them, three frames of brood and two additional shakes of bees. Only saw one of the queens, naturally she was the one hive I did not split because all the brood was on medium frames. Performed other hive maintenance, got a a dozen nucs set up, waiting for bees and rendered a bunch of comb that I did not want to reuse.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Steady, upper 30's, 12 mph winds today but dry and sunny. So I waited 'til 5:00pm and weighed the hives. The all are still carrying Fall stores, 30 lb or more but it seems they are picking up the consumption rate. Hives are running drier even though they are raising brood. Both temperature and RH have nearly flat-lined day to day with the current weather pattern. Tuesday will be warm enough to do some checking inside. 9-for-9 flying but one hive has a queen problem - I think. 

Speaking of stores, I realized that having a few hundred pounds of honey around is a nice food hedge - just like the bees do.


----------



## AR1

Unexpectedly warmed up and got sunny today, against the forecast. Bees were out thick on a feeder, and quite a bit of grey pollen going into the hives as well. The only source I know of is the neighbor's maples.

The bees were so busy on those maples, I was 60 feet away in my garage and could hear the hum. Home today and time for a new task, so I drug the kitchen table outside and started refinishing it. First step strip the old finish. Used a citrus stripper, and the bees were mighty interested in the smell. I had lots of company.

Popped the tops on my four, and all are alive. Only one looks weak, but it was a very late split that never really took off. If it's still alive in a few weeks I'll steal some brood from another hive and boost it a little.


----------



## little_john

This morning (8 a.m. as I write this) heralds the start of yet another fine day. It's been like this for the last few days now: each day starting with the white 'powdery' appearance of an overnight frost, which is very quickly followed by warm sun which 'burns-off' all traces of the frost - and only then do the bees emerge in force. Lovely stuff - long may this continue - which it won't of course, but it's great while it lasts ...
It's at times like these when I would have liked to have switched-on a small heater inside each hive during the wee small hours - just an hour or two to prevent any need for them to cluster around their brood, and so be able to get on with whatever else needs doing inside the hive. But such heaters aren't installed - they never were - they're still inside the box just as it was received a year or two ago. Yet another one of my "that's a good idea" which never was essential, and so finds itself on the "TO DO (one of these days) LIST". 
LJ


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LJ "I would have liked to have switched-on a small heater inside each hive during the wee small hours - just an hour or two to prevent"

My hive temperatures have been extremely stable albeit I record each morning with coffee after the frost has melted. I note you middle-of-the night comment and shall endeavor to record some data at night too. My "switch" is an "enable switch" which allows the bees to easily regulate their atmosphere or so it seems.


----------



## AHudd

I found Queen cells today. Time to get busy.

Alex


----------



## AR1

AHudd said:


> I found Queen cells today. Time to get busy.
> 
> Alex


Yikes! Yes, it is. Plans for those cells?


----------



## AHudd

AR1 said:


> Yikes! Yes, it is. Plans for those cells?


I am going to place them above Snelgrove boards until they ripen and then use them to make splits and to re-queen some colonies. I did not find any that were capped, but they looked close.

I will begin manipulations today for Snelgrove Board placement in a couple of days.

Alex

Alex


----------



## elmer_fud

I decided this method of keeping my bees at my water source is working (last fall and this spring) so I figured I would share.

I have a 5 gallon bucked (wrapped in insulation) filled with water. I added a few tablespoons of salt and maybe one tablespoon of honey to this bucket and then put an aquarium heater in it set to 80-90C. The Bees have been visiting this water source and mostly ignoring the pond 3 feet away. They have also been staying out of my neighbors hot tub, which I have had problems with them going to in the past.


----------



## AR1

60 degrees yesterday, bees very active even with dark skies and rain. Pollen baskets so full the bees seemed to be having difficulty flying! Tornado warning overnight (several farm buildings damaged about 2 miles away from us), down to 30 degrees overnight. No bees flying today, too cold. In other words, a normal March in Illinois.


----------



## Michael Palmer

little_john said:


> The above is the core procedure of Doolittle's Method for isolating a bunch of nurse bees without the queen being present - and must be the easiest way of achieving this. Apart from the applications already given (making increase, raising q/cells, swarm control etc), I've used this method on a number of occasions for 'milking' nurse bees away from one colony to give to another. Totally painless, and almost zero risk.
> LJ


Pretty standard method of harvesting nurse bees LJ. Sealed brood below excluder with queen. Open brood with bees brushed off above excluder. Leave overnight. Bees above excluder on open brood are nurse bees


----------



## Michael Palmer

Finished first visit to my Vermont apiaries. Checking food and giving sub. 5% loss. Fed a handful, almost all have ample feed. Big clusters. Glad to get back to work


----------



## JWPalmer

Temps today climbed up into the 80s here and I was able to spend almost the entire day in the apiary. Life is good. Late this evening I noticed a clump of bees on the hive stand under an unused hive body. Could it be..? Yep. Brushed the softball sized clump into a nuc with drawn comb and found the queen. Where did she come from? None of my hives have swarm cells. So I am thinking this is the second queen from the swarm I hived last weekend. I suspect she went and got mated and in the process attracted a bunch of now homeless foragers from the four nucs I sold today. A lot of the bees had their pollen baskets full. Not something you typically see in a swarm.


----------



## little_john

> *little_john* The above is the core procedure of Doolittle's Method for isolating a bunch of nurse bees without the queen being present - and must be the easiest way of achieving this. Apart from the applications already given (making increase, raising q/cells, swarm control etc), I've used this method on a number of occasions for 'milking' nurse bees away from one colony to give to another. Totally painless, and almost zero risk.
> LJ





Michael Palmer said:


> Pretty standard method of harvesting nurse bees LJ. Sealed brood below excluder with queen. Open brood with bees brushed off above excluder. Leave overnight. Bees above excluder on open brood are nurse bees


I came across another method a few days ago, as used by Elisha Gallup. In those days a 'honey-board' was used instead of an inner cover - but essentially they're the same thing. His honey-boards were in 3 parts, as he used a (shortish) long hive.
His technique was to lay one of those boards on top of the brood box, leaving the areas to either side of it open. Bees would then cluster underneath that board, then he'd carefully lift the board away with the bees clinging to it underneath. Those bees being nurse bees. He found that there was little risk of the Queen being included, providing the hive itself hadn't been disturbed (with frames having been pulled etc), as she would remain on the combs down below.

Needs testing of course to confirm, but would be a much speedier way of harvesting nurse bees.
'best
LJ


----------



## elmer_fud

Last night I set up a camera looking on one of my hives. Today I used the video feed as my video for video conferences at work today. Several people commented on this and enjoyed it.


----------



## Litsinger

elmer_fud said:


> Last night I set up a camera looking on one of my hives. Today I used the video feed as my video for video conferences at work today. Several people commented on this and enjoyed it.


That is a great idea! You are the tech guru...


----------



## Michael Palmer

little_john said:


> I came across another method a few days ago, as used by Elisha Gallup....
> LJ


I remember a beekeeper telling me he did this very thing , but with a queen excluder. He added the excluder but put it on turned 90˚. Claimed the queens won't go around the excluder and up the side.


----------



## MichaelCfffg

Mariahk said:


> I really am not proud of this but as your the only people who will hopefully laugh with me here it goes... I was out by the hives in the evening watering my plants, my dog was wondering around A
> and somehow tripped me causing me to bang into a hive hard, of coarse it had to be the the pissy hive. **** things shot out like angry rockets which caused me to run for cover. I could feel a sting on my arm during my retreat. And hear them on the back of my shirt, which half way across the back yard I ditched, and ran into the house topless much to my daughters enjoyment, they watched the whole scene, and were on the floor laughing. I only got one sting and so did the dog, on his nose. But after I suited up to make sure I didn't topple anything and retrieve my shirt. I found the hive was ok, my shirt had at least 6 angry bees in it. I don't think a single member of my family will let me live it down and my husband just laughed and said "you wanted bees"


Really enjoying the mental image! My family and spouse would react exactly the same way. Glad you didn't hurt anything more than your pride!

(This note was in reply to an old posting about a member accidentally falling against a pissy hive, and having to shed her shirt as she ran to her house, much to her family's delight. Once I realized how old that posting was, I wanted to delete my response, but couldn't figure out how. Maybe someone could enlighten me on how to do that.)


----------



## JWPalmer

You can edit your post by removing all the words and then type "deleted". A moderator will then remove the posting. In this case, I would like to see the story as I do not recall having read it. What was the post number?


----------



## MichaelCfffg

Hi JW;

Thanks for the clarification on how to delete! That funny story was on Post #19 in this thread. It was my first time to explore the forum, and I guess the default is to display linear, starting with the oldest, so this one was from I think 2012. Well worth your going back and reading it!

I've gone into my settings, and changed the display to linear, newest first, so maybe I'll be a little more timely next time I comment on something. LOL


----------



## JWPalmer

I edited your post to include the original post. Truly a funny story and I am glad Mariah shared it with us.


----------



## JWPalmer

After a cloudy and generally yucky day yesterday, today was almost picture perfect. Finished swaping around my supers, shaking bees off the ones with brood, and got the last three queen excluders installed. Sold a nuc that was the swarm I caught two weeks ago. Before anyone jumps me, it was a queen I had sold last year and in the two weeks since being hived had layed up 4-1/2 frames of brood, all tightly packed. The purchaser was aware of the history. The nuc i had planned to sell was not of good enough quality as there were far to many drone cells mixed in and I am thinking the queen may be going drone layer. Tight pattern though. Made another split to accommodate the returning foragers and added a queen cell to a split that did not make one of their own and had become hopelessly queenless. Fed the nucs and smoked a cigar while watching the girls bringing in a ton of pollen. Another good day.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> Fed the nucs and smoked a cigar while watching the girls bringing in a ton of pollen. Another good day.


Add a cool beverage to the equation and it sounds like real living to me.


----------



## JWPalmer

The cool beverges came later while watching the wife fire up the riding mower and cut the grass. And I smoked another cigar in the process.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> The cool beverges came later while watching the wife fire up the riding mower and cut the grass. And I smoked another cigar in the process.


Well now you are just rubbing it in...


----------



## Arnie

JW, you inspired me to fire up a stogie and watch the bees bring in pollen! I haven't been smoking lately. Good fun.

Checked 10 hives today. Most are between good and booming.
One has a failed queen. Another was a little weakish. Gave that one a couple frames of capped brood. 
Reversed hive bodies on a few.
Will check the other 12 tomorrow.


----------



## MichaelCfffg

Well, the weatherman gave us hope a couple of days ago for a 66 deg. day today, so we planned on a full inspection, marking the queen, and possibly a split of my one hive. Unfortunately, it never got above 50 deg., was damp and overcast, so discretion being the better part of valor, we ended up calling the whole thing off, and will try again on Wednesday. The girls were flying, but not with a lot of enthusiasm.


----------



## jimbo3

Installed 2 five frame nucs into 2, 10 frame deeps. Drove 2 hours to Betterbee and 2 hours back. Nucs looked strong. Unfortunately didn't see either queen, though saw eggs and such in both nucs. I'm not good at finding queens, and not sure if they were marked. I didn't want to spend a lot of time inspecting as it was maybe 50 at the most and cloudy.


----------



## MichaelCfffg

Well, we weren't able to do the inspection on the 5th as noted below. We were able to do it today though. We found the queen and marked her. She is big and beautiful! We also found no small hive beetles, and no evidence of mites or any diseases. My new friend was very impressed with my hive - two deep brood boxes and a medium super being drawn out nicely, all chock full of bees, and with lots of brood in both deeps.

Anticipating the possibility of doing a split, he had brought me another mated queen. We set up the new queen in a new deep with a good portion of the stores, brood, and bees, and then we found a frame with eggs in the cells, and set that up a nuc box with more brood, bees, and stores, with the hope that these bees will make a new queen of their own, to graduate me up from one hive to three if the nuc experiment is successful. We'll find out in 10 days if we're going to be successful with that one.

So now I've got the original hive and queen in just one deep with the medium super back on, a new single deep hive with a new caged queen in it, and a five frame nuc with everything they should need to make themselves a new queen for that colony. Great fun, extremely educational, and I'm totally exhausted now after a long 90 deg. F day.

This weekend I'll be working on a stand for these hives, then more supers and more frames. In between, I'll be hanging a Screech Owl nesting box and painting and hanging a bat nursery box.


----------



## Bee Arthur

MichaelCfffg said:


> I'll be hanging a Screech Owl nesting box and painting and hanging a bat nursery box.


Nice job! This is my favorite part. I always like when beeks do a bit extra to help other species, whether it's bats, owls, wood ducks, native bees, or whatever. For one thing, it's the right thing to do and improves the ecosystem around our bee yards. But it also helps counter some of the "honey bees are destroying the environment" arguments.


----------



## hockeyfan_019

Bee Arthur said:


> Nice job! This is my favorite part. I always like when beeks do a bit extra to help other species, whether it's bats, owls, wood ducks, native bees, or whatever. For one thing, it's the right thing to do and improves the ecosystem around our bee yards. But it also helps counter some of the "honey bees are destroying the environment" arguments.


Wow, this is a new one for me. "Honey bees are destroying the environment"? Sounds like a bunch of garbage to me, without our bees there would be catastrophe. Before I started keeping bees here I literally NEVER saw a single honey been in my yard. Now, all my flowers, fruits, and veggies are MUCH more productive, so I sure there has been a great improvement, and not just for me, but for as far as my girls are flying. What is the "bad for the environment argument"? We are now able to grow too much food and we are depleting the ground nutrients excessively? 

Just the act of keeping bees demands a number of environmentally friendly habits, aside from the bees themselves. Limiting pesticides, planting more drought tolerance crops and flowers, providing more abundant water, improving soil conditions, spending more time outdoors, etc, all that stuff seems to provide beneficial effects to the environment AND humans, not damage.

Finally though, I think that most of us don't do it just for the hope of a huge payday from selling honey LOL. We are trying to do our part to help make up for some of the slackers out there filling up the landfills and dumping who-knows-what. I know for instance that I've seen a huge increase in monarch butterflies (hopefully due to trying to leave more milkweed alone, and planting more butterfly-friendly stuff like trumpet vine, bee balm, wisteria vine, daffodils, lilac, etc) and lots more mason bees (now nesting in all those "cut bamboo" sort of boxes I put up). I already have plans for bat houses, so I'll have several of those by the end of the season too if all goes to plan. Looks like I'm going to have to look for plans for those screech owl boxes though too, now that I don't have any guineas to worry about. Hawks or owls + guineas = eventually a big pile of white feathers lol.


----------



## Bee Arthur

hockeyfan_019 said:


> Wow, this is a new one for me. "Honey bees are destroying the environment"?


Here's an example of their arguments: https://theconversation.com/keeping...qdt0AwqNeBmjID3xbE13-ibWhso3Leztxdl_6h7SxtEME

I follow a facebook page that routinely advocates for removal of honey bees from the landscape. They argue that honey bees outcompete native bees for limited resources, and that honey bees spread diseases and pests to native species. On the rare occasions that I comment on their posts, I try to remind them that they should view beekeepers as allies and that most of us have the same goals they do (protect wild habitat and establish new pollinator-friendly habiltat, for instance). That being said (here's where I get into trouble), their arguments do hold some water when you look at huge commercial beekeeping operations. I can understand how having an enormous concentration of honey bees in one area could do harm to native pollinators. So I'm sympathetic to their cause, though I like to think a vast majority of us beekeepers are doing more good than harm.


----------



## hockeyfan_019

Bee Arthur said:


> Here's an example of their arguments: https://theconversation.com/keeping...qdt0AwqNeBmjID3xbE13-ibWhso3Leztxdl_6h7SxtEME
> 
> I follow a facebook page that routinely advocates for removal of honey bees from the landscape. They argue that honey bees outcompete native bees for limited resources, and that honey bees spread diseases and pests to native species. On the rare occasions that I comment on their posts, I try to remind them that they should view beekeepers as allies and that most of us have the same goals they do (protect wild habitat and establish new pollinator-friendly habiltat, for instance). That being said (here's where I get into trouble), their arguments do hold some water when you look at huge commercial beekeeping operations. I can understand how having an enormous concentration of honey bees in one area could do harm to native pollinators. So I'm sympathetic to their cause, though I like to think a vast majority of us beekeepers are doing more good than harm.


Thanks for the great explanation. Given a "huge" bee-yard operation I can see that there could be some negative effects on local area, but likely still an overall positive. Especially if the bees were all being moved place-to-place for the purpose of various crop pollination tasks. But, if people were really concerned about the environment, they'd look at industries like big-pork or big-chicken production. If you have had any experience with these industries (of even just live near one) you'd know what I'm talking about...


----------



## JWPalmer

Virginia is a huge producer of chickens, turkeys, and pork products. I know exactly what you are talking about. Tyson even has a processing plant just outside Richmond, yuck.


----------



## ncbeez

Checked on the bees today. Nucs are doing satisfactory. One booming hive was bearding this morning which is unusual because it was only 49 degrees. When it warmed up to the mid 50's I opened it up. No signs of swarming but was very full of bees and brood. I checker boarded the 2nd brood box (medium) . It already had 1 deep and two mediums mostly full of brood. I know it is frowned upon to checker board the brood chamber instead of above it but it was so full and needed something done quick. 
Also was marking queens with my one handed queen catcher. One queen I missed catching her twice. She was running along the comb fairly quick and she flew from the comb back to the box a couple of feet away twice. This queen is fat and laying. Has anyone seen a mated queen run quick and fly any distance at all when they are not in swarm mode. This is a recently mated queen.


----------



## jimbo3

I just don't learn. Went to "quickly" put on pail feeders on the two new hives without protection. A sting to the neck and hand later I abandoned the bucket with several bees buzzing my head on my way back to the house. They are not happy today.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Sat. put pkgs in with 55 degrees. This morning inch of snow and 24 degrees. Have got frames of honey on both sides of 2 drawn combs in all the hives. Sounds like a couple more days before warm up. Sooner the better!
Jerry


----------



## MichaelCfffg

hockeyfan_019 said:


> ............ Looks like I'm going to have to look for plans for those screech owl boxes though too, now that I don't have any guineas to worry about.............


Here is a link to the Screech Owl House plans that I used. It was a pretty easy build, and the mounting plans made that super easy.  I'm also going to try to upload a photo of the one that I built. I've since painted it a dark flat green.

https://feltmagnet.com/crafts/screech-owl-house


----------



## Swarmhunter

Anybody else sick of snow on their hives? Winter Storm watch for southern Iowa for today.Be Gone Nasty Weather! Bees need to be flying.


----------



## Gray Goose

+1 was snow on the ground the last 2 days, It may open up with some intense swarming, warmish winter, less than normal flight time, who knows.
I have been itching to do spring inspections, still do not have the weather to break the seals. ANd stuck at home so over ready to do something. Anything.
GG


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I guess I should be happy with drippy rain, a couple of very light flurries, high humidity and occasional SUN! But! My bee sare bringing in nectar, pollen and trees are about to bloom, some have. Garlic is up, rhubarb popping through, Dandelions showing, and Daffodils are blooming - just tryin to cheer you up! Your turn is next.


----------



## Cloverdale

Robert Holcombe said:


> I guess I should be happy with drippy rain, a couple of very light flurries, high humidity and occasional SUN! But! My bee sare bringing in nectar, pollen and trees are about to bloom, some have. Garlic is up, rhubarb popping through, Dandelions showing, and Daffodils are blooming - just tryin to cheer you up! Your turn is next.


Thanks I needed that! I’m hoping that all this cold weather and snow means no frozen apple/fruit tree blooms.


----------



## WaverlyBees

70 degrees and blue bird sky here in the Heart of Dixie, just saying


----------



## AR1

WaverlyBees said:


> 70 degrees and blue bird sky here in the Heart of Dixie, just saying


Dan, you're a bad person...  This time of year I do envy the South. Not so much in July and August.

Been 20s to 50s here, with off and on light snow. In between the bees are flying and the maples flowering. Supposed to have more 60s days next week.


----------



## elmer_fud

we got about a foot of snow here, my hives are sheltered so there is not as much on the front of the one that I put a camera watching.


----------



## hockeyfan_019

Cloverdale said:


> Thanks I needed that! I’m hoping that all this cold weather and snow means no frozen apple/fruit tree blooms.


Yes same here. Last year we lost all our cherry blossoms due to this kind of weather, and apples were somewhat affected as well. Some plants were starting to break dormancy this year, and then boom, the cold comes roaring back, ugh


----------



## MaineMike

We seemed to have missed this snow this morning, just cold rain. One more week of of days <50 and nights<35 then it looks like 60s and 40s, finally. But we have had some 60s mixed in. Forsythias are blooming, dandylions are starting to pop, this year looks like a week earlier than 2019. Lots of pollen coming in when they are out.

Hives still wrapped with candy boards (they've gone through all winter & pollen patties and have added more sugar every 2 weeks) with quiltboxes on them. Hope to reconfigure next weekend when we have consistent mid 60s starting, and get OSBN frames in. Two hives and the NUC look normal sized, but one is really busting with girls, that one will will want to swarm, no doubt. All over wintered with OAV only.

Good luck all!
Mike


----------



## althea

Am just outside Richmond, we are about 10-12 days away from heavy flow, the tulip poplars are rdy to bloom, extra supers are on am just hoping the weather cooperates.


----------



## JWPalmer

My day in the apiary started out ok. Painted a few nuc boxes I made last night and sold a nuc to a member of my bee club. Replaced the nuc with a split from a hive that had turned around from a drone layer to worker brood. (I think the drone layer got superceded.) So far so good. Later I was watching activity and realized it was time to remove the entrance reducers, some serious traffic jams starting. Get around to the nucs and noticed no activity at one nuc. Opened it up and was greeted by a bunch of bees that were hardly moving. Saw piles of dead bees on the bottom board. Put the frames in a quiet box, and saw that there were no stores in any of the comb. Feeding jar was empty. Dumped out the dead bees and put the frames back in with a filled feeder. Some acivity after 15 or so minutes. Saw a few bees on a brick on one of the other nucs. One of them was a queen, a marked queen, with a blue dot. I only have four in the yard. Lousey time to not have my queen clip handy. She flew off. Found the nuc she came from had been robbed out also. Pile of dying bees outside the hive and more dead bees inside. Bummer. Cleaned out the bees and refilled the mason jar feeder. Robbers came back. Shut them in and will see how things look tomorrow. All the nucs have robber screens so not sure what else to try. Waited for the queen to return but no luck. Will most likely combine the two nucs and add two frames of bees and brood from another hive. C'mon tulip poplars!


----------



## MichaelCfffg

My posting here a few days ago outlined how we did a 3-way split from my one very strong hive, with some very able help from Goat Man. I'm pretty new at all of this. Today my neighbor and I did a good inspection of all three hives to check on the results. The original hive was still fine, and now that the queen has some makeup on, she was much easier to find.

The main split we did was furnished with a new, caged, mated queen. She's been released and accepted, and we were able to find her and get her marked as well. The third split consisted of a couple of frames of brood and fresh eggs, a lot of workers, and some frames of stores. We were delighted to find one of the brood frames now had eight capped queen cells on it. Of these, we left three alone, and carefully put that frame back in the nuc and closed it up. These queens should emerge in the next two or three days, and if everything goes well, we should be seeing new brood in about three weeks I think.


----------



## Litsinger

MichaelCfffg said:


> ... now that the queen has some makeup on, she was much easier to find.


Good looking queen there, Michael.

Way to go on the splits- before long, you'll have more bees than you know what to do with...


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> C'mon tulip poplars!


Sorry about your woes, JW. I've never heard about nucs getting robbed out when equipped with screens. Have you tried the old white sheet trick over the top?

Sounds like you all are near to being into your main flow already?

Russ


----------



## MichaelCfffg

Litsinger said:


> ..........before long, you'll have more bees than you know what to do with...


I've got mixed feelings about that. I'd like to be successful with three or four strong hives, but don't want to be overwhelmed either. I've got a couple of friends who want bees, but after that we'll have to see. It will all depend on just how successful this turns out to bee. Scary and exciting at the same time!:lookout:


----------



## gww

Michael
Nice dark queen. Bit different color then most I have seen in my hives though I don't see many queens even when looking.

Nice cells too.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Litsinger

MichaelCfffg said:


> I've got mixed feelings about that.


You know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men... glad everything is off to a good start for you. Having a good mentor is a real plus.


----------



## Gray Goose

Some what non related to bees. But I am getting some windbreaks in this week. 
I see the fed Ex shipping info that shows my tree order comes today,  so some shovel work needed for a day or 3.
800 or so trees, white pine , norway spruce, larch, a couple peach, a few blue berry. a couple apple, a mish mash of several kinds.

Ironically the 22nd is also a important day for tree planters.

The first Earth Day in 1970 mobilized millions of Americans for the protection of the planet. On April 22,1970, 20 million Americans — 10% of the U.S. population at the time — took to the street, college campuses, and hundreds of cities to protest environmental ignorance and demand a new way forward for our planet. The first Earth Day is credited with launching the modern environmental movement.

Also seen my first dandelion yesterday,, Drones soon follow. so 3ish weeks till first split, and swarm catching.

 as I look out the window light snow......

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

Gray Goose said:


> 800 or so trees, white pine , norway spruce, larch, a couple peach, a few blue berry. a couple apple, a mish mash of several kinds.


How big are these trees? It would take me more than 3 days to plant 800 trees


----------



## MaineMike

Need some advice, Im itching to clean, swap deeps, put in some OSBN frames, rip off the wrap and insulation, I planned on this weekend, but the forecast changed to more to the cooler side for next week (but still lows of only 40), I think I know the answer, but would you reconfig this Saturday or wait another week? They are strong bustling hives, they've gone through the candy boards weeks ago, winter and pollen patties recently, now Im pouring dry sugar to keep them going until a full flow..

TIA
Mike


----------



## Gray Goose

Hi Elmer
18 inch on the evergreens, 24 on the blueberry and crab apple, and 3 foot on the peach and apple, only 20 or so of the bigger fruit trees.
3 days is a good guess, did get 150 or so in last night in the snow before dark. Should cover most of the open area on 10 acres.
Hope to have some fruit for preserves and wine making in retirement. Also put in 13 Rhubarb and a passel of black berries last week, 12 grape vines in the fall. Was a large yard to mow so now part of it is orchard.
Ordered from Chief River Nursery Grafton, WI 53024

I should have it all in by Saturday. Will help with the impatience waiting for split timing for the bees.

GG


----------



## Gray Goose

MaineMike said:


> Need some advice, Im itching to clean, swap deeps, put in some OSBN frames, rip off the wrap and insulation, I planned on this weekend, but the forecast changed to more to the cooler side for next week (but still lows of only 40), I think I know the answer, but would you reconfig this Saturday or wait another week? They are strong bustling hives, they've gone through the candy boards weeks ago, winter and pollen patties recently, now Im pouring dry sugar to keep them going until a full flow..
> 
> TIA
> Mike


Mike,
I feel your angst, I am in the same boat. Added some Honey frames from dead outs, a month ago, pollen patties 2 weeks ago, on fly days they are going to town. Seen the first Dandelion in the yard yesterday...while it was snowing... I am not crackin the seal untill the first day or 62+ degrees, it was low 20s 2 nights ago and off and on snow for the last 3 days.

My advice do what you can to insure stores and space, I would not reverse , OSBN, or leave the wraps off. I have a couple I need to take the screw gun un do check and re wrap. 
This is a sensitive time as the winter bees are dying off and they do not have massive populations to cover brood in some cases.
Go with your gut, and leave them cold snap tolerant.

not sure of your weather as well as you are. Here I want to but can't......
GG


----------



## MaineMike

Gray Goose said:


> Mike,
> I feel your angst, I am in the same boat. Added some Honey frames from dead outs, a month ago, pollen patties 2 weeks ago, on fly days they are going to town. Seen the first Dandelion in the yard yesterday...while it was snowing... I am not crackin the seal untill the first day or 62+ degrees, it was low 20s 2 nights ago and off and on snow for the last 3 days.
> 
> My advice do what you can to insure stores and space, I would not reverse , OSBN, or leave the wraps off. I have a couple I need to take the screw gun un do check and re wrap.
> This is a sensitive time as the winter bees are dying off and they do not have massive populations to cover brood in some cases.
> Go with your gut, and leave them cold snap tolerant.
> 
> not sure of your weather as well as you are. Here I want to but can't......
> GG


Ya, your right Gary Goose, I should wait another week, wrapped hives pics below (everyone loves hive photos!) Ill just check stores again, and... oh wait, maybe I can try some early bee-lining instead, sure!
-Mike


----------



## Gray Goose

MaineMike said:


> Ya, your right Gary Goose, I should wait another week, wrapped hives pics below (everyone loves hive photos!) Ill just check stores again, and... oh wait, maybe I can try some early bee-lining instead, sure!
> -Mike
> 
> View attachment 54859


nice looking hives
looks like one could open the top and do a lift test to see if they have enough stores.

My hives are a bit more rag tag, some boxes are 20 years old.

I do see some shreaded paper at the entrance so I am thinking of adding another 1/2 pollen pattie this weekend. To get my fix...

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

Gray Goose said:


> Hi Elmer
> 18 inch on the evergreens, 24 on the blueberry and crab apple, and 3 foot on the peach and apple, only 20 or so of the bigger fruit trees.
> 3 days is a good guess, did get 150 or so in last night in the snow before dark. Should cover most of the open area on 10 acres.
> Hope to have some fruit for preserves and wine making in retirement. Also put in 13 Rhubarb and a passel of black berries last week, 12 grape vines in the fall. Was a large yard to mow so now part of it is orchard.
> Ordered from Chief River Nursery Grafton, WI 53024
> 
> I should have it all in by Saturday. Will help with the impatience waiting for split timing for the bees.
> 
> GG


Sounds like a good way to keep busy. 

One of these days I need to buy more land. I am about at the limit for how many trees I want to put on my 1/4 arce lot


----------



## Fivej

50F and sunny here today. Both of my hives continue to bring in water. Today they are not bringing in any pollen like they have been, just water. Only been doing this for 4 years, but this is new to my observations. J


----------



## JWPalmer

The flow is on here. Finally. After the rain stopped and the skies cleared a bit, it was crazy in the apiary with the number of bees in the air. Hives with wide open entrances were getting log jammed. But the real reason of today's post is to share another oops story. It is real easy to brag about successes, but very few here are public with their mistakes, unless they are asking how to fix them.

Well, today was another one of those days where you wish you had a rewind button. Selling my first spring queen to a customer that had driven almost an hour to get here. Had her in a 3 hole cage and ready to go. Give her to the customer, collect my money and done. Instead, I gave the customer a quick tour of the yard and showed off the fantastic solid laying pattern this queen had. He is standing there, money in hand, back at the truck when I notice the cork I had put in the direct release end of the cage was slightly twisted. Y'all know where this is going, right? So, no problem, took my trusty knife out to turn the cork and accidentally popped it out. Took the queen about half a second to get out and fly away while I stood there looking like a total idiot. We duly waited about 20 minutes to see if she would return but I was SOL. I did have another mated and marked spring queen available so I quickly caught, caged, and delivered her to my waiting customer. Stuff happens.


----------



## Arnie

Dang, JW, that stinks. 
A "son of a bleep" moment to be sure.

Last year I was installing a few queens and I accidentally let one get out. Luckily I was able to catch and recage her.

It happens.


----------



## jim lyon

JWPalmer said:


> The flow is on here. Finally. After the rain stopped and the skies cleared a bit, it was crazy in the apiary with the number of bees in the air. Hives with wide open entrances were getting log jammed. But the real reason of today's post is to share another oops story. It is real easy to brag about successes, but very few here are public with their mistakes, unless they are asking how to fix them.
> 
> Well, today was another one of those days where you wish you had a rewind button. Selling my first spring queen to a customer that had driven almost an hour to get here. Had her in a 3 hole cage and ready to go. Give her to the customer, collect my money and done. Instead, I gave the customer a quick tour of the yard and showed off the fantastic solid laying pattern this queen had. He is standing there, money in hand, back at the truck when I notice the cork I had put in the direct release end of the cage was slightly twisted. Y'all know where this is going, right? So, no problem, took my trusty knife out to turn the cork and accidentally popped it out. Took the queen about half a second to get out and fly away while I stood there looking like a total idiot. We duly waited about 20 minutes to see if she would return but I was SOL. I did have another mated and marked spring queen available so I quickly caught, caged, and delivered her to my waiting customer. Stuff happens.


Yes, been there done that as well. Leave the cage laying where the escape happened and check back a few times. Had one that returned and was sitting on the cage a short time later.


----------



## JWPalmer

We left the original cage sitting on the hood of the truck while I caged another queen. The customer sat in the truck watching for the queen to return. She never did. I am hoping to find her in one of my queenless hives later on this week. In the meatime...time to start raising some more queens. If you are keeping score, this is the third queen I have lost this season. Killed one by putting her back in the wrong hive, and lost another that was escaping her nuc getting robbed. Saw her fly away after trying to catch her when she was already outside of the hive.


----------



## Cloverdale

Last year during our Fall flow, I marveled at a ground swarm in front of the apiary, how easy putting a hive body down and seeing the bees walk right in. We were so busy I never thought more on it. Checked a week later, no brood. Checked again in a week or so no brood; did an inspection no queen. Bought a queen, checked in another few days, empty cage. Great. Waited another week no brood. Checked again, no brood, and did not see a queen. I had no idea what was happening, no brood but they werent runny or anything else suspicious. So a friend had a queen she wasnt using, introduced that one just to see what was going on; just by chance I took a look just to see their behavior at the entrance and luckily enough I see the bees wrestling the new queen out of the hive stinging her. Took that hive completely apart, took me awhile but I found a queen, with shriveled wings! She couldnt fly, hence the ground swarm, and was very small. By that time I didnt even care what happened or where the swarm came from, I was so annoyed at myself; it was so late in the season, didnt wrap them, they had honey, and they made it through the winter, and I combined them a few weeks ago. One of my better ADD moments. I included them in my hive count but not harvesting honey from. Confession is a double-edged sword I think.


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> Confession is a double-edged sword I think.


So true- JW I appreciate you sharing the mistakes too. Sorry to hear about the lost queen.


----------



## username00101

Gray Goose said:


> Mike,
> I feel your angst, I am in the same boat. Added some Honey frames from dead outs, a month ago, pollen patties 2 weeks ago, on fly days they are going to town. Seen the first Dandelion in the yard yesterday...while it was snowing... I am not crackin the seal untill the first day or 62+ degrees, it was low 20s 2 nights ago and off and on snow for the last 3 days.
> 
> My advice do what you can to insure stores and space, I would not reverse , OSBN, or leave the wraps off. I have a couple I need to take the screw gun un do check and re wrap.
> This is a sensitive time as the winter bees are dying off and they do not have massive populations to cover brood in some cases.
> Go with your gut, and leave them cold snap tolerant.
> 
> not sure of your weather as well as you are. Here I want to but can't......
> GG


Winter wrappings are gone at this point. 

Reversing hive bodies is a good question.

Night time temps are still low, and will stay low.

At the same time, the bottom box remains empty, and they fill the top with brood.

This year is totally different than last year. 

Temps are 10-20F below last year.


----------



## MaineMike

username00101 said:


> Winter wrappings are gone at this point.
> 
> Reversing hive bodies is a good question.
> 
> Night time temps are still low, and will stay low.
> 
> At the same time, the bottom box remains empty, and they fill the top with brood.
> 
> This year is totally different than last year.
> 
> Temps are 10-20F below last year.


Yes, colder this year, but last year was bad here too, I lost a hive late May due to stores, starved, we had 3 weeks of rainy weather May 2019. I see NE PA is 10F higher than me, lucky you.

Two more weeks til consistent 60s/40s here...


----------



## username00101

MaineMike said:


> Yes, colder this year, but last year was bad here too, I lost a hive late May due to stores, starved, we had 3 weeks of rainy weather May 2019. I see NE PA is 10F higher than me, lucky you.
> 
> Two more weeks til consistent 60s/40s here...


Night time temps above 40F, is that the requirement for rotating hive bodies?


----------



## Gray Goose

username00101 said:


> Winter wrappings are gone at this point.
> 
> Reversing hive bodies is a good question.
> 
> Night time temps are still low, and will stay low.
> 
> At the same time, the bottom box remains empty, and they fill the top with brood.
> 
> This year is totally different than last year.
> 
> Temps are 10-20F below last year.


I have opened a couple at this point. Oddly 2 out of 3 had cups with eggs, and a fair amount of drones. Seeing some of the first Dandalions.
All the bottom boxes were empty, I did clean the bottom boards, and removed the bottom empty. 

Not 100% sure But I think I'll clean them out, a good scrape once and a while makes them easier to work. Go back in in 8 days see if there are charged Q cells, if yes do some splits, if no divide the brood nest in 1/2 placing the cleaned comb I removed on both sides of 2 deeps, 1 deep and 2 mediums now. then block the top entrance to swing the brood nest down.


----------



## MaineMike

username00101 said:


> Night time temps above 40F, is that the requirement for rotating hive bodies?


Not that I know of, the 60F on the other hand for manipulating frames...


----------



## Gray Goose

username00101 said:


> Night time temps above 40F, is that the requirement for rotating hive bodies?


the bees are running as big of a brood nest they can at current temps, it is build up time pre solstace.
the nest is some what ball shaped, If it resides 100% in one hive bode then the risk is "less" only closer to the door/floor, farther from the warm top of the hive.
If part of the nest is in each of 2 boxes and you split, and reverse, then the top 1/2 is like a bowl up against the lid, and the bottom 1/2 is like an upside down bowl at the floor.
The bees if they were maxed would not likely maintain the brood temp in the new configuration. Brood would be chilled and some lost, as well you could bring in other brood issues. chalk, efb etc. the night time low temp is the max stress on keeping the brood warm. 
Since I do not rotate I do not need that worry any longer. Closing the upper entrance making the bottom reduced to 1/2 would have the fresh air lower in the hive, bees tend to move brood toward the fresh air. As well my bees keep a lot of pollen in the bottom box, moving it up means they either move it or re fill the bottom. I somewhat think back 1000 years and ask my self who rotated the brood nests in the hollow trees..... IMO we tend to over think and over manipulate bees at times. I do remove bottom boxes when empty , clean,, use comb for other things, add when needed. But across the board swapps is not something I do.
In the south lees of an issue, so you climate matters.
First try to do no harm, then do what helps the bees, they will take care of them selves to a point.

good luck
GG


----------



## Robert Holcombe

This "winter" is getting long in the tooth, 40 degree days, winds 12 -18 mph and rain or grey clouds almost everyday plus we are isolated. It getting to be almost 6 months since I fed the Fall hives. I think it's getting thin in there. There are a lot of bees in 8 of 9 hives; drone laying queen in another with a small cluster. Gave the drone layer a frame with eggs - nothing. It has ben foul weather but got Dandelions, buds dying to burst open everywhere , a super or two on most hives. Time to be watchful, beekeepers inland are seeing swarm cells. 

If my biggest problem is a drone laying queen I am happy! I do note three drone layers in two years - queen quality is my biggest problem lately. Time to learn to raise my own queens in over-wintered nucs for Spring. My first 60F day is predicted for this coming Saturday. 

I do not rotate or interfere with my standard brood chamber composed of a med+deep+med. I "quick" check for capped worker brood, that's it. I really like my 5-sided insulated box - easy off, easy on and provides a table to set things on when off. Thought I over-fed syrup last Fall but it seems to have supported robust hives this Spring. The one hive I predicted to lose from a very high Varroa dead drop count has survived. Wintering colony size was impacted but building back up now. Still learning!


----------



## Cloverdale

I have drones laid in worker cells, it looks odd to me, and along the bottom of frames; does that indicate something?


----------



## gww

Clover
Believe me, I am no expert. That out of the way and from reading only, I think when poorly bred queens start running out of sperm, what you saw might happen. I had only a small amount of drone in worker cells this spring on a hive I wrote off as lost and think it was queen loss and laying workers doing the brood. I cannot see eggs, ever and so only have the drone brood to go by.

This does not come from a guy who knows.
Cheers
gww


----------



## Cloverdale

Thanks gww, I cant believe I didn't mark the hive that had it! I did look over the frames and that is what stood out to me as odd. Always seems to be something going on with these bees!


----------



## username00101

Has anyone else noticed a brood break from the recent cold weather?


----------



## crofter

username00101 said:


> Has anyone else noticed a brood break from the recent cold weather?


Mine are still wrapped up but in past years I have noticed some that appear to lay a batch of eggs and then wait till some emerge; they wont lay more than they have bees enough to cover. Carnis operate more this way. Italians lay as long as there is a scrap of honey and then get chilled brood if weather turns bad. Did I mention that I really dont like italian style bees 

Probably depends too on how much pollen they have stored and whether or not you are feeding pollen subs.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Opening comment - all my hives are heavily insulated and temperature monitored. 

I have had a Spring brood break, early Spring for about two weeks inone hive. It was not because of the weather as the hive remained steadily warm but dropped out of brood rearing range (93-93F cluster temperatures). I thought it was a dead queen or she had become a drone layer. I waited as there was not much I could do as i saw only capped drones and a few capped worker brood. Approximately two weeks later on a somewhat decent day I found cluster of capped worker larva and eggs ( also noticed internal hive temperature was up). 

Another hive had a temperature drop around end of March. Month later and the hive is still alive with eggs and some brood frame help. This colony has been verified to have a drone laying queen. I bought time to replace her but I am not sure it is worth it ( small cluster).


----------



## Gray Goose

Robert Holcombe said:


> Opening comment - all my hives are heavily insulated and temperature monitored.
> 
> I have had a Spring brood break, early Spring for about two weeks inone hive. It was not because of the weather as the hive remained steadily warm but dropped out of brood rearing range (93-93F cluster temperatures). I thought it was a dead queen or she had become a drone layer. I waited as there was not much I could do as i saw only capped drones and a few capped worker brood. Approximately two weeks later on a somewhat decent day I found cluster of capped worker larva and eggs ( also noticed internal hive temperature was up).
> 
> Another hive had a temperature drop around end of March. Month later and the hive is still alive with eggs and some brood frame help. This colony has been verified to have a drone laying queen. I bought time to replace her but I am not sure it is worth it ( small cluster).


Interesting on the brood break Robert, I just went thru 2 hive with very similar results. some old capped brood and some capped drone brood, What is the "cause" of the brood break, resources? Temperature outside. Maybe a readyness step , young bees check , drones check, next?
Were they just bolstering the population with young bees, then taking a break?
I may have missed this in the past but it seems odd they would start then stop. My hives have plenty honey stores left over and are really hauling in the pollen.
Weather is intermittent I will admit. Just trying to understand better.

GG


----------



## username00101

I don't know exactly. Still a decent amount of honey. 

The brood break basically set back my plans. Haven't even added supers.


----------



## AR1

Interesting drone behavior. I have one strong hive that appears to be getting ready to swarm. They are heavily scouting a bait hive nearby. Yesterday I watched as several drones investigated the bait hive. All around, carefully following the seams as if looking for the entrance, and then finally going inside. That's the first time I have seen drones visiting a bait hive.

I suspect they were looking for a free meal. The hive is well used and has several frames of last year's comb, plus some lemongrass oil. I'm guessing the drones were out flying and it smelled enough like a living hive that they figured it was. Plus it was full of their own hive's scout bees. 

Pretty sure it was bees from my hive. They are very dark and many of the drones are black.


----------



## MichaelCfffg

My original hive (10 frame deep) has been showing a lot of wear and tear, and the previous owner patched over a rotted area with sheet metal. The bees have been working that area though, and have opened it up to the point where some of them were using it as an entrance now, so I've been wanting to replace it with a new box. Today was the day, and it was the first time I've done anything like that. It all went pretty well, and although they were flying all around by the time I was finished, they all settled back down within about five minutes after I was done. Success!

I was surprised however, to find a capped supercedure cell on one of the frames as I was transferring them into the new box. My queen was still there, and she seems to me to be doing a good job but there must be something starting to go wrong with her. I only found the one cell, but there may have been others that I missed. This one really stood out, and there was no mistaking it.

I'm completely new at this, and wasn't sure how to proceed. I'm thinking one of my options is to just let nature take its course, and let them replace their old queen on their own. She's from a swarm I caught last summer, and I have no idea how old she is. I've also heard that supercedure queens may not be the best quality, so another option would be to destroy this cell, and replace the old queen with a purchased mated queen. I guess that since I didn't destroy the supercedure cell, that I've made the choice of letting nature take its course. Did I do the right thing?

Thanks!


----------



## AR1

MichaelCfffg said:


> My original hive (10 frame deep) has been showing a lot of wear and tear, and the previous owner patched over a rotted area with sheet metal. The bees have been working that area though, and have opened it up to the point where some of them were using it as an entrance now, so I've been wanting to replace it with a new box. Today was the day, and it was the first time I've done anything like that. It all went pretty well, and although they were flying all around by the time I was finished, they all settled back down within about five minutes after I was done. Success!
> 
> I was surprised however, to find a capped supercedure cell on one of the frames as I was transferring them into the new box. My queen was still there, and she seems to me to be doing a good job but there must be something starting to go wrong with her. I only found the one cell, but there may have been others that I missed. This one really stood out, and there was no mistaking it.
> 
> I'm completely new at this, and wasn't sure how to proceed. I'm thinking one of my options is to just let nature take its course, and let them replace their old queen on their own. She's from a swarm I caught last summer, and I have no idea how old she is. I've also heard that supercedure queens may not be the best quality, so another option would be to destroy this cell, and replace the old queen with a purchased mated queen. I guess that since I didn't destroy the supercedure cell, that I've made the choice of letting nature take its course. Did I do the right thing?
> 
> Thanks!


I might pull that frame plus a couple frames of food and put it in a nuc to make a split. 

I have repaired wood using Bondo. The same stuff I used to fix a rusted out car body. Had a can left over after a major repair job and used it on a hive top that squirrels had gnawed a big hole in.


----------



## gww

Michael
Doolittle who wrote a queen rearing book back at the turn of the century was convinced that superceedure cells were second best right behind swarm cells. His reasoning was that the bees planned for them and so fed them better. He thought emergency cells were the worst cause bees were forced to use what they could find. He felt that bees making and using superceedure cells also left the bees better able to take care of them selves rather then breeding that trait out of them and making them more likely to end up in a queenless situation.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesdoolittle.htm

Cheers
gww


----------



## Robert Holcombe

GG - "Just trying to understand better."

The hive was light (actual weights) compared to most other hives but had adequate capped honey. THis hive also was raising brood (observation via temp measurement) and was taking in pollen early along with with my Super Woman hive next door who was also light ( and big again). 

The net result was a pause for a couple of weeks days. You could almost say she took a vacation before Spring buildup. May be she got sick and then better - how would we know? The whole reason for my slip on-off insulation box was to be able to check early in the Spring and quickly. My disturbing the cluster when the queen was pausing may have set her into action. It may also be the appraise current stores and pause for better weather and flow - who knows? 

I am most pleased that the hive I predicted to die because of ahuge Fall Varroa count survived and is growing nicely. Out of nine hives I have only one with a real problem - a drone laying queen ( for sure). Now I have to learn how to manage my slip-on boxes for Spring and summer testing. What do I want to prove or disprove ? First is that an insulated top section helps cure and cap honey faster. Also would like to look at overall summer performance with a fully insulated hive. Having nine colonies provides some real insight in spite of all the variations in colony character. Now I have to do some planning as I already see some increased RH and temps at the top as the bees are bringing in nectar and started curing (inverting and drying) it. We just got our first sunny weather above 50F. I also want to use the boxes to increase the syrup feeding time to attain hive weights I want in the Fall (have not fed for 6 months). 

I may have to think about 3-D measurements if I want to watch performance in various sections. I have to keep it simple


----------



## Robert Holcombe

:thumbsup: I have a fantastic supercedure colony this Spring.


----------



## AR1

Bees are like people. Winter bees were out flying around in 40s temps like it was mid-summer. Now it's a nice, sunny, cool 58 degrees and the bees are all huddling indoors, waiting for it to warm up.


----------



## MichaelCfffg

gww said:


> Michael
> Doolittle who wrote a queen rearing book back at the turn of the century was convinced that superceedure cells were second best right behind swarm cells. His reasoning was that the bees planned for them and so fed them better. He thought emergency cells were the worst cause bees were forced to use what they could find. He felt that bees making and using superceedure cells also left the bees better able to take care of them selves rather then breeding that trait out of them and making them more likely to end up in a queenless situation.
> 
> gww


GWW, I like your logic! I think I made the right decision. We'll find out in a few weeks, won't we!


----------



## Cloverdale

Cloverdale said:


> I have drones laid in worker cells, it looks odd to me, and along the bottom of frames; does that indicate something?


I cant write a post sometimes: The drone brood in the worker cells was a patch right in the middle of the frame IN ADDITION TO the drone brood along the bottom. Sorry about the confusion.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

All my frames have worker cell sized foundation adn they build drone cells on them all the time. THey do like and will use drone frames ( greenies) or build their own comb if you give them the space.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"Has anyone else noticed a brood break from the recent cold weather?"

Yes, more than once - reason unknown. It may be simple as "do queens ever get sick? Take a vacation? Or does the colony detect an issue with stores and foraging thus decide to pause?


----------



## Cloverdale

Robert Holcombe said:


> All my frames have worker cell sized foundation adn they build drone cells on them all the time. THey do like and will use drone frames ( greenies) or build their own comb if you give them the space.


Do you use plastic foundation or do they draw their own?


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Black plastic foundation on wood frames. I use one medium frame in a deep brood chamber near the center and the bees draw out drone comb in the empty space. This is easily removed for drone / varroa culling when needed.


----------



## username00101

I've had reliable success with Mann-Lake's brands.

I've tried 2 other brands, and for some reason, the Mann-Lake brands perform better.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Funny thing happen on the way to the Forum ( dorne laying queen issue) while getting a mated queen and my first attempt at using a push-in cage installation. About 2 hours after being in my pants pocket I noticed she was having trouble stabilizing herself in the shipping cage - something was wrong. I retrieved what I thought was perfect frame with some older looking capped worker cells and capped honey, no eggs, larva or bees in the zone. I put the frame in a heated foam box (93F with hot water bottles) and took the frame into my "bee / extraction room" which has a good lighting. I carefully picked out the perfect position for the push-in cage I made; 4.5" square x 1/2 - 5/8" high. 

I then pried the staple off the shipping cage's screen and had to dumped her on the comb. She was unable to right herself. She appeared to have a broken leg or two but they moved, falling over and acting like a drunken sailor. Watched her a bit as she was not about to fly. Alive and struggling, I put the cage over her and installed her - hopping for the best but not very hopeful. She seemed a bit better 15 minutes later as I installed the frame from the warm box. 

This afternoon, after 5 days, I inspected the frame with the cage. She was running around along with bunch of emerged bees. I was excited and took the cage off - checked the cage - no queen but then she was gone! I had taken my eye off her. No, she was hiding in a cell with bees around her - saw her butt ( I think) - now I am not sure. It happen so fast. 

I liked the push-in cage method. It gives you a real chance to inspect the queen. Next time I will not be so nervous and check for eggs before removing the cage and reinstalling the frame. I'll never find her again but I will check for eggs and larva in 8-10 days. 

Could the drunken sailor behavior have been a case of hypoxia? From being in my pocket? I do not think it could have been an induced cold stupor.


----------



## jimbo3

Went to put on the 2nd dose of formic pro on the two hives, plus supers if I felt they could use them. SURPRISE! One hive has no brood or eggs or any indication of a queen. The other hive has eggs and such, but only a few frames with eggs and spotty brood pattern. Very little stores in each. I was hoping I could use a couple of brood frames from one to put in the other so they'd raise a queen, but I didn't want to chance taking anything from the better hive seeing the abysmal brood situation.

Very disappointing as they were new nucs I bought this year. Now I have to feed and buy a queen and hope for the best.

Not sure if formic is the issue with the spotty brood in hive 1, but obviously there wasn't a queen when I put on the 1st dose of formic in hive 2. I think at the time I saw capped brood, but didn't really look for eggs.

I put the 2nd dose of formic on the "strong" hive, but decided not to on the queenless. I'm afraid of weakening it more, and if I can drive up to get a queen tomorrow, I don't think having formic on is a good idea. What do you guys think?

If I can't get this queen tomorrow or Monday (next available day for me) I might just combine, but that'll leave me one hive.


----------



## username00101

I predict that ALOT of beekeepers in the Northeast are going to have issues with their hives after this cold weather passes.

I also predict that some of those who have installed packages may lose their bees.

I've re-winterized my hives for the next week.


----------



## Tigger19687

I'm going to assume you mean more northern then Mass for Northeast. Nights still cold but days not too bad, I'm more worried about rain/wind and then not getting out. Although that should help the keep warm no ?
I'm a weather watcher so yesterday at 3:15 ( my 40 min between my 2 jobs) I filled up the syrup bins inside for them. I won't be able to check them again till next week ☹


----------



## elmer_fud

My bees were thirsty today 









The big water lily flowers are fake, but the small circle leaves are real water lillies that are getting going for the season.

edit: cropped the picture down


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"Although that should help the keep warm no ?" - Linda: Everthing related to heat transfer affects them - there are a lot of "things". I find wind velocity and location one big driving factor. I do live a couple of miles form the Atlantic Ocean. I think it is closely followed by temperature differences - brood at 93-95F, outside is 45F thus a 50 degree F difference. Hive design has a big affect on all the variables, heat and humidity loses. 

I have not fed in over 6 months - now food stores are coming in. Save yourself some time and work, review Micheal Palmer's video on weighing and Fall feeding to a hive weight. It works very well.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I run a veggie garden, turning over soil, planting seeds and shoots, etc. I noticed that the honey bees search the fresh loose soil for something. One morning, recently, I watched as they grabbed onto the the tip of a grass blade after mining the dirt. Wiggling on the the tip for a few moments and then finally climbing onto the top side of the blade. Obviously doing something intentionally. 

I also have a hive that has driven the RH to very high numbers at the top of the hive. They are bringing in nectar and making honey at a serious rate (big colony). Prime time is arriving as we are going foraging season with all the wind, rain, grey skies and sunny moments. I think it is called "Sring" - an appropriate name.


----------



## JWPalmer

Linda, I am sure the two nucs you installed have had a chance to get organized in their new hives and will be fine. You might see a ring of capped brood that does not emerge later, depending on whether there were enough bees to cover all the brood completely. Open brood that gets chilled is removed and can sometimes make it look like a spotty laying pattern.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> I noticed that the honey bees search the fresh loose soil for something.


They are usually searching for the water or the minerals in the dirt


----------



## Tigger19687

Robert Holcombe said:


> "Although that should help the keep warm no ?" - Linda: Everthing related to heat transfer affects them - there are a lot of "things". I find wind velocity and location one big driving factor. I do live a couple of miles form the Atlantic Ocean. I think it is closely followed by temperature differences - brood at 93-95F, outside is 45F thus a 50 degree F difference. Hive design has a big affect on all the variables, heat and humidity loses.
> 
> I have not fed in over 6 months - now food stores are coming in. Save yourself some time and work, review Micheal Palmer's video on weighing and Fall feeding to a hive weight. It works very well.


I feed as mine is a new Nuc with foundationless frames. I may be wrapping the hive with a painters tarp, only thing I have right now, for tonight as it is suppose to hit 30's. It is super windy here today but starting to get sunny.
yesterday I noticed that I forgot to cover the inner hole on the top board and had a few bees coming out the top of the hive. It was Wed/Thursday I filled the syrup... sorry my days are running into each other as I have been working 2 f/t jobs Wed/thur this week so my days are blending. I didn't plan that so I just pushed the top back so the hole was closed. I was on my way back out to work and it was 4pm.
No one is going anywhere today with the wind so far. I get to watch today until 3:30 then it is back out to work  Can't wait till next week when I will be home in the afternoons to spy on the Bees


----------



## username00101

Unfortunately, the freeze has destroyed some of the more important sources of honey.

I'll be lucky to harvest anything more than honey for personal consumption this year.

If we get perfect weather during the key periods of blooming, there may be hope for 2020.

If not.

I guess there's always 2021...


----------



## Titus142

username00101 said:


> Unfortunately, the freeze has destroyed some of the more important sources of honey.
> 
> I'll be lucky to harvest anything more than honey for personal consumption this year.
> 
> If we get perfect weather during the key periods of blooming, there may be hope for 2020.
> 
> If not.
> 
> I guess there's always 2021...


On the flip side, what made last year such a crazy good honey year? At least here in New England everyone seemed to have a bumper crop of honey, followed by no flow in the fall. 

We didn't go below 32 so everything where I am seems to be fine. Apples are about to bloom, dandelions are in full force and my peach tree has already flowered and is starting to make leaves.


----------



## Schultz

"Unfortunately, the freeze has destroyed some of the more important sources of honey."

Like what?


----------



## elmer_fud

I confused some drones today. 

Yesterday afternoon I removed a bottom board and a box (minus frames) from one hive to swap in a different bottom board (and box). I sealed up the old stack and placed it about 3 feet from another hive (that was at that location 2-3 weeks ago). Today a lot of drones were trying to find their way into the sealed up hive. It looked like 75% of the bees on the landing board were drones at one point.


----------



## althea

Craziest year in the yard for me, 
1. Started with 5 strong coming out of winter very happy
2. Made only 2 nucs to replace any future losses ok am up to 7
3. Caught 3 of my own swarms ok up to 10 still fine
4. 7 swarms moved into my yard in various spots, cedar trees, chair, small maple, and dog wood tree. Of the 7 swarms only 2 were over 4 ft off the ground.
5. Last nite about 6 pm I am in the yard having a frosty adult beverage and sure enough a swarm comes over the hay field and lands 20 ft from me in a small bush. 
Needlesss to say boosting to 17 hives with out trying was not in the plans
The kicker is I have 2 very ineffective swarm traps around the yard.


----------



## JWPalmer

Looks like you are smack dab in the middle of swarm central.

I picked up my swarm from work this morning, along with a split another beekeeper gave me (Thanks Kate!). Got everybody home and housed in 10-frame equipment but discovered my swarm was queenless. There were some eggs and larvae but they were drawing the cells out for drones. LW. Cut off the done comb and gave them a frame of open brood with a few queen cells on it. Will see what happens in two weeks.


----------



## elmer_fud

althea said:


> The kicker is I have 2 very ineffective swarm traps around the yard.




seems about right


----------



## Litsinger

althea said:


> Needlesss to say boosting to 17 hives with out trying was not in the plans
> The kicker is I have 2 very ineffective swarm traps around the yard.


althea:

While I've had to pull more than a couple swarms from higher than I'd prefer, I've had a similar year to yours- lots of swarms and very little swarm trap action.

I suppose if they end up in your box and queenright, it's hard to get too upset .

Glad to hear that the season is exceeding your expectations.

Russ


----------



## Cloverdale

althea said:


> Craziest year in the yard for me,
> 1. Started with 5 strong coming out of winter very happy
> 2. Made only 2 nucs to replace any future losses ok am up to 7
> 3. Caught 3 of my own swarms ok up to 10 still fine
> 4. 7 swarms moved into my yard in various spots, cedar trees, chair, small maple, and dog wood tree. Of the 7 swarms only 2 were over 4 ft off the ground.
> 5. Last nite about 6 pm I am in the yard having a frosty adult beverage and sure enough a swarm comes over the hay field and lands 20 ft from me in a small bush.
> Needlesss to say boosting to 17 hives with out trying was not in the plans
> The kicker is I have 2 very ineffective swarm traps around the yard.


Wow what a story!


----------



## Cloverdale

Yesterday I was stung by a bumble bee 2x. We have a small spot at a friends with 2 hives plus we had brought a dbl nuc split down; its next to a Church, and the Minister came over and said she had a bumble bee in her office she couldn’t capture and if I could help. Her office is in the basement with high windows and I pulled up a chair and covered the BB with a light jacket I was wearing and picked it up that way. I must say it was unnerving feeling that bee starting to buzz and vibrate in my hand, and then get stung right through the fabric, twice. I don’t think it was a full sting, just enough to pop my eyes open. It was like getting a honey bee in my hair and can’t get it out and it’s run and frantically fluff my hair time...


----------



## gww

clover


> It was like getting a honey bee in my hair and can’t get it out and it’s run and frantically fluff my hair time...


I was hiving a swarm and did the same. The home owner was acting like I was some kinda expert. I told him you are not really supposed to be waving your arms around in panic cause it might not help the situation.

We could always say we are going for the phillis diller look.
Cheers
gww


----------



## username00101

I have a colony that's out for blood. 

Any suggestions on how to fix this immediately?


----------



## Gray Goose

username00101 said:


> I have a colony that's out for blood.
> 
> Any suggestions on how to fix this immediately?


Bonfire

GG


----------



## GregB

Cloverdale said:


> Yesterday I was stung by a bumble bee 2x. ....... then *get stung right through the fabric*, twice. ...


You don't want to pickup a bumble bee with jacket or paper or thin gloves or anything like it.
Maybe thick leather gloves (I did not try that yet).
Maybe catch them into a box or some container.
The sting will go right thru most everything.

These cute and peaceful bees which I really love and have lots in my backyard - they have a horrendous sting.
Want to say the queen BB has the sting up to a centimeter long and very tough and thick and best left alone and not cornered.
I looked at the sting when foolishly held the BB by the wings as she was trying to sting me - well, she did.
Hurts like hell and the irritating pain can stay on for days (forget the honey bees - they are nothing).
Two incidents for me - memory for life.


----------



## Cloverdale

I hear you on that, Greg, I can’t imagine a full sting.


----------



## Cloverdale

gww said:


> clover
> 
> I was hiving a swarm and did the same. The home owner was acting like I was some kinda expert. I told him you are not really supposed to be waving your arms around in panic cause it might not help the situation.
> 
> We could always say we are going for the phillis diller look.
> Cheers
> gww


Definitely, but we’d really be showing our age with that.


----------



## username00101

Welp. Today I inspected a colony that had begun the swarm, but weather wouldn't let the queen out.

I destroyed all the queen cells, but the colony is going to fly the coop.

The nectar flow went from famine to feast quite rapidly.

No eggs.

I'm assuming that the queen will not resume laying once she's ready to fly the coop?


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> Definitely, but we’d really be showing our age with that.


Cloverdale:

I could not help but chuckle at your and GWW's dialogue- not that I was laughing at your misfortune, but I could so identify with both stories and the realities of getting older and finding myself increasingly full of outdated information that my kids have no concept of...

Thanks for the laugh- and sorry about your run-in with the bumble bee.

Russ


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Very Odd Happenings: This is the first time in 6 years I have noticed this but I am also much more aware. I had been watching at particularly large colony with very high RH values, 90%+, a the top portion of the hive; attributed to nectar coming in and drying process. Suddenly the numbers started falling, to 58% RH. I thought "need new batteries". Changed them - numbers are still low. Hive is chock full of bee, most I have ever seen, multiple boxes and putting on weight - finally. (I Fall fed and have not fed all winter or spring). 

Then I noticed all my hives, nine, seem to have gone "dry" or low RH, 55-65% at the top or by touch / observation. There was a noticeable drop over the last several days. This is occurring in large and smaller colonies but all have been building up ( except one drone laying queen). It is still wet around here and spring budding has occurred. 

It also "feels" like there is not enough nectar flow or the daily temperatures have not been warm enough, daytime ranging from low 40's to upper 50's. Five hives had nearly identical net weights for stored honey, 25 - 26 lb., one was low at 7 lb ( confirmed visually) and one at 37lb. (she forages in the rain and snow). This is below my late March lows I weighed when the wood is heavier with moisture.

The final part of this odd observation is swarming - I do not have any swarm cells, no swarms last year.. My friends to the East and the West have had numerous swarms. GO figure, as I want a few swarm cells. 

Anyone notice this kind of trend before or see it repeat annually? An article or paper on this effect? It may be a simple short term anomaly tied to the weather.


----------



## Gray Goose

Seen this exact thing on one of my large hives.
They went brood crazy , about 1 week pre dandelion, top was saturated and dripping. Lots of brood.
then they dried up and the hive top was cooler. I opened and only saw capped brood? It did seem odd, they took a brood break. we did have some crap weather.
1.5 weeks post Dandelion, I opened and found charged Swarm cells, lots of new brood, I pulled 2 5 frame NUCs with the oldest cells. then 5 days later 3 more 5 frame NUCs, with the old queen now have 6 splits from this hive.
Other Hives also did seem to brood break at the same time. not real Data, But IMO weather related. they made a crap load of new bees to get past the winter bees die off, then idled until the weather was cooperating, then took off. not sure it matters these were Russians, in a double deep long Lang hive.
Keep an eye on them they could make you some cells fairly quick.

GG


----------



## Robert Holcombe

:thumbsup: I'll be watching.


----------



## LAlldredge

Really enjoy your science posts Robert. My hives came out strong in early spring but went on pause the last two weeks because it was consistently cold with fewer flying days. I started feeding 1:1 just to get feed on and to resume momentum. They are responding well but one hive is not accessing the rapid feeder but when I mix a sugar slurry on wax paper they will take that. It’s like the weather put them on pause. Frost dates are very late this year.


----------



## Cloverdale

My two cents is most management relating to our honey bees is based on the weather/seasons.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

GG "Keep an eye on them they could make you some cells fairly quick." Been checking a few hives at a time - nothing but I do have lots of bees. 

Guessing - searching question for anyone: DO you think early Spring feeding with 1:1 or 2:1 syrup and or feeding protein supplements like UltraBee promotes swarming in a healthy hive? I work with a couple of other beekeepers who are deep into handling swarms already. The major difference factor that I can recognize is early feeding. Both were light coming out of winter and had to Spring feed. I have not feed since Nov. 2, 2019. I watch their weights and know pollen started coming in on March 2 ( rather early this year). I have more bees in multiple hives than ever before.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Thanks! 

I am having a similar experience but no Spring feeding ( see another, ealirer reply I have). We are just starting to hit a warming trend with some 60 and just had a 70F day, rain again today. I have a lot of bees in multiple hives, early. This is new for me as last year there was only one hive. I get the feeling they adjust brood rearing based on internal stores and external flow. External flow has been limited, it seems, although two hives are gaining weight, five are nearly identical in stored honey or net weights. 

I still have my slip-on box insulation. One limited observation is that wher eI have two supers on the bees are storing and drying nectar in the top box first - not just above the brood section but in the warmest super section. Even though it is raining, my hives are drier, RH, by a lot. 

It's a new view point or platform I have to make observations - something different is going on right now. Things are so different than my past experiences. Admittedly my test data is crude but results are logical to me. I am planning on adding insulation as the hives are growing with supers added but my insluation boxes do not grow. So I am going to add insulation modules to half the hives to compare summer effects, to create flexible arrangements plus buy more crude weather sensors. I might spring for a bunch of thermocouples soon, maybe some high accuracy RH sensors.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

:thumbsup:


----------



## honeyhartbees

Interesting comment Robert,
Our bees built up so early this year that we never ngf ever had a chance to feed them.
1st check early feb. The hives were already stuffed with bees. Only 4 of 14 hives tried to swarm, and we were able to artficial swatm them by removing queen to nuc.


----------



## MichaelCfffg

We did a 3-way split a few weeks ago from my one very strong hive, and decided to do a thorough check on them this weekend. Our splits were into a 10 frame deep with a bred queen, and a couple of frames of eggs and young brood into a nuc. We couldn't find the queen this weekend in the original hive, but it's full of bees and brood, so it appears to be doing fine. We think that it did a supersecure a couple of weeks ago, so our painted lady may be gone.

The nuc has a pretty new queen that we helped with her makeup, but they're not making a lot of progress with drawing comb and stores. The hive with the purchased queen is also doing okay, but not building up comb and stores like we'd like either. We're putting 1-1 feeders on both this one and the nuc with hopes that this will give them a kick start to building up their strength, and we're not figuring on getting any honey from either of them this year.

Meanwhile, I'm busy building supers and medium frames for the strong original hive. It's getting pretty close to running out of space again. It is currently a single deep and a medium super, and we're not needing to feed that one.


----------



## Gray Goose

Robert Holcombe said:


> GG "Keep an eye on them they could make you some cells fairly quick." Been checking a few hives at a time - nothing but I do have lots of bees.
> 
> Guessing - searching question for anyone: DO you think early Spring feeding with 1:1 or 2:1 syrup and or feeding protein supplements like UltraBee promotes swarming in a healthy hive? I work with a couple of other beekeepers who are deep into handling swarms already. The major difference factor that I can recognize is early feeding. Both were light coming out of winter and had to Spring feed. I have not feed since Nov. 2, 2019. I watch their weights and know pollen started coming in on March 2 ( rather early this year). I have more bees in multiple hives than ever before.


Robert you are on the right track. I had 3 hives that were 2 deep and 1 medium, in early spring, bout when the pussy willows bloom with pollen, I added a deep of honey from a dead out, and a pollen patty, second patty 3 weeks later, today all 3 are 3 deeps and 1 medium full of bees , 40 frames worth. On 1 split 7 ways last week, the next split 5 ways, , and I see cups with eggs in the third yesterday. So if you want lots of bees for splits or have new queens ordered for splits then , do the feed and the pollen patties. I would recommend, warm jars inverted over the brood nest, (not sure on 1-1 or 2-1 , give each a try.) with insulation around them in a extra deep box. starting warm the syrup will tend to stay warm with insulation. I get the 40 Lb pack of patties from Dadant, i can look the SKU up if you wish. The feed and syrup or honey stimulus caused bee brood increase, this then crowds them sooner. and I basically added a honey dome, the thing suggested to remove to stop swarming. Mine were light as well , but had enough to survive. IMO they were coasting till a confirmed flow+pollen , here that is Dandelions. Adding 3 weeks pre that flow adds the stimulis to get them going. or cancels the fear of starting brood early.

By accident one year I had a hive I forgot to pull honey from and they had 12-16 inches over the nest in 3 deeps. I did add the supers early and got almost 2 mediums of dandelion honey. during inspection I found several large swarm cells and did a 4 way split that worked good, and now kinda force this crowded large dome early spring configuration.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Finally warm weather. Popped the super open to have a peek and they are just starting to draw out the frames so no big hurry to put new boxes on. All hives are seriously devouring pollen patties. No shortage of pollen but they are hungry. Took sugar water off a few days ago, May consider putting 1:1 back on if comb is dry on inspection.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"Finally warm weather" - the same here but barely warm enough. I am about to plant my "hot " veggie plants and watch for swarming. 

GG & Lalldredge - I have not fed anything since Feb. 2, 2019. My fellow beekeeprs to my west and east fed somewhat heavily, 1:1 and patties, in the early Spring to save very hungry hives. They have been somewhat overcome by swarming events; 5 to the west, 3 to the east. I have not found a swarm cell, only some practice cups in eight large colonies. It would be interesting to hear your experiences with swarming around the end of June. As noted earlier I am surprised by "dry hives" in the midst of all this rain, fog and now high humidity.


----------



## LAlldredge

Hey Robert- 4 hives took 2 quarts and the big hive took a gallon. I'm a fan of temporary limited feeding to avoid calamity. I thought it was a safe move. I'm hearing anecdotal reports of late starvation in May. Not much intention on swarming just yet (2 q cups, limited backfill)

Also moved their medium below after the q started to lay in it in early spring. Trying the pollen box idea. After the medium was put under, the queen moved back up and is happy in the single deep. The medium will remain below as the repository for pollen and hanging out space.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"I'm a fan of temporary limited feeding to avoid calamity." I agree but I have tried and implemented an approach for 2 yers which was initiated by M. Palmer presentation comment - feeding and weighting. 

I fed a lot up until Nov 2 this past Fall - well into frost season here. I also repeated an unintentional mistake this past Fall. Using cheap luggage scales I was getting bad values - too low. It seems the luggage scales are easily damaged or do not reach their maximum scale values - I over-fed or so it seemed. All hives were over 80lb. net per hive, mostly around 100 lb., peak 115 lb. I have bought two commercial weighting scales and now have a reliable system for weighting anytime, clumsy but reliable. 

I smiled in March as my hives had plenty of stores. April, I started to worry. Got really nervous in early May! Should I stop my experiment of no Spring feeding? Then! May 15th weights showed a turn around along with visual inspections. It also showed 8 hives with large colonies ready to forage. Starting my sixth year, I have never seen so many bees in so many hives, 8 of 9. Phew! (#9 became a drone laying queened hive after a nice startup.)

The prior year weighing showed an unexpected Fall dearth. A hive killing dearth for the more experienced beekeepers who simply relied on the Fall flow and hefting - starved hvies by Christmas. I noticed it while learning to weigh hives - accurately. I rapidly fed early, to a weight, 60- 80 lb. net, and saved all the hives. 

No swarming last year and this year so far but a new mystery! It is warm, now past possible frosting issues by the coast, time to put my seed-grown veggie plants into warmed up rototilled soil. It's just warm enough for a single bee now, blooming well underway and and the bees do not need my help - well maybe more supers after weighting in a couple days. 

Conclusion: I do not believe I over-fed last Fall. Weighing, feeding and verified store' weights by weighing again simply seems smart, allows bees to manage their capped winter resources, and it takes less effort from me, less stress for all.


----------



## LAlldredge

Totally get that. My comments were meant for spring and swarm season. In fall I feed like a crazy person. Even use pro grade feed ProSweet to be sure it won’t crystallize and goes right into the combs. You have a great system. Mine is getting there. Would love to weigh more accurately. I’m pretty small and moving boxes and tipping them on a scale is tricky.


----------



## JWPalmer

I recently posted about how one of my hives was refusing to draw on some brand new Acorn plastic frames I was given. Well, last week I needed to add another super to one of my hives and I was out of mediums, so I added a deep with my normal foundationless frames mixed in between used Acorn frames that I had scraped and rewaxed. If you guessed that the bees were drawing the foundationless and ignoring the plastic, you'd be wrong. It is exaxtly the opposite. All five of the plastic frames have new comb started on them and the foundationless frames are bare. It is a first for me so I thought I would share.


----------



## little_john

JWPalmer said:


> It is a first for me so I thought I would share.


Extraordinary - goes to show you never can tell (apologises to Chuck Berry).

A first for me happened yesterday. I was inspecting a colony and came across a capped brood frame with a white band running diagonally across the cell cappings. Curious, I ran the corner of a pallet knife I use as a hive tool along that line, which came away in one piece revealing a wax-moth worm in an advanced stage of development which wriggled a few times before falling to the floor of the hive - with a few bees then in hot pursuit. Seems it was burrowing undetected just underneath the brood caps. Never seen that before on a working comb.
LJ


----------



## Robert Holcombe

" Never seen that before on a working comb." In New England that would be a Greater Wax Moth - tunneling. If it was like a web on the surface it is a Lesser Wax moth - so I have seen and been told the identifying difference by an entomologist.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Lalldredge " moving boxes and tipping them on a scale is tricky." I will take few photographs of a simple, quickly assembled lifting approach that requires no hive tipping on a balance scale; and can be scaled to reduce the force applied by you. It uses a "220 lb. fish" scale, two pieces of wood and a bolt. It also requires a simple "correction factor" based on the distance from the lifting point( side of the hive) to the rotating axis of the hive. I am still settling on my lifting point approach as it seems that this is the most cumbersome part of the design - hooking up the scale to the hive. This is especially true for me as I have been weighting fairly often to understand hive life cycles over the seasons. Eyeballing vertical orientation of the appears to fairly accurate as verified by use of a bottom scale and tipping method. The total cost is about $50, Brecknell 235-6M Hanging Scale, 220 lb. x 1 lb. increments. 

One winter weighting error which is difficult to evaluate - absorption of moisture by the wood work or Quilt boxes - even brood cells. This is a conclusion after seeing hive weights go up in the dead of winter than dropping with a significant amount of brood rearing.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Observational Question: After five straight days external recordings of relative humidity ranging from 82% to 100% with morning temperatures in the 60s', two sensored hives maintain steady, relatively low DH values of 50 to 60% but with much higher temperatues, 85 -93 F. The third hive is still increasing colony size after a pause and a late brood rearing start thus higher values like 81% @ 82 F today. THe two hives have intentionally lowered internal RH to values suitable for brood rearing but are bringing in and making honey while reducing brood production.

The question is what range of internal RH and temperatures is useful for "curing" or drying honey versus external conditions? Anyone have an idea or reference source? Time to reach for a thermodynamics book?


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> Observational Question: After five straight days external recordings of relative humidity ranging from 82% to 100% with morning temperatures in the 60s', two sensored hives maintain steady, relatively low DH values of 50 to 60% but with much higher temperatues, 85 -93 F. The third hive is still increasing colony size after a pause and a late brood rearing start thus higher values like 81% @ 82 F today. THe two hives have intentionally lowered internal RH to values suitable for brood rearing but are bringing in and making honey while reducing brood production.
> 
> The question is what range of internal RH and temperatures is useful for "curing" or drying honey versus external conditions? Anyone have an idea or reference source? Time to reach for a thermodynamics book?


I suspect you are seeing some of the effects of water saturation capacity of the air changing at temperature. At higher temperatures air can hold more water. Relative humidity is the amount of water the air is holding relative to the saturation point/capacity. 

Very rough math, at 68F air can hold 17.3sx10-3 kg/m3 of water. At 86 F air can hold 30.4x10-3 kg/m3

If you assume 100 % RH at 68 F and increase the temperature to 86F without changing the water content you end up at 57%RH. This is not to far off from what you are seeing so I think the hives are not to far off from equilibrium with the outside air based on water content. 

Source for the above values:
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/maximum-moisture-content-air-d_1403.html

I try to keep my hives below 80% RH, to keep mold under control I do not know what range the bees like or prefer, but they seem to do fine with the quilt boxes that I run on my hives year round. I was seeing 95%+ RH and mold problems before I started running quilt boxes.


----------



## JWPalmer

I believe that 78% RH at 93°F is the sought after value for queen cells in an incubator.


----------



## little_john

little_john said:


> Seems it [wax-moth larva] was burrowing undetected just underneath the brood caps. Never seen that before on a working comb.


Just realised I hadn't explained that very well. The wax moth was burrowing in the space *between* the caps and the larva below them, so that when the silky tube (which had created a 'white line') was removed, the line of glistening white larvae beneath it were then exposed. If I hadn't seen this with my own eyes, I'd have said that was impossible.
LJ


----------



## little_john

JWPalmer said:


> I believe that 78% RH at 93°F is the sought after value for queen cells in an incubator.


Indeed - bees are used to working under conditions of high humidity. It never ceases to amaze me how arrogant we humans can be in our perception of the world around us: at one point we even believed that the whole universe (including our own sun) revolved around the Earth - 'cause that's where we live, and as we are SO important in the whole scheme of things, it MUST have been true.

Likewise in biological matters, WE are the ones with a delicate respiratory system (when compared with insects), and so we judge other creatures by our own standards. The presence of mould in particular we see as being highly undesirable, and yet honey-bees have become conditioned to live in conditions of not just mould, but that of rotting wood and fungi. The materials they use - propolis and wax - should have given us this clue by now, but no - we keep insisting that bees should live in the same type of warm, dry, and mould-free environment that we humans have found to be necessary for our own well-being.
LJ


----------



## Robert Holcombe

:thumbsup:


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I appreciate the rough math. It suggest the internal environment is driven by the external. But I have noticed bees keeping a much higher RH inside the hive in opposition to a "balanced internal - external environment. From 5 months of observations and coarse data and visual hive characteristics it would appear the bees have boundary conditions they like to maintain for hive for various condition - if they can. It is clear that RH of 45% to 60% RH @ 93 - 95 F are the desired limits for brood rearing. It seems to be more centered around 55% RH for brood rearing. One test report showed that adult bees migrate more often to 70% RH areas. Desiccation is a critical issue for bees, IMO, but rarely discussed. This dry-hive period is a bit fascinating and difficult to explain; lack of sensor doe snot help.

The seasonal cycle requirements for ahive have changed now and while still brood rearing they also hav a need to "cure" honey. I was wondering what are good to ideal conditions for dring honey. I am guessing a warmer, hotter super area is desired (air sponge trick), especially after sundown. Thus my simple experiment - leave my insulating boxes on to insulate at least three supers. Now to learn ( thermodynamics book and Google Scholar should help) about rate of moisture transfer from curing honey to internal air. Venting effects for moisture removal by bees will be tough to measure or estimate - but seeing capped honey rates will be somewhat easier. My objective is to explore and identify hive design characteristics that support the honey bees' desires, conservation of bee energy and resulting lower colony stress. Insulating thin wooden boxes year round seems to be going in the right direction but I have another 7 months to go for just one complete cycle. It appears verifying Fall stores be weighing is also very important and has led to two successful winters in a row. 

My end goal is a sustainable apiary with hives able to provide honey for themselves, me, some neighbors and a food bank, year round without buying sugar / Fall feeding ( doubtful).


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Interestingly higher RH of 78% @ 93F JWPALMER. Do you know of any written articles about this subject. i will also search as it would seem to a good source for clues and testing of RH issues. It is alluded to in other literature that the 45% to 60% RH value for brood areas maybe in support of higher RH levels inside a cells with cocoons holding moisture as a water buffer material - really tough to measure in real time. It would seem 78% @93 F surrounding a queen cell would prevent moisture loss from the cell.


----------



## little_john

The whole subject of humidity viz-a-viz brood and queen cells is a curious one when you consider that the cells are almost entirely made of a wax which is impermeable to water. With open cells I can see the importance of a high humidity, but capped cells ? It's only the cell caps themselves which are porous and thus of significance in considerations of humidity issues - but as they represent only a relatively small surface area, the amount of air diffusing through them must be very small.
LJ


----------



## Robert Holcombe

" the amount of air diffusing through them must be very small." - Little _John.
I would not assume that as I am sure (guessing) pore quantity and size has likely evolved to handle waste gases. Understanding water vapor diffusion, mass flow and rates is soemthing I have to work on. In my experiences I was stunned to see the mechanism that added moisture to a 40 foot environmental chamber. It was a about a 5 cm ( 2 inches) diameter glass tube with a small bulge that had a port from which water dripped onto a hot plate. They could make it rain on the equipment, control RH over the whole range of temperatures from near freezing to 50C (122 F). I do not remember any blower - just diffusion into the chamber. It is very interesting trying to follow a molecule of water through all the processes of a colony and the interaction with the environment. ( watching, hopefully, the Sapce X / NASA launch!)


----------



## JWPalmer

LJ, ever raise chickens? An egg appears to be non-porus but in fact water diffuses through the shell and membrane readily. If not kept in a very humid environment, the chicks will get stuck to the shell and not hatch properly. Also waiting for the SpaceX launch before going out to play with the bees.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

:applause: Launched!!!

Once wrote a paper explaining all the forces acting on water - did not complete it - gave up - Prof agreed too - was long enough. I had never considered diffusion - guess I got time now that my bees are taking care of themselves.


----------



## little_john

JWPalmer said:


> LJ, ever raise chickens? An egg appears to be non-porus but in fact water diffuses through the shell and membrane readily. If not kept in a very humid environment, the chicks will get stuck to the shell and not hatch properly.


Sure I have - but egg-shells ain't made of wax. 

Let's not forget that before the advent of silicone treatments, beeswax was the substance of choice for making materials waterproof. It repels moisture. 
LJ


----------



## Cloverdale

Today in the apiary in one of my favorite hives,MP queen, two full supers of honey, needing to be capped. Also in another hive I found something I have never seen in my apiary, full size capped swarm cells that were empty. Anyone know why this might have happened? The hive needed room, there were eggs, the MP queen looked good. Gave them some room, should be good till we can get more equipment, which I do not want to do. I was taken aback somewhat on how fast these hives grew, they were packed.


----------



## JWPalmer

little_john said:


> Sure I have - but egg-shells ain't made of wax.


Neither are brood cappings, at least not entirely. They have to be porous so the larvae can breathe. If oxygen molecules can transverse the cappings, so can water molecules, which we all know are smaller.


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale,
Hope you guys are well.

I think those queen cells you mention being capped and empty weren't always so. They held a queen but the cap was 'hinged' on a portion and fell back into place after she emerged so now looks like it was never opened by a emerging queen.
If you take your pocket knife you'll very likely be able to lift the cap back off and see she released herself just like always, may even see the 'hinge' that caused the confusion.
MPalmer has a good bee up there in VT. I've been meaning to email him and tell him why I like them so much. Working with 3 of his lines and like them all.
clyderoad


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> Cloverdale,
> Hope you guys are well.
> 
> I think those queen cells you mention being capped and empty weren't always so. They held a queen but the cap was 'hinged' on a portion and fell back into place after she emerged so now looks like it was never opened by a emerging queen.
> If you take your pocket knife you'll very likely be able to lift the cap back off and see she released herself just like always, may even see the 'hinge' that caused the confusion.
> MPalmer has a good bee up there in VT. I've been meaning to email him and tell him why I like them so much. Working with 3 of his lines and like them all.
> clyderoad


Thanks, I never thought of that, but I saw the queen and she is last years queen, still marked :scratch: I have three lines of his also, and am waiting patiently for the next batch in July. I am glad you are doing good.


----------



## LAlldredge

March in May- Dry comb lots of pollen, couple queen cups, no real sign of swarming spirit. Put 1:1 back on for a bit to bridge the flow. They went right to it. Smallest colony that was an overwintered nuc has by far the most stores and the best foragers. They are also the most gentle. They got two extra frames of brood today.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Thanks, an Interesting Rabbit Hole " If oxygen molecules can transverse the cappings, so can water molecules" ! 

Drilling down: ( I may get a headache over the time period noted for a stable water molecule - I'll never go ice skating on a pond again  )

Water molecules c are tiny, electrically neutral and V-shaped with molecular formula H2O a and molecular diameter about 2.75 Å. g Water is much smaller than almost all other molecules. For example, it has a smaller volume, and is much lighter, than the four other common atmospheric molecules, oxygen (O2), nitrogen (N2), argon (Ar) and carbon dioxide (CO2); the density of water vapor being just 62% the density of dry air [2215].

In the liquid state, in spite of 80% of the electrons in H2O being concerned with bonding, the three atoms do not stay together as the hydrogen atoms are continually exchanging between water molecules, due to protonation/deprotonation processes. Both acids and bases catalyze this exchange and even when at its slowest (at pH 7), the average time for the atoms in an H2O molecule to stay together is only about a millisecond. As this brief period is, however, much longer than the timescales encountered during investigations into water's hydrogen bonding or hydration properties, water is usually treated as a permanent structure.


----------



## little_john

JWPalmer said:


> Neither are brood cappings, at least not entirely. *They have to be porous so the larvae can breathe.* If oxygen molecules can transverse the cappings, so can water molecules, which we all know are smaller.


From my post 2618:


> With open cells I can see the importance of a high humidity, but capped cells ? *It's only the cell caps themselves which are porous and thus of significance in considerations of humidity issues - but as they represent only a relatively small surface area, the amount of air diffusing through them must be very small.*


Contrast the percentage of a cell-cap area viz-a-viz the cell as a whole. with the 100% surface area of a hen's egg. Huge difference in percentage terms.

Also, FWIW - the queen-cell is composed of 3 different types of wax: the cell-walls (which appear to be simple, straightforward beeswax) and the lining (certainly that which is used to line Nicot cell-cups) - which is a wax-propolis mix. I discovered this difference while experimenting with sodium bicarbonate and sodium hydroxide to clean used Nicot cell-cups - and thirdly, the porous cap itself. I don't think the clean circular cut which the emerging virgin queen makes to remove the cap is pure coincidence - she probably cuts exactly where the two type of wax are joined. (needs confirming, of course)
LJ


----------



## elmer_fud

This is the humidity that I was seeing in my hive over several years. For the first year where the humidity was always at 90% I think the sensor was mostly railed/maxed out. After that was when I started running quilt boxes. The humidity sensor is located in the top of the hive on the bottom of the inner cover, then on the bottom of the quilt box.


----------



## JWPalmer

LJ, you know I am somewhat playing with you on this topic. I agree that the total permeable surface area of a cell is only a small percentage of the total area, and that the cell walls, being made primarily of beswax are not relevant in the diffusion. I also know that as absurd as it sounds, a pinhole in an air line of -100°F dewpoint compressed air can allow a measurable amount of humidity into the system, even while the air is escaping from it. Had a real hard time wrapping my head around that one.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I am unable to read the file. I think it is too compressed an thus smears the data for a day or two. I do not see big swings in data over the period of a day or two or three or four until recently. I record once a day, by pen, in the morning or later in the day. Monitoring a display at other times does not show significant variations........... until now as I am typing this. I have to go an investigate hive status. We did have a big weather change here today. 

Of course hive design and location has an effect. Whose sensor are you using? I use a simple 3 external sensor weather station.


----------



## Cloverdale

little_john said:


> From my post 2618:
> 
> Also, FWIW - the queen-cell is composed of 3 different types of wax: the cell-walls (which appear to be simple, straightforward beeswax) and the lining (certainly that which is used to line Nicot cell-cups) - which is a wax-propolis mix.
> LJ


Great info LJ, I didnt know that.


----------



## little_john

Cloverdale said:


> Great info LJ, I didnt know that.


Thanks - neither did I - it seems there's *always* something new to learn 

On this humidity transfer across the porous cell-cap issue (to save me writing a separate post) - this *has* to be passive transfer, as there's no pressure gradient involved. It's not as if the queen is sucking and blowing to assist the air flow (or is she ?). I continue to find it amazing that this whole beekeeping malarky works so well. It's no wonder people have been fascinated by bees over thousands of years. 
LJ


----------



## JWPalmer

little_john said:


> I continue to find it amazing that this whole beekeeping malarky works so well. It's no wonder people have been fascinated by bees over thousands of years.
> LJ


:thumbsup:

You do not need a pressure gradient, just one of concentration.


----------



## Litsinger

little_john said:


> I continue to find it amazing that this whole beekeeping malarky works so well. It's no wonder people have been fascinated by bees over thousands of years.


I enjoyed reading this discussion and I learned a lot. It is indeed amazing that the more one learns about the life and mechanisms of a honeybee colony, the more there is to be fascinated about- and all of life exhibits this incredible complexity that often belies what is apparent from casual observation.


----------



## Arnie

In April I had made a vertical split of my strong backyard hive. The bees raised a nice queen, so today I took the old queen from the bottom box and put her in a little nuc. Removed the screen and reunited everyone. 

My other backyard hive has a 2nd year queen whose bees are not inclined to swarm, winter with a smallish cluster and build up well after I rearrange the brood boxes, pretty gentle.
So I took the box with the queen and put it above an excluder and above a super. I hope to get a daughter from her , or maybe 2.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud - humidity - guess and observation: One hive with the recent low RH and high top temperatures lately while having really high RH all winter, was checked for for suepr status. I call her Super Woman for her performance last year. I was guessing the drop in RH was to "dry and cap" honey. The is exactly what I found - a 90% white capped super of honey which was created in the past two weeks of damp, wet cold weather. This happen with my box insulation still installed to keep supers warm to aid capping. It's a clue and worth pursuing. It will take time to establish but seems logical.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> elmer_fud - humidity - guess and observation: One hive with the recent low RH and high top temperatures lately while having really high RH all winter, was checked for for suepr status. I call her Super Woman for her performance last year. I was guessing the drop in RH was to "dry and cap" honey. The is exactly what I found - a 90% white capped super of honey which was created in the past two weeks of damp, wet cold weather. This happen with my box insulation still installed to keep supers warm to aid capping. It's a clue and worth pursuing. It will take time to establish but seems logical.


That makes sense to me, when the bees are trying to dry the honey there is going to be more moisture in the air, and once it is capped the moisture being added to the hive drops, so the humidity goes down.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

AN alternate explanation based on bees controlling their internal environment when given the chance is the bees reduced the RH in the hive to increase the rate of moisture diffusion from the honey to the air; air is relatively hot and dry in the super area but just high enough RH for brood rearing. Moisture is then driven out by diffusion to the cooler air. I can also imagine that with all the foraging going on, mass transport of water out of the hive occurs - do not know how to measure that process with my simple test tools but I can search and read. This occurrence seems to be happening in more than one hive, for sure.


----------



## LAlldredge

All 5 ready for the flow. Glad they were well behaved with the limited 1:1. No signs of swarming intentions except for a couple of queen cups. Freshened up their pollen patties. Lots of bee bread and some nectar. Clover starting to bloom. Not much going on in the super yet except population overflow. Nice when there’s nothing to do.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"Clover starting to bloom." - I just notice my clover has been up for about 5 days and blooming. Opposite sides of the continent but vegetation growth timing is similar. My Blackberry hedge is in full bloom also. We are busy planting a veggie garden but realized the warm spell we are having and the blooms. I checked a few hives and realize the FLOW in on. Installed more supers over nearly capped supers in a hurry. Clearly, large colony hives were ready and waiting to forage, weaker ones are catching up but still raising brood. They can be very fast foraging and making honey under good conditions.

I seem to have succeeded with my plan - feed once in the Fall to a minimum weight, conserve energy by insulating well. Insulation is still on but it only covers supers now. I have my favorite early Spring honey in two, maybe three hives. Strangest status so far is zero swarms (so far) two years running for 9 hives, at least none I have discovered. I don't do a deep inspection very often - simply verify brood status quickly and watch the entrance. 

A mystery story: One hive was expanding nicely in early March but by the end of March the queen became a drone layer. Installed a couple of scarce brood frames to initiate supercedure and /or stave off drone laying workers. Hive survived until late April when bought up a "mated, drunken queen with a broken leg" or so it seemed when I installed her via a push-in cage. She was released on May 2nd, appeared OK (surprised!). Quick checked hive about 5 days later - not looking good, kind of awful. June 5th I put a super on her hive. The "drunken queen with the broken leg" is apparently very smart, a big layer and fooled me completely. I need a new plan and a consultant - if I could just communicate with that queen.


----------



## LAlldredge

Robert Holcombe said:


> "Clover starting to bloom." - I just notice my clover has been up for about 5 days and blooming. Opposite sides of the continent but vegetation growth timing is similar. My Blackberry hedge is in full bloom also. We are busy planting a veggie garden but realized the warm spell we are having and the blooms.


I’m intentionally growing a clover lawn for the bees and for me. Grass seed mixed with white clover. Low maintenance, lush and green. Veggies are getting neem seed meal, fish fertilizer, foliar fed boogie brew compost tea and dug in rock dust. Brassicas starting to look huge. Covered with frost cloth as a protection last night as a precaution.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"Covered with frost cloth as a protection last night as a precaution." 

No frost after the " last full moon in May" here, especially when within 2-3 miles of the Atlantic. We are slower warming up versus inland by a few weeks but a longer, warmer Fall. My place was once part of an old colonial farm. The small pastures are original, bush whacked and naturally grown, 100 ft. above sea level. The soil have never seen pesticides as far as I know just some lime once.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> . Strangest status so far is zero swarms (so far) two years running for 9 hives, at least none I have discovered. I don't do a deep inspection very often - simply verify brood status quickly and watch the entrance.


I am sort of similar, I just look for eggs or larvae and tip up all of the boxes during my inspections at this point. I have not had any splitting/growing swarms fly off in 4 years, but I think running hives with lots of extra space helps with this. I did have one hive abscond, but I think it was the queen could not find her way back into a nuc after mating and the hive abscounded. 

I was forced to split a hive for the first time this week because I found some queen cells and I am not sure if the hive was superseding or trying to swarm. I am sort of thinking they were thinking of swarming because there was still a lot of eggs and larve in the hive, but that hive has been funky all year, so I am not sure. They seemed to be slow to build up, and seem to be a bit lazy. I have watched this hive sit out front and beard, while at the same time the other strong one was very actively out forging. Hopefully a new queen in a month will get this hive going, and putting the old queen in a small hive will get her straightened out.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Elmr_fud "but I think running hives with lots of extra space helps with this." For me, this all started when I standardized my brood chamber for summer and winter using 2 mediums and a deep - plus insulation plus feeding to a weight in the Fall. I do not move frames around nor intrude very often; typically a laying check and bottom check when I think it is needed.


----------



## JWPalmer

One of my production hives swarmed back in April and the surviving queen did not make it back. I gave them a frame of eggs in May and they failed to produce a queen cell. Two weeks ago I put in a ripe queen cell. Last week it was gone. I figure the bees tore it down or it had fallen out of the frame and died. Checked the other hives today that got cells from the same batch, all had laying queens. Checked the top super for progress on the honey capping. Looked at the second super and saw similar progress but did not pull frames. Went into the brood chambers and no queen. Decided to put the remaining bees in a nuc to tighten up the dwindling population. Added a frame of eggs on white comb and sorted through the 20 deep frames to give them the best. Put a medium five frame on top and idea was to take the frames of capped honey and give them five frames of still uncapped nectar. Started with the second super and had shaken two frames when I realized something did not look right. Sure enough, royal jelly. Found a laying queen and lots of uncapped larvae on the next few frames. Oops. Put it all back together as a 10 frame with the medium on the bottom and one of the two empty deeps back on top, then the super. 

Took the frame of eggs and attached bees and put it in another nuc, then placed that nuc in the location of one I had just shaken out earlier that day. It was simply queenless and never went laying worker but there were less than 1000 bees and I wasn't really ready to start the summer nucs yet. Original foragers found it and it appears BAU.


----------



## Cloverdale

JWPalmer said:


> One of my production hives swarmed back in April and the surviving queen did not make it back. I gave them a frame of eggs in May and they failed to produce a queen cell. Two weeks ago I put in a ripe queen cell. Last week it was gone. I figure the bees tore it down or it had fallen out of the frame and died. Checked the other hives today that got cells from the same batch, all had laying queens. Checked the top super for progress on the honey capping. Looked at the second super and saw similar progress but did not pull frames. Went into the brood chambers and no queen. Decided to put the remaining bees in a nuc to tighten up the dwindling population. Added a frame of eggs on white comb and sorted through the 20 deep frames to give them the best. Put a medium five frame on top and idea was to take the frames of capped honey and give them five frames of still uncapped nectar. Started with the second super and had shaken two frames when I realized something did not look right. Sure enough, royal jelly. Found a laying queen and lots of uncapped larvae on the next few frames. Oops. Put it all back together as a 10 frame with the medium on the bottom and one of the two empty deeps back on top, then the super.
> 
> Took the frame of eggs and attached bees and put it in another nuc, then placed that nuc in the location of one I had just shaken out earlier that day. It was simply queenless and never went laying worker but there were less than 1000 bees and I wasn't really ready to start the summer nucs yet. Original foragers found it and it appears BAU.


The bees are doing unexpected things this Spring; you can’t make this stuff up! We have a small yard at a friends; 2 hives and the dbl nuc brought there for queens to mate and a swarm trap that NEVER caught a swarm, but we were hoping it would happen; maybe 6 frames in it. We needed frames so used them from the swarm trap, there were bees in it, I thought they were robbing the bit of honey on a frame and not many bees, maybe a seam. I pulled a frame and it had eggs! Looked and found a small queen. I couldn’t believe it, this swarm? was so tiny! and a laying queen. Non of the hives there had swarmed. Go figure.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> this all started when I standardized my brood chamber for summer and winter using 2 mediums and a deep


I typically run a deep and 2-3 mediums as the brood chamber/winter stores with strong hives. This is not not a standard configuration, but it is what that works for me.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"not a standard configuration" - what is the standard? I run a medium+deep+medium as my "standard" brood chamber for all hives. A QE goes on top of the brood chamber.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> "not a standard configuration" - what is the standard? I run a medium+deep+medium as my "standard" brood chamber for all hives. A QE goes on top of the brood chamber.


I assume 2 deeps is a "Standard configuration" because that is what I think a lot of people, and most commercial operations run for the brood chamber.


----------



## username00101

Anyone else getting a crappy year?

We've had sunny warm weather and all the flowers on trees they used for honey got killed from the freeze in the middle of may.

For example, black locust didn't even put out a single flower this year. 

Many of my hives are barely strong enough to swarm.

In my other apiary, they're all extremely healthy and I'm getting some honey.

This is crazy and sad.


----------



## AHudd

Same here, hard freeze three nights in a row right after Blackberry bloom. Then the weather turned good for a short while, then the rains came. Rain during the daytime for days at a time. The Privet bloom was a total washout. I am now looking forward to a good Fall flow. In the mean time I will be concentrating on making more bees. 

Alex


----------



## elmer_fud

username00101 said:


> Anyone else getting a crappy year?


I think I am doing ok so far this year. I have one hive that has filled about 2 supers, one that is being lazy and has not done anything useful, and a new package that is growing.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

My Blackberry bloom is well underway now with white clover, etc. I know the hives are putting on weight. I have check on them tomorrow after a couple of days or fog and rain. 

It was a great year last year around here. I dout two years in a row but I have bigger, stronger hives now.


----------



## JWPalmer

The honey flow is weird here. Some of the hives have supers full of capped honey, others are bare. What is going on on here?


----------



## AR1

username00101 said:


> Anyone else getting a crappy year?


That was here last year, endless rain all spring, hot dry July then endless rain all fall. Some corn and soybeans never got harvested at all and were plowed under this spring. No honey at all and I fed pretty much continuously. This year has been very nice and some honey is being made.


----------



## username00101

I've lived in the Northeast most of my life, and I've never seen a year where the black locust didn't bloom.

Temperatures got down into the mid 20s in the middle of May when the apples were blooming. Lots of wind.

If the weather stays good, I'm hoping for a small surplus but I was really disappointed to find some hives with empty drawn comb adjacent to the brood nest.

I know there's a problem with nectar because they rob out frames I leave in the yard like it's mid Summer.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"The honey flow is weird here. Some of the hives have supers full of capped honey, others are bare. What is going on on here?" 

Answer: Early bee gets the honey?


----------



## LAlldredge

JWPalmer said:


> The honey flow is weird here. Some of the hives have supers full of capped honey, others are bare. What is going on on here?


We are in a Grand Solar Minimum (sun has very little sunspot activity) where the sun's magnetic field weakens. It's an 11 year cycle. I won't pretend to know all of the consequences of that but it is a scientific fact. I care more about the practical aspects of how it may be affecting gardening and beekeeping. Throwing out all expectations around the calendar is useful. I'm inspecting every 7 days if possible and feeding them protein and/or 1:1 if needed if the comb is dry. I'm wondering if we will see more incidents of nutritional stress as beekeepers have a hard time adjusting to a lack of foraging weather or plant/tree activity.


----------



## clyderoad

Strong hives make honey.
Hives of equal strength make a similar amount of honey.
Weak hives barely collect enough to survive.
An apiary of colonies of each strength give full supers on some and bare supers on others.
A colony that swarms early in the season will have a hard time making a crop, one that swarms later in the flow will usually give a crop.
Those in early and short flow locals with a limited fall flow can count on the saying , You can make bees or make honey but you can't make both, as being true.
The beekeeper who blames the weather, the beekeeper next door, the queen supplier, the nuc supplier, the mentor, the club, the supply house, the astronomical tide, the mite, the wasp, the methods they read about, the the the- will rarely make a crop.

This spring gave the largest excess nectar in recent memory and seems to be shaping up as another bumper crop. Price for the honey crop could be in question though.


----------



## JWPalmer

What I am finding is that the hives not loading up the supers are filling the second brood box instead. It may have sometging to do with my decision this year to install queen excluders on all the production hives. Next year I will only put excluders under the cut comb supers and see what happens. Checked yesterday and I appear to have a fair number of properly capped suppers. Time to take a vacation day or two and extract.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"What I am finding" is my biggest problem is purchased queen quality. I have had two, one year old Saskatraz queens peter-out; drone laying queen and a spring supercedure that failed. Yet, my incredible Super Woman is in her third year, a Saskatraz, which has produced incredible quantities of early Spring foragers and honey. I added a 4th super added today with three nearly capped over and a medium below the QE full for winter. Consistent performance is hard to achieve when queens do not last more than a year as egg layers.


----------



## snl

I don’t bother with under producers any longer. It is not worth the time or effort and they rarely turn around. 
I think if most would do the same, they’d be happier beekeepers.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"I don’t bother with under producers any longer" - smart move if you are a commercial oriented beekeeper. I use the variations to learn - my hobby. I can am much better at seeing queen issues and genetic variations and timing differences, plus hive design effects. I have foraging gorillas and intensive care units. The spread over just nine hives is amazing. I can see and appreciate the re-queening purpose for commercial beekeeping.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

It's a good learning tool for a hobby type, backyard beekeeper.


----------



## clyderoad

JWPalmer said:


> What I am finding is that the hives not loading up the supers are filling the second brood box instead.


Yup. Too much room in the brood nest. 
Try a single deep brood box, 8 or 10 frame no matter, when running for honey and they'll put the nectar where it belongs, in the supers.


----------



## Fivej

Sure people make a lot of excuses,but the weather is a valid one. Bees need nectar to make honey and nectar flow is entirely dependant on weather conditions. J


----------



## clyderoad

That'll be one for the record books, The Year With No Nectar.

I've seen better years and worse years but never a year where the bees couldn't make honey. 
Doolittle even wrote a book on it, the year 1905 (?) and he had a heck of a crop because he knew how to work his bees and
explains his methods for all to read. Most sadly don't bother, so the excuses.

I think the reality is that more
nectar is left in the field than the bees collect.


----------



## Fivej

I haven't followed this whole thread. Are people saying they aren't making any honey?


----------



## Gray Goose

JWPalmer said:


> What I am finding is that the hives not loading up the supers are filling the second brood box instead. It may have sometging to do with my decision this year to install queen excluders on all the production hives. Next year I will only put excluders under the cut comb supers and see what happens. Checked yesterday and I appear to have a fair number of properly capped suppers. Time to take a vacation day or two and extract.


JWP your flow is done by mid June?
Or do you need the supers?

GG


----------



## Fivej

I haven't followed this whole convo are members saying they haven't made any honey? Obviously, something more than bad weather is to blame if that's the case. J


----------



## JWPalmer

GG, the honey flow is done here. In fact, some of the center frames in the supers are already being uncapped and the honey consumed. Time is of the essence


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Two observations today, one via a sensor; 1) honey bees were working my asparagus bed as the shoots have bene allowed to grow and appear to be starting to bloom. While picking some weeds in the earlier part of the morning I hear a hummmh - the distant road I thought. More humming, lifted my hear and saw honey bees. A bunch were working the asparagus - my first observation of bees on asparagus by me. 2) I installed via a push-in cage a new queen 6 days ago and released her after 4 days and all the capped brood had emerged and all the honey was gone. My eyes are too weak to see eggs in the shadows of a setting sun so I released her. The sensor observation is that the the top=of-the-hive's sensor went up 8.5F to 93.6F and humidity rose to 67% RH from 55% RH in two days - exterior weather has been steady all week as it has been sunny, warm, 75-80F and dry 57 to 72% RH. Entrance activity has changed with what appears to be organized efforts again; foragers, entrance guards on duty, pollen coming in - basically busy as a beehive. The falling temperature and RH alerted me, along with a change in entrance activity to an issue - failed supercedure and unable to find marked 1st year queen or any form of brood. 

Does the temperature rise to 93- 94F signal a "queen is laying"? It will be interesting to check the hive after another 10 days or so. BTW, the hive is insulated and sensor values are in alignment with two other robust, sensored hives. If so, 2 for 2 using push-in cage with a four day release.


----------



## LAlldredge

Now we’re cook-in with gas... Opened four of six to find nectar coming in and some swarm ambition. Gave queens space. Pleased that hives look healthy and balanced. Removed QE’s last week because they just bugged me and wanted to give bees freedom to move. Removed some pollen and nectar frames for emergency inventory since foraging is fruitful. Under supered big hives for space. Prepping more. Freshened up pollen patties. Gardening is switching to maintenance from crazed planting.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

A dry period, sort of un-natural here in June, is occurring. I hope it breaks soon or we will have to depend on morning dew and thunder showers. My Super Woman continues to look like the New Jersey Turnpike during rush hour. I may have to remove and extract frames.


----------



## Cloverdale

Very dry here, too; have extracted some honey, bees are busy! And I found a few hives with very small bee’s. I am wondering if this was caused by poor nutrition or a virus. Any thoughts anyone?


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> Yup. Too much room in the brood nest.
> Try a single deep brood box, 8 or 10 frame no matter, when running for honey and they'll put the nectar where it belongs, in the supers.


I didn’t know that, thanks!


----------



## LAlldredge

Well hello my dear. New queen has made it back and started laying. I didn't even need to look. The bees were as mellow as could be which told me everything. There are days in the bee yard when you're just happy that they are doing well. Inspected 3. Will be back to inspect the two boomers tomorrow. Flow is on. Not strong but nice.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

First , it is starting to rain - whoopee!

I recently installed a mated queen via a push-in cage, released after 4 days. The next day I thought the bees had changed attitude. A few days more and the entrance seems back to normal; guards, foraging pollen coming in - just light on bees. I will check for sure soon. 

Another install earlier with a drunken queen with a broken leg or so it seemed was put in days earlier via a push-in cage. Still not sure what happen but her brood patterns on multiple deep frames looks great. I will never know what initially happen to her. Maybe a CO2 issue from being in my pocket?


----------



## Fivej

Delivered a small split and swarm trap catch to my daughter today, bright and early. Down to a maintainable apiary again. Whew! J


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Push-in cage queen install 2 for 2! After a long Spring struggle with two queens replaced via a push-in cage approach, I have two solid queen right hives. My third problem hive, after an undetected swarming event, has a new open mated queen laying. All is good in the apiary for at least a day.


----------



## jimbo3

^Nice Robert!

Bees were very gentle today - thankfully because it's too freaking hot for a suit and gloves. Added a 3rd super (undersupered) to one hive, but it's foundation and I don't see it doing much in the coming dearth. The lack of rain really isn't helping, but this hive sure seems to have been packing honey the last couple of weeks. Other hive finally has eggs after being queenless for almost two months! I was losing hope after buying the nuc then needing to buy another queen and leaving them alone for 9 days, only to find her released from the cage but nowhere to be found and no eggs for a few weeks after that. Thankfully I was able to add several frames with eggs in them over a few weeks from the strong hive and finally it's queen-right. I added a super of foundation above a queen excluder a couple of weeks ago and they are not in the least bit interested in it. I removed the excluder today and we'll see what happens...


----------



## Knisely

You should still have both sumac and ‘bamboo’ honey before the dearth that’ll precede asters & goldenrod. I’m hoping for these young bees to get busy & draw me some frames down in New Haven.


----------



## Cloverdale

jimbo3 said:


> ^Nice Robert!
> 
> Bees were very gentle today - thankfully because it's too freaking hot for a suit and gloves. Added a 3rd super (undersupered) to one hive, but it's foundation and I don't see it doing much in the coming dearth. The lack of rain really isn't helping, but this hive sure seems to have been packing honey the last couple of weeks. Other hive finally has eggs after being queenless for almost two months! I was losing hope after buying the nuc then needing to buy another queen and leaving them alone for 9 days, only to find her released from the cage but nowhere to be found and no eggs for a few weeks after that. Thankfully I was able to add several frames with eggs in them over a few weeks from the strong hive and finally it's queen-right. I added a super of foundation above a queen excluder a couple of weeks ago and they are not in the least bit interested in it. I removed the excluder today and we'll see what happens...


Maybe bring up a frame of open brood above the excluder into the super, bring the bees up.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I was told by an old beekeeper to spray 1:1 syrup on plastic foundation to stimulate comb drawing. It "seems" to help but since I have had bigger, better colony survivals earlier in the Spring I have not noticed any problem. Everything I have is drawn out..


----------



## jimbo3

Cloverdale said:


> Maybe bring up a frame of open brood above the excluder into the super, bring the bees up.


That's actually a good idea that I didn't think about when I took the excluder off. I don't even know why I put the excluder on. I think I was trying to keep track of where the potential new queen could be.


----------



## jimbo3

Knisely said:


> You should still have both sumac and ‘bamboo’ honey before the dearth that’ll precede asters & goldenrod. I’m hoping for these young bees to get busy & draw me some frames down in New Haven.


When do you think the dearth will start? Do you remove the supers and harvest before the dearth? Do you typically harvest fall honey? I harvested a small amount of fall honey last year and it ended up crystallizing. The spring honey stayed liquid.


----------



## Cloverdale

When inspecting a hive the end of June I found a queen with deformed wings trying to unsuccessfully lay eggs. I squished her thinking there had to be another queen. Today I checked again, there were eggs in there in addition to open brood. Methinks this was a 2 queen hive. I treat for mites, did all last year, and successfully overwintered all the hives. Where did this queen come from with deformed wings? If DWV is present why doesn’t the laying queen have it? 

Today inspected the first 9 hives, all doing good, had stores. Took 12 frames of honey from 4 of the hives, 6 from one, big fat frames (use 9 frames per box) Checkerboarding undrawn frames with drawn this year was weird; in some hives the bees did not draw out the foundation but made really fat frames next to them; in other hives everything was drawn. Needless to say I was surprised at the extra honey it’s been so dry. Now another 9 to go here next nice weather, then another 2 in a small yard about 10 miles away. And they did not forage on clover this year that I could see.


----------



## LAlldredge

Flying kids grabbed a gear. Holy buckets. Now...to get the boyfriend to help put the extractor together.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

There is always something going on. 240 lb. of Spring honey in buckets, nearly all supers filled except for one hive. A rebuilding hive has been filling below and brooding up with 40 lbs. of honey above the brood. The hive apparently has no need to move honey up above the QE. Foraging is in a bit of a lull right now ( I think) but we just had some good rain-falls - next seasonal stage coming up. It would seem to be two good years in a row. Now to reduce the RH around here so the bees can finish the honey. 

Meanwhile the bees are active - have not missed one cucurbit flower. Zucchini is incredible, yellow squash coming and every Waltham Butternut's flower has been pollinated so far, cucumbers about to blossom. I have been finding honey bees in all sorts of places - idle time spent exploring? But one must not forget the Bumble Bee as they work my tomato plants. Now to learn about pollination in a high tunnel.


----------



## elmer_fud

I am trying to make honey sugar to use in baking. It is taking a long time to dry out in the oven at 170. It is an experiment so I will see how well it works


----------



## Robert Holcombe

" make honey sugar" - why not cream it?


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> " make honey sugar" - why not cream it?


I have been trying to make beer bread with honey instead of white sugar. The first time I did it I mixed in the honey in small drops, it tasted good but it had a funky texture due to the honey not being evenly distributed. Since the carbonation from the beer provides the "rise" and liquid for the bread I can not mix the honey and beer together before combining everything. I have creamed honey, but I don't think it would work any better in this case. 

This is about the recipe that I am using
https://www.food.com/recipe/beer-bread-73440


----------



## Arnie

Elmer, the baking powder in that recipe is the leavening agent, not the beer.


----------



## elmer_fud

Arnie said:


> Elmer, the baking powder in that recipe is the leavening agent, not the beer.


hmm, I figured the beer contributed to the levening. Live and learn.


----------



## G'sBees

Got my first bee sting weed wacking near the hive. She got me right in the leg an I got to say I'm kinda proud of it lol. I think because I've been anticipated it for so long and slightly fearful. I'll give it a 6 out of 10 for pain lol.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Adding to this cucurbit pollination observation I realized with my later in the season planting puts the flowering schedule for a lot of my veggies when the Spring flow is ending, a dearth begins but is tempered by the amount of rain here in July going into August. No wonder my veggies garden flowers are visited so well - benefits of a dearth??


----------



## Robert Holcombe

A startling discovery today. Insulated hives are cooler in summer day time conditions and warmer during the night. I have been running my hives with a 24 inch deep insulation sleeve ( part of a year long experiment). The sleeves rise and fall with addition or subtraction of supers - no top vents or other exits besides the bottom. We are in a nice hot spell now. I took off the insulating sleeves a couple of days ago for painting. I put the original galvanize steel covered wooden tops on. I have a canvass sheet for an inner cover, a remote temperature and RH sensor sits on that and surrounded by a 1 1/2 inch spacer - leaving an air gap between the cover and the canvass. I watched the temperature start this morning at 8:00 am with a 79F value, rise to 113F at 1:00pm and drop to 88F by 7:00pm - a 34 degree Fahrenheit swing, peak to peak. With insulation on this hive's sensor location shows warmer nights and apparently very stable cooler days during hot weather - stay stable between 84F to 89F for days on end. This particular hive has 4 supers on. I now can see why the old pospicle stick trick or top vents / exits is used to vent hives in summertime. 113F ambient is getting dangerous for honey bees yet the hive's bottom entrance looked normal from outside. There was some bearding late in the day which has an unusual event this year with the sleeves on. 

Another consideration I have to verify in my next test plan. Hives are stable, not prone to large temeprature swings and cooler during the day in summer. The question is does this help or hurt evaporation rates when bees are preparing honey for capping?

I am done painting 9 sleeves and they are going back on tomorrow after checking the supers and making up two queen-less nucs.


----------



## LAlldredge

Me talking baby talk to my queens.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"Flow is on. Not strong but nice." When I first started beekeeping in 2015 I thought I must live in a crummy area as there is not a lot of honey and my hives died. My sixth year and I said to myself "boy this is a great place for honey bees". Now my bees live, I tend to them, some find pollen very early, raise early spring populations and load up on tree supplied nectar. Somewhere around early July is a nectar pause, depending on rain. By late July I start to see Clethra or what we call Summer Sweet - for me the first sign for the start of Fall flow season which will continue into October. I have found ways to make beekeeping a lot easier. Now I wonder what I will be saying to the bees five years from now.


----------



## Gray Goose

Interesting.
I did notice that the hive I had the foam on top of bearded less.
messing around I did note the top of the top cover was hot to the touch, it was painted brown.

if high temps cause the bearding and fanning there would be less bees to process, ?? should have an effect unless the high temps evaporate faster, or the nectar is fanned to create the evaporative cooling effect.

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

I pulled the data off my data logger and found that the RTC (clock) lost its mind and is now reporting garbage for the time. Time to do lots of math and back calculate the time and date.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

GG "the high temps evaporate faster," -- all things considered and data recorded causes me to require an RH measurement along with temperature for all deductions and anecdotal comments. In fact my next step is to increase the number and accuracy ( hopefully) of my sensors. Clearly, to me, insulation creates stable internal environments year round. Them major control tool bees have is heat generation, their weakness is dehydration - year round. Conservation of energy via insulation is a given, reducing moisture surface losses with an XPS foam is a given (DOE), vapor pressure differentials, inside to outside, I think, is requried for high capping rates, I am not entirely sure what internal fanning means but external or a the entrance is clearly a mass flow method of expelling something, heat and moisture or primarily moisture or primarily heat. Foraging bees are hot bees. I have no significant 3D profile data just simple top of the "hive" values. My initial intention was to prove I do not kill colonies by my trial and error design changes. Now it is becoming a more intense study of H2O throughout the colony's "zones" and the impact of seasonal changes and the super organism's life cycle. 

My area is deeply affected by high RH and temperature this time of year - just when I want all my Spring and Summer golden honey capped completely for extraction before rich, dark Fall flow mixes in. Having external temps approaching and into the 90's with RH in the 80's to 90's does not leave much room ( differential pressure) for an internal condition in the 90's and RH in the70-75% range. Fact, single hive, 39 super frames full of honey only 10 were well capped for extraction - mostly at the top. This is an amazing hive which has now given 17, 8 and 10 medium frames of honey on different dates so far this season and not one sting). The queen is called Super Woman.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I choose simplicity and reliability sensors with a bit of sophistication. Fishing type scales for weighting, 5-inch dial thermometers for internal sensing, and remote sensing of temp and RH via cheap weather stations. I have been recording transmitted data, manually, once a day, all year. Time to up my sensor quantities and quality. With seasonal homeostasis-like conditions, changes are slow without large daily swings when hives are " packed" ( Langstroth term for insulated) - still observing and learning.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

"I'm smart but at the end of the day I'm still the help." - Lalldredge This comment led me to search for a better way to install mated queens where needed. I settled on M. Palmer's suggestion of a push-in cage approach. 

To date I have successfully installed two laying queens (out of two attempts) in problem hives which are building up their colonies now. I just released two more mated queens using the push-in cages after 4 1/2 days. Both nucs that were created 2-3 days before the installation. I was simply awed by how calm the colony was. I was even more astonished to see how many recently emerged bees, calm as could be, were in the cage with the queen. I castigate myself for not taking the time to see if the queen had laid eggs within the caged area - next time. I blame the heat, a coming storm and being too anxious, worrying the queen would "fly". Of course she cannot with the cage in-place - just another anxiety driven brain fart. I will check for performance in 8 days or so but it now seems quite likely I will be 4 for 4. I enjoy htis mehtod and see it as a superior queen installation improvement - so far.


----------



## elmer_fud

I tried to track down a drone only laying queen today. I shook the hive thru a queen excluder and saw the queen 2 or 3 times but then she disappeared. I think she snuck thru the queen excluder, so I will try again later this week with multiple queen excluders stacked together.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer-fuc - Queen Excluder (QE). I do not know if it will make a difference but my observations concluded the metal QE is more effective than the plastic QE. I have not seen queen (evidence based) above a metal QE since I switched 2 years ago on 9 to 11 colonies. I assume by QE deforms, vertically, and allows a greater opening and permits queen roaming and gets damaged by propolis/wax "gluing".


----------



## LAlldredge

Used bee escapes, removed supers on two hives and did my first OAV. Will go to mitecalculator.com after I do a 24 hour count. Watching my boards carefully now and started to see mites go up in one of my hives. Honey is not quite ready so its set aside and may go back on after a few days when OA dissipates. 

Weird part- Brood in the very top super in a 5 stack set. Yes I have an upper entrance. You know what that means- may have a newly mated queen that came back to the wrong hive. Noticed they didn't move down through the escape. (Brood) May have 2 queens. Population is large. On it. 

Exciting part- the honey smells like the Metolius River. Intensely fresh river, flowers and woods smell. Intoxicating.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> elmer-fuc - Queen Excluder (QE). I do not know if it will make a difference but my observations concluded the metal QE is more effective than the plastic QE. I have not seen queen (evidence based) above a metal QE since I switched 2 years ago on 9 to 11 colonies. I assume by QE deforms, vertically, and allows a greater opening and permits queen roaming and gets damaged by propolis/wax "gluing".


I was using a metal one, I left it on the stack and she was on the other side (below it) today. Today I found her on a frame as I was shaking the hive thru multiple queen excluders to increase my change of finding her.


----------



## LarryBud

On this morning's coffee inspection I notice bees returning with their pollen sacks filled with a burnt orange colored pollen-no idea what plant(s) that could be coming from. I'm hearing from others on this site nearby me, that they think we are going into a dearth here yet the girls are flying consistently all day like they're on a mission. (I realize that nectar and pollen are two different things) No evidence of robbing or meandering around the hive, both hives about 3 feet apart seem to be working. Also noticed that at one of the hives, that they had pushed out a couple of dead pupae on the landing board during my visit-one was pushed over the edge (gone) and then a bee dragged the other back inside the hive. (?) I've alos notice over the last few weeks that there are less and less drones-over the last few days I really haven't seen any-eviction time already?


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LarryBud - my observation today was not of my hives but my veggie garden. I realized my apiary is bigger than I realized as numerous Bumble Bees worked my tomato flowers. Pollen stored on their legs, vibrating the flower as they hung on and various sizes ( variosu genetics?). I was afraid my honey bees were keeping the Bumble Bees away. I think it it more timing than anything. All the bees are doing a good job!


----------



## BernhardHeuvel

LarryBud said:


> ...pollen sacks filled with a burnt orange colored pollen-no idea what plant(s) that could be coming from.


Asparagus maybe.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> Pollen stored on their legs, vibrating the flower as they hung on and various sizes ( variosu genetics?).


I have atleast 4 different varieties of bumble bees that I see on my property. They vary from small (1/4" long) to big (over an inch) in size. I would describe it sort of like dogs, dogs have common features, but there are a lot of different types.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud - I have done some backpacking in Colorado's Weminuche Wilderness on what I thnk was the Continental Divide trail. Became a true Centrist by peeing on both the West and the Eastern regions of the USA simultaneously. Interesting country but I have come to realize, maybe biased, that I live in a great location. This is a direct result of my beekeeping adventure and being far more connected with my environment. And also by my participation in beekeeping groups like BeeSource . Comments made by trgional beekeepers, their observations, problems, seasonal schedules help me to really appreciate my location. I may have 5-6 months of no-foraging winter with snow but I do have a solid 6 month foraging period with adequate, rebuilt forrest, pastures, remnants of farm land and lots of water available plus an automatic watering system - fog. I am just beginning to understand the diversity that "grow back" - I just hope the Black Bears stay away. (BTW, there was a grizzly up at 10,000 feet in the weminuche wilderness, likely more than one.)


----------



## LAlldredge

1st extraction. Bolted legs of the extractor to 3/4 plywood base and put it on top of furniture movers to take out the shimmy. (Read that somewhere). Success. Only malfunction was learning the significance of tightening the wing nut on the honey gate. Found a small pool of honey this am but the drop cloth saved me. Satisfaction is coming full circle. Bees are getting a series of OAV. Boxes of honey removed and treatment boxes put in place until series is done.


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> On this morning's coffee inspection I notice bees returning with their pollen sacks filled with a burnt orange colored pollen-no idea what plant(s) that could be coming from. I'm hearing from others on this site nearby me, that they think we are going into a dearth here yet the girls are flying consistently all day like they're on a mission. (I realize that nectar and pollen are two different things) No evidence of robbing or meandering around the hive, both hives about 3 feet apart seem to be working. Also noticed that at one of the hives, that they had pushed out a couple of dead pupae on the landing board during my visit-one was pushed over the edge (gone) and then a bee dragged the other back inside the hive. (?) I've alos notice over the last few weeks that there are less and less drones-over the last few days I really haven't seen any-eviction time already?


Maybe Yarrow, Daisy Fleabane, perennials Phlox, Marigold; these are bright orange but not as bright as Asparagus.


----------



## Cloverdale

Formic Pro is done; found 2 hives that were very calm and gentle, foraging for pollen, big population, and they were queenless and no brood whatsoever. It surprised me, so maybe a Virgin is there or are waiting, we will wait and see; still put in a frame of brood w eggs. The hives are no way ready for Winter, some honey but not winter ready. We are expecting a good flow soon, but maybe I should feed them anyway.


----------



## LAlldredge

Bulb and seed orders placed (ColorBlends and VanEngelen). Getting better at bridging the gap between early spring and late spring. Harvesting phacelia and poppy seeds. Phacelia highly recommended. Finishing second round of OAV. 4 treatments spaced 5 days apart- unless I see a higher count then I feel comfortable with at the end. Will also treat in late fall during mite bomb/robbing season.


----------



## Gypsi

Treated with OAV from under my screened bottom boards (there are cover boards), love the ease of treatment without interfering with the front door much (I put a dishtowel over it). Then fed the bees syrup thru hive top feed jars. Hopefully the queen's laying had slowed as we have had a bit of a dearth for a couple of weeks. Since the bees seal up the box seams better than I can, I didn't check, I just treated.

I pulled honey, July 15th I think. Those supers don't have much in them, and the bees will clean them out before fall flow


----------



## Fivej

@Gypsi, check your screen. Many of us abandoned OAV from under a screened bottom board because of the vapors condensing on the screen instead of rising into the hive. It will also rot the screen over time. J


----------



## Gypsi

Thank you for the tip FiveJ, I will check it. both of my large hives are due for a new screened bottom board anyway. Trying to get time to paint the new stuff.


----------



## Gypsi

has anyone figured out a way to do a rear entrance OAV treatment above the screen without leaving the bees vulnerable to robbing?


----------



## Gray Goose

you can drill a hole slightly larger that the nozzle, ones I see are 1/4 tubing so a 5/16 hole should work. Place a golf tee in it when not Vaping.

in the very lower part of the box or the rim of the bottom board, Ideally you do not blow the Vap against the end of a frame but under all the frames.

GG


----------



## JWPalmer

GG, the ProVap has a 3/16" tube so a 1/4" hole works well. It is small enough that robbers do not seek it out. Even still, some bees do attempt to use it as an entrance. 

I do not close off the front entrance when vaping as very little actually come out. I also use a rounded 1/2 tsp (3.5 grams) when treating, so even with some escaping, the bees are getting an adequate dose. The center of the back rim of the bottom board is an ideal location although some prefer to vap mid hive.


----------



## Gypsi

Mine is a #727OAV VarroCleaner from Brushy Mountain with the wide (about 2 inches) flat pan. I do have new screened bottom boards to paint, I'll see about a modification to get the oxalic acid above the screeen near the center in back. I'm going in about 9 inches (unit is in the shed and I have to mow this morning,can't pull it out). So I am centering the pan pretty well. Will take a look at the boards after the lawn mower and I have finished beating the heat. Thank you


----------



## Fivej

You could make a shim with a slot to accommodate the width of the pan and place the shim on the bottom board. You would have to make a cover for the slot. Anything will do. Wood, metal. You would probably have to hold the wand to make sure it wouldn't spill. Shim would have to be of sufficient height to allow enough clearance to bottom of frames. Cutting the slot at the bottom of the shim would give most clearance.
You might get some bridge comb. I used to run shims on the bottom board to keep brood out of the cold wind and they didnt make bridge comb but they might and you want to check before sticking a hot wand in there. J


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Lalldredge "Exciting part-" It's hot and very humid today as we sink into a drought. I was walking around checking things. Watched Honey bees and Bumble bees working various flowers from Butternut squash to Clethra in the woods; counted myself among the fortunate. I proceeded to my Blackberry bush line, wind screen to stop drifting snow from piling up in my driveway. It is so "sweet" to pick the perfect blackberry. Berrys magically falling into my hand just as I got close - sweet, perfect, sun-warmed Blackberrys.


----------



## Gypsi

That's a good idea Fivej. And I really need to check the hives before I treat again, I was thinking this Friday or Sunday. Be a good time to change bottom boards and add a shim. I work all over the place in spring in a non-bee occupation and kind of just got home for the summer. (I may be home every night but daylight is often not present)


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I am 4 for 4 using a push-in cage method for installation of queens for various reasons. It also seems to be much more fun watching the queen run in, observing emerged brood after 4 days, rapid laying - got some nice patterns already from two new queens. Now I have to learn to be patient when releasing / pulling the cage and take the time to see if any eggs were laid inside the push-in cage.


----------



## LarryBud

I just got a new Varrox wand for $100 on ebay from a reseller and was planning on doing a top down hot box method. I think I posted a link to some video's on an earlier post. There was an article about it in the May/June NJ Beekeepers Association's newsletter about this method along with links from Europe-make sense from an engineering point of view. Just finishing up the box and will post some pictures. From the article it seems ideal for small operations like mine but I do like Johnno's machine-maybe someday...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9JSdu_9pr8&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSy_gM1uqT8&feature=youtu.be


----------



## LarryBud

Was planning on doing an alcohol wash on my second hive today but the weather went south with early lightening and thunder with heavy on and off rains this morning. Walked out to the hives between the rains and noticed earlier that the girls are bring back a lot of snow white pollen. Same thing this afternoon when I walked out there out of boredom (technically between conference calls-possibly the same thing). The first hive had zero mites and I wanted to figure out my harvest and beyond plan with 4 and 5 supers sitting on top. New Jersey has been pretty generous to us this year, hot, humid mornings then heavy rains with lightening and thunder, usually late in the day. The girls were/are working the knapweed but I don't thinks that's the source of the white pollen. Incidentally, the two bottom brood boxes we're loaded with pollen and nectar, plenty of capped brood and eggs-all drone cells i saw were empty but I did notice a dead drone pupae on the landing board this morning as the rain had chased all of the dancing porch bees inside the hive.

"Bring out yur dead" I've been noticing that my typical dead/dying in the grass near the hives or on the board are being carried off undertaker bees. Is there like an bee (think elephant) burial ground? I mean they struggle to get airborne and then slowly rise up 25-30 feet and fly out over the house with the dead bee in tow. How far do they go?


----------



## rkereid

LarryBud said:


> the girls are bring back a lot of snow white pollen. .... The girls were/are working the knapweed but I don't thinks that's the source of the white pollen.


Around here, in the mountains of VA, the white pollen is predominantly from knapweed. A little could be coming from the small amount of chicory around, and some from the thistle, but knapweed is common all over our area.


----------



## LarryBud

Thank you rkereid! new beek, trying to learn. I've see a few stands of knapweed near me so that must be it. Learned something today, thank you again!


----------



## LAlldredge

Previous inspection- new queen. Didn't like her (pattern, disorganized, small), but gave her more time. This time- like her even less. Hunted for her, couldn't find her. Poorly mated. Not a pure drone layer but close. Already gave them 2 frames of brood. A capped supercedure cell was found. Wondered if I would ever deliberately kill a queen. That answers that. I would totally kill a queen if they are failing. Gave them 2 more frames of brood to keep population going and I will see if supercedure works out. Late but drones are still flying.

Next door is their previous queen who is retired but crushing it in a resource hive. May have to combine in the fall if they can't get a properly mated queen.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LarryBud "make sense from an engineering point of view." I guess I miss the point - help out. hot Vapor is heavier than air, principle? The negative side is opening the top for a winter treatment. I think I will stick with the bottom method.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Lalldredge "Next door is their previous queen" Nice to have resources to maintain sustainability. I am growing two "late" nucs with at least 2 more months to go as resources to over winter. With a little luck I will get them into a 10 frame hive.


----------



## rkereid

LarryBud said:


> Thank you rkereid! new beek, trying to learn.


We're all new beekeepers in some way, no matter how many decades we've been doing it.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

A confluence of changes has produced a huge Blueberry crop on three high bushes. When it comes to pollination who do I give credit to? Honey bees or Bumble bees? Or both?


----------



## Cloverdale

Two of my hives have no brood no queen, are calm, lots of bees, found this on the 9th. Added a test frame, sure enough queen cells in abundance. There should be 2 brood cycles (I hope) by the time they really wind down. Neither one of these hives had a Palmer Queen, but the test frames were from Palmer hives. One queen, “SL” is awesome. I added a frame of open brood from that hive and another frame from the dbl nuc, this years Palmer queen, to the other. I can’t say enough about his queens. One is pretty good with varroa management the other average; but, to work calm productive hives is a blessing, I don’t mind treating for mites I have to do it anyway. And it is a beautiful day here today, sunny, not too hot, and breezy.


----------



## Cloverdale

Robert Holcombe said:


> A confluence of changes has produced a huge Blueberry crop on three high bushes. When it comes to pollination who do I give credit to? Honey bees or Bumble bees? Or both?


Maybe bumbles?


----------



## Bill007

Well, bad couple of days, total loss of all 27 hives. BEARS. This is my second year, and started with 4 overwintered, 4 nucs and split and built to 27. saying goodbye to 2020, looking forward to 2021. Yes the DNR was called and waiting for another office to call. No I didn't have eclectic fence up, will next year. Talk about being sick to your stomach, all the work lost over two years, learning curve. Just venting.


----------



## AHudd

That is a tough blow and quite a mess to deal with I'll bet.
Would you mind sharing your location? 
The reason I ask is, that in my location, we have an increasing bear population and I do not have a fence, either. I try to find out if there are any raids on apiaries in the area.

I hope you can salvage a lot of what is left.

Alex


----------



## Gray Goose

Bill007 said:


> Well, bad couple of days, total loss of all 27 hives. BEARS. This is my second year, and started with 4 overwintered, 4 nucs and split and built to 27. saying goodbye to 2020, looking forward to 2021. Yes the DNR was called and waiting for another office to call. No I didn't have eclectic fence up, will next year. Talk about being sick to your stomach, all the work lost over two years, learning curve. Just venting.


Sorry to hear the news Bill.
I have been 100% done in by Bears 2 times, Slow learner I guess. Not the hive count you had.

Bummer for your loss.
You are definitely going to need to Ele. fence. I as well today have 5 sites with 2 to 8 hives. no longer have all my eggs in one nest, Any bear hit I take now is 1/4 or 1/5 of my hives.

Only thing to look at,, is would you do it different next time , as this is now the prep for next time.

where are you located?

GG


----------



## Bill007

AHudd. I am in the Upper Peninsula, and yes the bear population has been increasing since the DNR made a draw system for bear hunting. 

GG 1/4, or 1/5 is still a good hit. Don't wish that on anyone. 

What makes matters worse is that I don't even get any honey, this was a very good year for me, all hive were 3 and 4 deep supers. 

Hopefully, next year will be better, lots of info from all the mistakes that I made. Plenty of new designs/ upgrades.


----------



## GregB

Bill007 said:


> AHudd. I am in the Upper Peninsula, and yes the bear population has been increasing since the DNR made a draw system for bear hunting.
> 
> GG 1/4, or 1/5 is still a good hit. Don't wish that on anyone.
> 
> What makes matters worse is that I don't even get any honey, this was a very good year for me, all hive were 3 and 4 deep supers.
> 
> Hopefully, next year will be better, lots of info from all the mistakes that I made. Plenty of new designs/ upgrades.


For bear county, I'd for sure consider the* pegged design *(building for myself anyway) - google link below.
While not 100% bear proof (granted, the bears are insanely strong), still a good design to keep the toppled stack intact.
Might just be that little extra bit that will help.
There were reports where livestock knock the stacks over and the stacks just laid on the sides (intact) and the bees kept at it. 

With this design, in addition to the pegs, you'd screw in bars that span 3-4 boxes and hold it all together.
A minor drawback - need to unscrew the spanning bars to separate the boxes.
Small price.

https://www.google.com/search?q=рог...ECAcQIw&biw=1280&bih=882#imgrc=ZhiSUdufRJxqSM

This is my preferred design personally - the bear hive:
https://rusuley.ru/en/classical-beehives/ulej_rogatyj_medvezhij_10_ramochnyj_4_korpusa-detail


----------



## Gray Goose

where in the UP Bill? And what race of bee did you have.

I have some property in the Pickford area

GG


----------



## Bill007

Thanks for the links, will check them out.


----------



## Bill007

I'm in the Manistique area, I have 160 acres. We are building a new house, and the bears are using the 1/4 mile driveway as easy access o the bees. I didn't mention that 2 of the hives were breeder queens. I had Carnies, Caucasians, Sascatraz, and Russians. The jury is still out on the Russians, as the Carnie's, and Caucasians were way more productive, the Sasacatraze were a second, however they overwinter excellent, with the Carnie's. No special housing other than 2" of insulation on top. 

Thinking I may do some of Gregg V's alternative hives, I.E 300 x 300 next year. By al means I am not done. This is very therapeutic for me, this keeps my PTSD in check. 

Every thing is dependent, as for now money is not an object, however time will tell. My plan was to be sustainable for next year, but now everything will have to be 100% new, which really sucks.


----------



## Knisely

Bill007 said:


> AHudd. I am in the Upper Peninsula.


My father grew up in Michigan and went to high school in the UP in a town called Felch. There's a lot of country for bears in the UP, for certain.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Bill,

Sorry to hear about your disastrous loss, but it doesn't have to be that way again.

Below is my BeeSource post of 10+ years ago and I have never had a break-in. I commonly have between 3 & 4 bears in my area every summer and have had one beautiful shinny 300# black colored "black bear" cruse by the bee yard before noon today. Colorado is arid country and for me it is essential that I have the "sheet metal "ground"" for the bear to stand on, and also to pour a bucket of water on my 8 foot ground rod every couple of weeks. 

Bears remember where they found food, especially in the Fall so I recommend that you do something about your situation ASAP. If you want photos of my system, let me know.


ELECTRIC BEAR FENCE FOR BEE YARDS

I live in bear country and before I got my first colony I built my bear fence. It consists of three 16'X4' cattle panels, one cut in half to make a 8'X16' yard. Four corners consist of heavy steel pipe with fiber optics conduit slid over as an insulator. The cattle panels are secured to the insulation and off the ground. The panels are wired together with bare copper wire and soldered. This is the "hot" side. 

I use a Paramak brand Magnum 12 volt solar fence charger which is expensive but of reliable quality to charge the system. (Shop for best $) 
CO is very arid, so I put an 18" wide "skirt" of sheet metal on the ground 6" outside the cattle panels & spiked to the ground. Chicken wire as suggested above would work. The fence charger is grounded to an 8' copper clad ground rod & all of the "skirt" is bare copper wired/soldered together & tied to the ground rod. System has been tested by the bears & it works well. Look at http://www.kencove.com/fence/76_Bear+Fence_resource.php for info. Good luck & be safe. Next time ask me what I did with the bear in my kitchen.


Cheers,
Steve


----------



## Bill007

Thanks Steve, I appreciate the info. Yes i have to do things different. I thought I was immune to the issue, but I learned the hard way at the expense of the bees. I have learned a lot over the last 2 years, what not to do, or how to do things different. Loosing anything in your care is difficult to handle, for me anyway.


----------



## soarwitheagles

I have a strange story to tell...

We lost most of our colonies last year to subterranean yellow jacket wasps [they targeted and killed nearly every queen in early winter].:ws:

This spring we experienced radical growth...we went from 4 colonies up to 126 in less than 3 months. We did lots of queen grafting and created lots of nucs.

Lost about half then to no flow, robbing, etc. We made nucs right up until the dearth and that was a mistake.

Then, a massive invasion of skunks...and they killed every subterranean yellow jacket wasp nest within a mile or so...no more problem with the subterranean yellow jacket wasps!

So problem solved.

Now, colonies are so strong and growing we hope to do lots more queen grafting and nucs in Sept.

*Moral of the story: **Don't give up! Your set back can be turned into a come back!*

:applause:


----------



## elmer_fud

Lossing all of your hives would be rough. I have lost a few due to my own fault (mites) but not all of them at once. 

Did you check if there were any bees in trees, or clusters that were still usable in what is left of your apiary?


----------



## Bill007

SWE giving up/ quitting is not an option, most say I'm hard headed. Next year is a new year.


----------



## Bill007

Elmer Fud. I did gather what was left. I found 6 queens, made new boxes and moved to a new location on the property. Guess what happened, same said bear and her cubs found them, absolutely nothing left. I did get a couple of call from the DNR (Department of Natural Recourses) and the bottom line is an electric fence is the only thing that will detour the bears other than killing them, which is legal in Michigan with a caveat that the bears are in the act, or about to be in the act.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Next year there will be three bears that remember where the "goodies" are. Killing one bear is just a temporary fix because other bears will move in to fill the territorial void. A quality electric fence, or move your apiary are the only answers.

Cheers,
Steve
=====


----------



## Bill007

Yes Steve, a QUALITY fence is what is already on order, and there are grants available also. I can move the apiary as I have more property a few miles away, however that is for future use after I rebuild.


----------



## Bear Creek Steve

Bill,

You may want to rethink your "few miles away plan". Colorado Department of Wildlife used to trap problem bears and relocate them 10 miles away until they realized that the bears had returned to their former territory within two days later. Now they have a three strikes and your out rule. The first two times they are a problem they get colored ear tags, but they never get a third one because it doesn't look good on the rug. I'll bet MI has a similar rule for your bears.

Steve
====


----------



## James111

I can come into contact with many interesting people and things here, thank you for sharing, and hope you will always be happy.


----------



## Cloverdale

Today was day 14 for Formic Pro; there was mite drop every day on the drawers including today, some having quite a bit which surprised me after all the treatments we did up to mid November.


----------



## Banjer

Checked one of my apiaries that had a reported swarm early last week - found 3 queens out of 5 hives and fresh eggs in all of them - 0 swarm cells.

Stumped, because the person who saw the swarm watched it land in a nearby tree before flying off. 

Was almost certain it came from the largest hive there, maybe a 2 queen scenario -shrug- 

Hives all looked fantastic either way


----------



## LAlldredge

Perform OAV- count, clean boards, rinse and repeat. Will continue until mites are obliterated. Had a tiny bit of DWV (maybe 30 count) on drones in a hive that just requeened itself. That hive is on watch. OAV- 5 times on that one since August 7th. Not appearing on workers. Ultrabee pollen patties everywhere. Will start feeding ProSweet on Labor Day.


----------



## LarryBud

Went out to the hives this morning for my daily dawn coffee inspection and it looks like for the second day, the girls are up early (pre-sunrise but light) bringing back big balls of white pollen. I'll assume it's knapweed (someone wiser than me suggested that) as the goldenrod is just starting to bud up, but still a week or so until the first blooms. It seems like they get that early and then switch off to (I think) nectar by mid morning). As what seems to be a several time a week event lately, we had another thunderstorm last night just after sunset that dropped about a half inch of rain here but this morning is sever clear, cool low 60's and a nice breeze. We're fairly flat here so I believe it gave the ground a good soaking. I took advantage of the early morning cool, very few bees sitting on the landing board and cut the grass in front of the hives-glad to have had the foresight to throw on the beekeeper costume because they were less than happy about being woke up than I would want to deal with in my shorts! I've been concerned over the last few days with robbing as we harvested 3 of 9 supers on the two hives with about a 9+ gallon harvest of light amber honey and put a wet medium 10 on top of each hive. First harvest on 6 month old hives-not bad and still have 6 more for next week. We did the three lowest supers and reversed the stack, the top supers from both hives weren't ready and I figured for a first time ever harvest, we'd take it slow and just do two, which the Smurfette insisted on four, so we compromised on three. She did all 30 frames with a uncapping fork and I could barely keep up with her on a 3 frame machine. She had very little excess wax and we dumped it in a filter over a bucket and gravitied a few more ounces out of it. We're saving it in the spare frigid for a final end of season feed back. We put two (20 frames) back on the top (one each hive) for clean up and are saving one in the frigid. I'm thinking we'll pull the next 3 or four in a week or two and add and wet frames as needed if the goldenrod gives us a good flow. I'm looking at Hurricane Laura on the news now and it looks like after it hits the Gulf Coast (God protect them) it will work it's way up the Mississippi towards the Ohio Valley and right out over us. I'm hoping that it will bring some rain to our friends in the Ohio and eastern New England who are currently experiencing a drought, and give them a strong fall flow! Be safe, have some fun!


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LarryBud "Be safe, have some fun!" - so far safe."

Today, I had fun. After 6 years I discovered there is such a thing as a perfect frame. Not just one but nine in a super. Then I found 10 more frames, apparently I put in an extra one. And I mean perfect. It also looks so uniform in color I think "mono-culture". I will extract together with no other frames mixed in. I was simply amazed agian by the honey bees. 

To finish the day my wife and I picked the best Concord Grape crop I have seen in 15 years along with my Blueberries. Simply Happy Days - almost.


----------



## Gray Goose

Robert Holcombe said:


> LarryBud "Be safe, have some fun!" - so far safe."
> 
> Today, I had fun. After 6 years I discovered there is such a thing as a perfect frame. Not just one but nine in a super. Then I found 10 more frames, apparently I put in an extra one. And I mean perfect. It also looks so uniform in color I think "mono-culture". I will extract together with no other frames mixed in. I was simply amazed agian by the honey bees.
> 
> To finish the day my wife and I picked the best Concord Grape crop I have seen in 15 years along with my Blueberries. Simply Happy Days - almost.



Robert do you make jelly , juice, or perhaps wine with the grapes?
been a busy year I have not did much in the line of jelly or canning yet.

GG


----------



## Robert Holcombe

GG do you make jelly , juice, or perhaps wine with the grapes? I can grape juice which I mix in with ginger ale, bitters and sparkling water. I have canned wild River Bank grape jam, our favorite and plan on making Concord Grape Jelly for my bride. I jsut made Blueberry jam and will likly make some Blackberry jam. My favorite is Strawberry jam - next summer - as I had a crop failure for the past two years, reason unknown. I do can a lot of Roma tomato sauce - best pizza around.


----------



## Cloverdale

I gave made Grape Pie with Concord grapes, it’s very good, a rich flavor. Need some vanilla ice cream with it though.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Cloverdale "Grape Pie with Concord grapes" - Wow! Like Blueberry pie? I am going the next step. I will use honey to make Old Fashion Blueberry Jam - just blueberries and honey - all foraged stuff. With white sugar my batch jelled very well. I wonder about jelling by using honey and will find out. I am attempting to incorporate more honey into our every day living food supply.

I am also going to make a big batch of beeswax impregnated cloth this winter. I find my tomatoes and other garden veggies love being wrapped and hold up very well without refrigeration. I am not sure why but the Pandemic has motivated me to do more small farming and now I see honey bees as a primary resource. I thought they were pushing bumble bees out last year but they have coem roaring back this year too.


----------



## LarryBud

I love Concord Grapes, seems down here in the city they're harder to find as most supermarkets bring in the highbreds that have longer shelf lives. When I was a kid, my neighbor, an older Italian immigrant, had huge arbors and I could sit there as a small kid and eat pounds of them. My wife has a share in an organic farm nearby and is picking up few bushels of plum tomatoes and green tomato's for canning. The old ways have a special sense of satisfaction.


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> I love Concord Grapes, seems down here in the city they're harder to find as most supermarkets bring in the highbreds that have longer shelf lives. When I was a kid, my neighbor, an older Italian immigrant, had huge arbors and I could sit there as a small kid and eat pounds of them. My wife has a share in an organic farm nearby and is picking up few bushels of plum tomatoes and green tomato's for canning. The old ways have a special sense of satisfaction.


That’s where I learned, my grandma had Concord grape arbors too where I grew up in West Orange NJ, and grandpa with bee hives, her being from Gloucester MA , where blueberries grew wild everywhere..always worked hard at her house, wonderful memories.


----------



## Gray Goose

Another "Grape" thing,, IF you make applesauce, try putting in 10% to 15% grapes. I call it grapelsauce.
you end up with purple sauce with a good grape taste. Some times it is nice to have a change, So One year I did 2 batches with grapes and 3 plain , and one with Raspberries I just cook the fruit and put it thru a food mill so the skins and seeds are in the core stuff.

GG


----------



## AR1

Gray Goose said:


> Another "Grape" thing,, IF you make applesauce, try putting in 10% to 15% grapes. I call it grapelsauce.
> you end up with purple sauce with a good grape taste. Some times it is nice to have a change, So One year I did 2 batches with grapes and 3 plain , and one with Raspberries I just cook the fruit and put it thru a food mill so the skins and seeds are in the core stuff.
> 
> GG


Wild plums with applesauce is good too. The plums are pretty bitter on their own. It's been a good year for concord grapes here, just starting to eat the early ones. In the past my neighbor has picked many and made a decent wine.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

GG "Another "Grape" thing" - it is likely my imagination but I chose to pick grapes based on the color and the yellow jackets were getting all over them. I figured the "Brix" was up so I picked. I just canned 7 quarts of juice and 3 quarts of jam from 2 5-gallon pails of grapes. The best tasting Conord grape stuff I have made.

I also came up with a new techinque to avoid squishing skins off all the grapes to remove the seeds. A Vitamix, coarse-mesh metal honey screen and a stiff bristle paint brush. Vitamix on low, plop in whole grapes, little water, mix for a couple of minutes, pour into honey filter and stir with a stiff paint brush otherwise it plugs up instantly. Then cook and hot bottle. I suggest removing skins from a bunch of grapes, 2 cups of skins to add extra flavor when making the jam plus a visual indicator for temperature / set point. Back to extracting. 

The question is do the honey bees help with pollinating grapes. I know the Italians were going to conduct a study in spite of common knowledge saying no. I should search for it.


----------



## ursa_minor

Grapes are wind pollinated. Up here in the frozen north I have a 16ft. by 20 ft. greenhouse ,unheated in the winter months. I grow seedless table grapes, they flower inside and a fan pollinates them just fine. The grape flowers are not very large or attractive to bees, 'they say', but somewhere some bees probably love them.

goodness! I am having sentence structure issues, I had to edit this post 3 times.


----------



## Cloverdale

ursa_minor said:


> Grapes are wind pollinated. Up here in the frozen north I have a 16ft. by 20 ft. greenhouse ,unheated in the winter months. I grow seedless table grapes, they flower inside and a fan pollinates them just fine. The grape flowers are not very large or attractive to bees, 'they say', but somewhere some bees probably love them.
> 
> goodness! I am having sentence structure issues, I had to edit this post 3 times.


Ha! It’s the brain numbness when we see the calendar and know it’s September already!


----------



## Gray Goose

Robert Holcombe said:


> GG "Another "Grape" thing" - it is likely my imagination but I chose to pick grapes based on the color and the yellow jackets were getting all over them. I figured the "Brix" was up so I picked. I just canned 7 quarts of juice and 3 quarts of jam from 2 5-gallon pails of grapes. The best tasting Conord grape stuff I have made.
> 
> I also came up with a new techinque to avoid squishing skins off all the grapes to remove the seeds. A Vitamix, coarse-mesh metal honey screen and a stiff bristle paint brush. Vitamix on low, plop in whole grapes, little water, mix for a couple of minutes, pour into honey filter and stir with a stiff paint brush otherwise it plugs up instantly. Then cook and hot bottle. I suggest removing skins from a bunch of grapes, 2 cups of skins to add extra flavor when making the jam plus a visual indicator for temperature / set point. Back to extracting.
> 
> The question is do the honey bees help with pollinating grapes. I know the Italians were going to conduct a study in spite of common knowledge saying no. I should search for it.


sounds yummy as to removing the skins, I do NOT. Somewhere I read the Skins contain some property that has cancer fighting properties. Some wine study I think. I can the grapes whole. 2 quart jar, fill with grapes, add Honey water light syrup till full cann (bring to boil for 10 min) let cool .

then when I open them, pour the works thru a strainer. the "skins" then impart their magic to the fullest. sometime I eat the canned grapes, good soluble fiber in them. For the flavor boost I add 10% wild grapes to the mix,, gets more grapier.

for fresh consume now juice, I centrifuge juice 6 or so apples, put in a big pot add grapes bring to a boil, bag in cheese cloth hang and drain like jelly then add a slight bit of honey and place the juice in the fridge.

any way i go cooking all the skins is part of the "magic" IMO

getting hungry here thinking about it.

Glad you had some good fresh juice.

GG


----------



## AHudd

Well, the deluge appears to be over. The bees have responded by bringing in loads of light yellow pollen. 
Maybe, with the recent rains we will have a good fall flow. It has been a couple of years.

Alex


----------



## LAlldredge

Feed Feed Feed. Put on ProSweet for my fall feeding. For anyone who hasn't tried this pro grade feed, it doesn't ferment or crystallize and can go right to stores (super thick). It really bulks them up. Bought 2, 5 gallon pails from MannLake for this time of year. They are really taking it.


----------



## Cloverdale

LAlldredge said:


> Feed Feed Feed. Put on ProSweet for my fall feeding. For anyone who hasn't tried this pro grade feed, it doesn't ferment or crystallize and can go right to stores (super thick). It really bulks them up. Bought 2, 5 gallon pails from MannLake for this time of year. They are really taking it.


Do you use all 10 gallons in the Fall and how many hives will this feed? Thanks.


----------



## LAlldredge

Cloverdale said:


> Do you use all 10 gallons in the Fall and how many hives will this feed? Thanks.


I have 5 production hives and a 2 queen resource hive. So 7 in total. 100% winter survival last year. Will likely use all 10 gallons. This feed is exceptional. Only used 5 gallons last year. Heavy, awkward and expensive but fall management is the foundation of a successful year.


----------



## Cloverdale

LAlldredge said:


> I have 5 production hives and a 2 queen resource hive. So 7 in total. 100% winter survival last year. Will likely use all 10 gallons. This feed is exceptional. Only used 5 gallons last year. Heavy, awkward and expensive but fall management is the foundation of a successful year.


I was fortunate to have all the hives overwinter this last year. I agree, I believe it was mite treatment, a great Fall flow, and insulating the hives. It was a lot of work with 18 hives, but this year the number is up and the earlier flow was just not there, empty hives, and thankfully the current Fall flow is filling the hives up somewhat. I wanted to change using a sugar shim; I find the bees chimney up and feed on the sugar and ignore the honey, and I had quite a few frames of honey crystalized. Not all the hives, but at least half of them.


----------



## LAlldredge

Cloverdale said:


> I had quite a few frames of honey crystalized. Not all the hives, but at least half of them.


Ian Steppler A Canadian Beekeepers Blog uses pro grade feed because of Canola. Crystallizes quickly. Good thing you had sugar on them. ProSweet might offer peace of mind to know it won’t crystallize.

I’m also a big believer in feeding lots of water back in winter. Helps them to metabolize their stores.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Lalldredge "Put on ProSweet" - is this a special form of HFCS" - the math they used to describe it left me breathless - mono, bi and maybe even poly-nominals in place of sugar descriptions; actual label provides a little more clarity . I am a bit suspicious as to how 50% sucrose content "goes directly to stores". Is the "moisture" content something other than water?

Think I will stick with 2:1 sucrose syrup, 2 parts sucrose and one part water by weight, feed in time to be inverted by the bees and stored as "syrup honey", primarily glucose and fructose, at about $1.75 per gallon. I may be too frugal but I also did not like marketing description.


----------



## LAlldredge

Robert Holcombe said:


> Lalldredge "Put on ProSweet" - is this a special form of HFCS" - the math they used to describe it left me breathless - mono, bi and maybe even poly-nominals in place of sugar descriptions; actual label provides a little more clarity . I am a bit suspicious as to how 50% sucrose content "goes directly to stores". Is the "moisture" content something other than water?
> 
> Think I will stick with 2:1 sucrose syrup, 2 parts sucrose and one part water by weight, feed in time to be inverted by the bees and stored as "syrup honey", primarily glucose and fructose, at about $1.75 per gallon. I may be too frugal but I also did not like marketing description.


Those are good questions Robert. I’m not a chemist. Mannlake should be able to answer. Kamon Reynolds also uses ProSweet. Proof is in the outcome. I’m frugal but consider this a staple.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

My son called, FaceTime, today from the Big Island in Hawaii. He is becoming a beekeeper today. He recently arrived and discovered a colony of honey bees in his attic. Unfortunately he would not pay to fly me over so he called a local beekeeper. She is buying a "hive" as I write this and is going to move the colony into the hive. There is an estimated 6 sq. ft. of comb between the rafters. What rate should I charge as a mentor  I have two hives with daughter queens from an original Hawaiian queen installed 5 years ago.


----------



## AR1

Robert Holcombe said:


> What rate should I charge as a mentor  I have two hives with daughter queens from an original Hawaiian queen installed 5 years ago.


$100/hour sounds about right. Since he is family give him 50% off.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> What rate should I charge as a mentor  .


1 gallon of honey/year


----------



## little_john

Lost two nucs yesterday - I noticed that wasps were entering the boxes unopposed so I took a look inside 'em, only to find that those colonies had dwindled down to almost nothing. Seems I've been feeding wasps for the last few weeks ... And yet other nucs, made-up at the same time as those, have been powering away all season. A familiar story here; some make the grade and some don't - there's no obvious logic to it.
LJ


----------



## OBG

Anyone want to take a crack at ID on these bees, seen multiple times last week flying about the apiary. Interesting coloration on the thorax.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud: "1 gallon of honey/year" ---- reasonable with mono-culture requirements and home delivery.


----------



## OBG

James111 said:


> I can come into contact with many interesting people and things here, thank you for sharing, and hope you will always be happy.


Hey James, any idea why these bees have the light coloration on their thorax? Many were seen flying about the apiary this past weekend,


----------



## lemmje

Impatience cost me a hive this late summer. I had a failing queen that I replaced a few weeks ago and, rather than alcohol wash test them, I went ahead and MAQed them along with the other colonies in that apiary that I had tested earlier. Well, they absconded. Should have seen it coming. The new queen had not started laying yet, very little brood left behind. I was trying to go on vacation and got in a rush, now they are all just gone and that box is devoid of bees. 

I feel very stupid.


----------



## username00101

Re: Pro-Sweet

The ingredients are 50% HFCS and 50% Sucrose?


----------



## odfrank

Apis dustinius pollenii. Found thruout the northern hemisphere 



OBG said:


> James111 said:
> 
> 
> 
> I can come into contact with many interesting people and things here, thank you for sharing, and hope you will always be happy.
> 
> 
> 
> Hey James, any idea why these bees have the light coloration on their thorax? Many were seen flying about the apiary this past weekend,
> View attachment 58269
Click to expand...


----------



## Robert Holcombe

My bees need rain - now! We have been teased for weeks. I think the bees are highjacking trucks of sugar as they do not seem to end up in stores. Somebody is playing games with sugar supply.


----------



## Cloverdale

OBG said:


> Anyone want to take a crack at ID on these bees, seen multiple times last week flying about the apiary. Interesting coloration on the thorax.
> View attachment 58267


Could be a genetic aberration like a white eyed drone, or paint.


----------



## LarryBud

While watching the bees this afternoon, I saw a few things of interest. (I'm at work from home status so I'm doing my conference calls from a lawn chair watching the hives. First, a hornet flew into one of the hives. I kind of panicked, but the girls grabbed it, rolled it out and onto the ground. I had jumped up to go stomp it but lost it in the grass and it must have flown off. The girls immediately bearded the entrance so i don't think it got back in. Talk about team work! Another thing is around three o'clock, it seems like the girls are starting to swarm, big cloud of bees in front of the hive, bees coming and going but this cloud out front just looping around. This seems like a daily occurrence given the amount of time I spend watching them and lasts for about a half an hour each day. There's three mediums on top of the hive and they have plenty of room. New brood doing orientation flights? I did open the inner covers after my call and both hives are loaded with bees but the top super which is just starting to get comb of the bottom of the inner frames-just starting what looks like a spectacular fall flow with acres of goldenrod and other fall pollinators just starting to bloom. I'll be in both hives on Friday to remove the wrappers from the FA pads placed last week. What else should I look for?


----------



## JWPalmer

odfrank said:


> Apis dustinius pollenii. Found thruout the northern hemisphere


:lookout:


----------



## elmer_fud

LarryBud said:


> New brood doing orientation flights?


This is what I would suspect


----------



## little_john

little_john said:


> Lost two nucs yesterday - I noticed that wasps were entering the boxes unopposed so I took a look inside 'em, only to find that those colonies had dwindled down to almost nothing. Seems I've been feeding wasps for the last few weeks ...


Seeing as the wasps had already 'homed-in' on these two hives, in order to prevent adjacent hives from being bothered by them, I set-out wasp traps which I placed at the entrances of the now empty hives (something I would normally never do).
In the space of 24 hrs those traps caught maybe 200-300 wasps - and more importantly perhaps - around 50 wax moths. Whether the moths were initially attracted by failing colonies or by the bait, couldn't say. The bait was fermenting home-brew cider with a dollop of strawberry jam added to it.
LJ


----------



## Robert Holcombe

No rain yet but a promise with the thick fog enveloping us all night and day. Hive observation data inside top area; hive 1- 79% RH @ 80.2F, hive 2 - 64% RH @ 89.2F, hive 3- 62% RH @ 92F. Outside ambient is 98% RH 2 72F. and very foggy with light wind. 

I am curious about hive #1 as she is starting her 4th season and has been a very large hive butis showing signs of running cooler at the top but has several supers on which are coming off shortly.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Yahoooooooo! It's raining!


----------



## AR1

Thermometer read 51F when I got home. A few bees flying anyway, and lots of dead bees on the doorsteps of all the hives. Some drones, some workers and one bumble bee. It has been cold and rainy this whole week, and no warmer sunny days until Monday. I think of September as a hot, dry month, but the last few years have been cold and rainy.


----------



## Cloverdale

Wrong thread


----------



## username00101

Global warming positive feedback loops.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback#:~:text=Forcings%20and%20feedbacks%20together%20determine,turn%20leads%20to%20further%20warming.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I thought bees stopped drawing out comb in the Fall? Or so I thought. Two years in a row I have hives drawing out new comb used as temporary space fillers today.


----------



## AR1

Robert Holcombe said:


> I thought bees stopped drawing out comb in the Fall? Or so I thought. Two years in a row I have hives drawing out new comb used as temporary space fillers today.


Must be getting flow from something. My first year I had some drawing going on into November! None in the 4 years since, that I have noticed.


----------



## AR1

It's yellow jacket season. Pretty bad in one hive. Pinched the entrance back to 1/4 high and 3" wide. Since then not seeing them getting inside. Lots of dead bees! Reduced the entrances in the other hives.


----------



## Gray Goose

Robert Holcombe said:


> I thought bees stopped drawing out comb in the Fall? Or so I thought. Two years in a row I have hives drawing out new comb used as temporary space fillers today.


So put frames in your temporary Space fillers. FL or foundation. here and there you will get some comb started. I use a new super.

GG


----------



## Cloverdale

AR1 said:


> It's yellow jacket season. Pretty bad in one hive. Pinched the entrance back to 1/4 high and 3" wide. Since then not seeing them getting inside. Lots of dead bees! Reduced the entrances in the other hives.


Yes, I put out the traps, second round so far this season.


----------



## LarryBud

Robert Holcombe said:


> I thought bees stopped drawing out comb in the Fall? Or so I thought. Two years in a row I have hives drawing out new comb used as temporary space fillers today.


Bees need three things to build out comb, population, flow, temp and some room. (ok, four things)If your getting fall flow, your populations haven't dropped off yet, the temp is good enough for the younger bees to work the wax and they got a place in the hive to build, yep, they can build in the fall. I actually wanted to ask you Robert, because I see that you monitor your hive temps-any variations from spring right now? We're in the start of what appears to be a monster flow-aster, goldenrod and every fall plant you can think of. Right now, my girls are feverishly working the Joe Pye Weed and ignoring everything else including the goldenrod just starting to bloom. Upper 70's daytime highs and I'm seeing them filling out some extracted frames-new cappings!


----------



## Cloverdale

My husband keeps 2 hives at a friends house; received a call from friend Wayne that one swarmed (again) The new queen/hive is testy in this hive which swarmed so we wanted to combine the swarm back to it and requeen in the Spring. Silly me I went in shorts and thin shirt with my veil, Jim wore gloves and bee jacket and wore shorts. One jerk of the branch the bees fell right into the box on the sheet and then promptly swarmed us. Jim ran, and me, couldn’t run because I injured my back. Wayne just stood watching in shock. Over 30 stings swollen red arms hands ankles you name it (no face though!). Took a day and a half to feel somewhat normal and few more for the swelling and redness to go down. Hopefully the new queen will either mate with a good drone or maybe the hive will die, which is OK with me. But I do hope the swarm is in the 80 percentile of not making it. Quite the experience.


----------



## elmer_fud

Cloverdale said:


> Yes, I put out the traps, second round so far this season.


My traps also got refilled also today. I found that a 1/2 cup of bees in a few cups of sugar water in the trap seemed attract at least one wasp/yellow jacket fairly quickly. I also gave a lot of wasps/yellowjackets hive tool tests when I was doing inspections today. 

One of my new queens (started from a split early august) mated and has started laying now. 

My bees were bringing in a lot of orange pollen today. I think they are also still bringing in some nectar, but it has slowed down. The rain and snow early last week may change that though.


----------



## LarryBud

Cloverdale;
Sorry to hear about your stings and hope the recovery is quick. Your north of me and I'm wondering what would trigger a swarm this late in the year? it seems like a suicide mission for the swarm, that far north, there probably not enough time to settle into a new hive and build up store to last the winter up there. I'm also curious after the weather in Colorado, why Elmer would be getting bees in his traps? A last gasp or something indicating a problem, mites, in the home hive? I'm seeing a big fall flow and down here, it looks like it'll run out for some time. The girls are working it hard, bring in a lot of pollen and nectar and I think I'm seeing a spring type population expansion as we more into September. I haven't opened my hives for inspection recently as I am just finishing a double pad of Formic Pro treatment. Does anyone think that the could swarm at this time of year? The hives are pretty well super'd over the double deep broods and as part of the Formic instructions to add more room for the brood expansion from the initial installation of the pads so I think they have room. I've been delaying opening the hive until the treatment time line is completed but am thinking of getting into them today to see what's going on as it's just about done. The girls are foraging so heavily that in the mid day sun (warmth) there's hundreds coming and going at all times-looks almost like a pre-swarm cloud but by dark, they're back inside. See's like everyday between 2 and 4 pm. Any thoughts?


----------



## elmer_fud

LarryBud said:


> Cloverdale;. I'm also curious after the weather in Colorado, why Elmer would be getting bees in his traps? A last gasp or something indicating a problem, mites, in the home hive?


I was replying to a post about yellowjacket traps. There are 6-8 yellowjackets in my trap this morning after filling it with dead bees (from the bottom of a hive) and some sugar water yesterday afternoon. I suspect honey in the trap would also work well.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

cloverdale "Quite the experience." Ooooouch! I felt pain just reading this, wish you a quick recovery and good luck with the hive.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Fruits of beekeeping plus more work than anticipated! Incredible yield from bee activity. 



/Users/Holcombe/Desktop/thumbnail-2.jpeg


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Trying
View attachment 58327
again to add photo - squash is getting too heavy for me!


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> Cloverdale;
> Sorry to hear about your stings and hope the recovery is quick. Your north of me and I'm wondering what would trigger a swarm this late in the year? it seems like a suicide mission for the swarm, that far north, there probably not enough time to settle into a new hive and build up store to last the winter up there. I'm also curious after the weather in Colorado, why Elmer would be getting bees in his traps? A last gasp or something indicating a problem, mites, in the home hive? I'm seeing a big fall flow and down here, it looks like it'll run out for some time. The girls are working it hard, bring in a lot of pollen and nectar and I think I'm seeing a spring type population expansion as we more into September. I haven't opened my hives for inspection recently as I am just finishing a double pad of Formic Pro treatment. Does anyone think that the could swarm at this time of year? The hives are pretty well super'd over the double deep broods and as part of the Formic instructions to add more room for the brood expansion from the initial installation of the pads so I think they have room. I've been delaying opening the hive until the treatment time line is completed but am thinking of getting into them today to see what's going on as it's just about done. The girls are foraging so heavily that in the mid day sun (warmth) there's hundreds coming and going at all times-looks almost like a pre-swarm cloud but by dark, they're back inside. See's like everyday between 2 and 4 pm. Any thoughts?[/QUOTE
> 
> In my area of the Catskills, we have a nice flow in Fall. Thinking on the biology and swarming I believe there is so much nectar coming in fast that it gets congested. I have Fall swarms every year with a few hives, I need to pay attention better. I was surprised because we had minimal Spring flow and very light hives but they are working hard. My husbands hives swarm every year, they are too far to monitor frequently and they are 8 frames too; this year we will change them to 10 and bring the 8’s home.
> Formic Pro the queens slow down laying, some even stop, and I find supersedure cells because of that, they think the queen is failing. I take them down and the hives seem OK. I would inspect them especially with your flow and the resumption of the queen making up for lost time and laying up winter bees. Here at around that time (3-4PM) there are new bee orienting around that time of day.
> As for bees in wasp traps, I use Honey Bee Suite’s recipe, which works like a charm; ½ gallon of water with ½ pound dark brown sugar, in a gallon milk container with a hole cut in it
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sorry it’s upside down.
> this works great, wasps, yellow jackets, wax moth, no honey bees.
> Recovering from those stings, they hurt. My back felt like it was on fire and the swelling and redness was much. I hope I don’t develope an allergy, that would be a bummer.


----------



## LarryBud

Good to hear your recovery albeit with some recovery pain. Being a new bee, I still am not fully comfortable with working the hive without full protection, veil, hat, jacket, long pants and boots-even when it's in the ninety's. I've been stung and while not allergic, don't like it just like a poke in the eye or kick in the pants-try to avoid it. My daughter/partner is a bee whisperer, work's the hives with a veil only at her mother very firm direction-she only bee stung once this year and blamed herself for slipping on a frame installation. 

Back to the swarm and comb issue, I did a top inspection yesterday just to see what the population is as I have had some concerns as we are going/are into a strong fall flow. The yellow hive has three supers (on top of two deeps) and they are just capping the second one and I see some white comb just starting on the botton of the third/top super center frames (10 Frame). This hive had a good population in the upper supers and within both the telescopic and inner covers-pretty peaceful hive with massive forager activity. The lavender hive has four supers (on top of two deeps) and is just about fully built out with new comb in the top super, covered in bees-may get another super if the queen issue is resolved. The forager activity in this hive has been subdued compared to the other on-worried, as Deb wrote, the queen may have shut down with the FA treatment. I plan on waiting until tomorrow as it will be warmer to remove the FA wrappers and do deep inspections of both hives brood. In my area it may not be too late to buy another queen (lavender hive) if she's crapped out. Hate to do it, she's a year old and this hive, while always more subdued, is my best producer. I was hoping to split it next year and keep that line going.


----------



## Arnie

Sorry to hear about all those stings, Cloverdale. 
I can't imagine what that must have been like.


----------



## Arnie

We pulled the last of the honey supers.
Cut comb and extracted. 

We'll probably end up with 200 or so cut comb boxes.
Not sure yet how many pounds of extracted honey there will be. 

The bees did better than expected after the freezes we had this spring here in Colorado. 
They never cease to amaze.


----------



## J.Lee

I live in Person County in North Carolina close to the Virginia state line. I do not know what nectar just flowed but it was pretty big. Smartweed has been out since July so I suspect goldenrod. Bees are backfilling the broodnest alot. Thank God I do not feed my full force colonies. Even seeing some comb being drawn. Hope this helps.


----------



## AHudd

I put honey supers on two days ago. They are already stinking up the place. We had a lot of rain at the end of August early September. Maybe we will get a good Fall flow.

Alex


----------



## Robert Holcombe

AHUDD "Maybe we will get a good Fall flow." My area is now classified as a sever drought zone. It would seem my normally excellent Fall flow will be poor at best. I can't spit without honey bees jumping on it. Last year the Bumble bee population seemed really small and I was worried my honey bees were affecting them. Well, this year they were back in strong numbers. Between the two pollinators my veggie garden did great. It is still producing as I just picked about 25 lb. of tomatoes for a chruch food bank.


----------



## AHudd

Sorry to hear you are in a severe drought, maybe it will break soon.

Our Goldenrod hasn't bloomed yet, so we have a ways to go yet. About 3 to 4 more weeks until first frost.

Alex


----------



## Robert Holcombe

AHudd "3 to 4 more weeks until first frost." - about the same here but our Golden Rod has been out, Japanese Knotweed is dropping out of sight but bees are ignoring both most of the time. No water, can't buy a hurricane but surf is up, stocking up on sugar, leaving some honey supers on the hives, maybe move frames down in a few weeks. I'm weighting tomorrow to get a real status for feeding.

There is not one molecule of sugar left in my garage or barn. But the amazing thing is the flow has not been as great as last year but I have spun out more honey with the same number of hives and similar queen issues - stronger hives.


----------



## LAlldredge

Heavy rains lifted the dense smoke two days ago. Really uplifting to see them flying normally on a beautiful day.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Today was a beautiful day if you are a human. So we went kayaking on a marine estuary - Great Blue Herons and much more. If you are a honey bee it was another bad Fall day with the extended drought. The bees are barely finding any nectar - so it seems. I fear they may be robbing else where. Weighing my hives provided some very interesting data. The punch line is simple, feed, feed them now! 

It seems that two hives that did not produce much honey in the supers have a lot of honey stored in what I call the standard brood chamber, 2 mediums and a deep. Three great producers of honey, stowed in the supers, had very little to moderate honey stored below. Four are so-so but basically light with no flow expected. So when I removed the supers to treat with OAV some hives were turned into very "light" hives. All nine hives have large populations now and showing strong orientation flights. 

My conclusion: there was and will be very little Fall flow for the hives. Hives with large population hives are heading for trouble. I am making 2:1 syrup a 100 lb. at a time and setting all hives up with tub feeders. I better gas up the truck and go buy more sugar.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Now end of Sept and still in an extreme drought. We were promised 2-inches last night, got our first rainfall above a kiss - 1/4-inch. Fall color season is coming early, feeding 2:1 heavily to support the hives as most colonies stored honey in supers, dry air just moved in.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Finally, Oct 5th, we got real rain!! But too late for any real flow as Golden Rod has died back, Japanese Knotweed is not in sight, some asters. My guess is we get some pollen inflow.


----------



## LAlldredge

Wrap up- Finished OAV late fall series (7 treatments 3 days apart). Finished feeding- more this year because of drought and fires (intentional distraction). Started with 5 colonies 100% over wintered, ended with 7 (2 split to resource hive). Very conservative decisions this year because of foraging conditions. Quite happy with my small harvest. Totes of pulled comb set aside for next year. Only thing left is wrapping. Waiting for big weather shift before I do that. We had an early Canadian system come through this time last year. 

On a sad note- lost one of my bantam hens from my mistake. She got wedged under a stump in her run. Too much dirt had pulled away from the bottom and she got in there and got stuck. I'm a very attentive chicken mom so this was hard on me. Buried her with some flowers from the garden. Fixing the dirt/stump problem. Her name was Marco. Her sisters name is Polo. She was a goofy, uncoordinated lowest in the pecking order but sweet Welsummer. It took me 2 years to tame her. But she would let me hold her. She was 3.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Lalldredge - "On a sad note" Condolences, it is a sad event. We lost Chickie, a very special chicken, who would knock at the door after free ranging. She knew something was between her and the coup. She even warmed up by hte fire once. The Fox won one late summer day after several years of trying. 

Odd, bright note: We had a 3 month extreme drought rating here after a good Spring flow. I had several hives who raised brood early ( insulated sleeves). Last year was bonaza for everyone around here. This year is a bust. I extracted more this year but have to feed heavily now. The majority of the hives has filled all the supers and then some but fed on their brood chamber stores during the drought. Removing supers showed some were really light below, now near zero Fall flow. I am feeding about 600 lb. of sugar via 2:1syrup to 9 hives then weighting while hammering the varroa with OAV. "Wrapping" is automatic now with my home-made insualtion sleeves. They were "on" all year.


----------



## Cloverdale

LAlldredge said:


> Wrap up- Finished OAV late fall series (7 treatments 3 days apart). Finished feeding- more this year because of drought and fires (intentional distraction). Started with 5 colonies 100% over wintered, ended with 7 (2 split to resource hive). Very conservative decisions this year because of foraging conditions. Quite happy with my small harvest. Totes of pulled comb set aside for next year. Only thing left is wrapping. Waiting for big weather shift before I do that. We had an early Canadian system come through this time last year.
> 
> On a sad note- lost one of my bantam hens from my mistake. She got wedged under a stump in her run. Too much dirt had pulled away from the bottom and she got in there and got stuck. I'm a very attentive chicken mom so this was hard on me. Buried her with some flowers from the garden. Fixing the dirt/stump problem. Her name was Marco. Her sisters name is Polo. She was a goofy, uncoordinated lowest in the pecking order but sweet Welsummer. It took me 2 years to tame her. But she would let me hold her. She was 3.


Sorry about Marco and hopefully her sister Polo won’t miss her too much like you and your family will. Sad losing a pet.


----------



## gww

I lost a chicken today also. My wife will spend $50 on medicine to try and fix a $5 chicken. Didn't work this time and sometimes it is a relief when they go. I don't intend on getting another dog when the one I have goes cause I just don't like the decisions that have to be made at end of life. I am a bit of a coward in that way.
I too have made mistakes on chickens that have caused death, like forgetting to close the door at night. Doesn't happen often due to what happens when the mistake is made.
Cheers
gww

Ps Also got a pullet in the house right now for the last few weeks due to a broke/hurt leg. I ask my wife why she tried to take such good care of a chicken and she said "I was lucky she was like that cause that is what made her stay with me all these years".


----------



## Litsinger

gww said:


> I ask my wife why she tried to take such good care of a chicken and she said "I was lucky she was like that cause that is what made her stay with me all these years".


That's funny, GWW. Better check to see if she has upped your life insurance policy lately .


----------



## LAlldredge

Litsinger said:


> That's funny, GWW. Better check to see if she has upped your life insurance policy lately .


At this writing I'm sitting in my office next to a "chicken ICU unit" waiting to be folded up. (A puppy play pen which is brilliant for that use.) The last inhabitant was my white silkie who is now back with her flock. The boyfriend said on more than one occasion "you have livestock in your house". As if that's a bad thing. Chicken people are a whole new level of crazy. Combined with bees, we are a rare combination of skill and total insanity. I spend upwards of $1,000 a month on insects and pets. One of my horses is living in a full board country club type facility. 

My house is in need of a full remodel. But that takes a back seat to pets and bees. Just today I put in an order for 2500 live meal worms for the chickens during their molt. And couldn't be more satisfied with my choices.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Lalldredge " a rare combination of skill and total insanity" --- I have recovered from the insanity part. I just have misdirected skill sets now. The stalls are empty of horses and chickens rule in a converted one.


----------



## JWPalmer

My wife.came home from a business trip about 25 years ago to find several newly aquired chickens in the downstairs bathtub. She freaked out. I did not see the problem.


----------



## Gypsi

LAlldredge said:


> My house is in need of a full remodel. But that takes a back seat to pets and bees. Just today I put in an order for 2500 live meal worms for the chickens during their molt. And couldn't be more satisfied with my choices.


I didn't think about meal worms. My hen who was nearly naked and the one laying shell-less eggs are in the giant dog crate in the old bird pen on the lot, growing their feathers back on pure layena. (scratch is apparently tastier and calcium isn't, lol)

I am self remodeling my house while taking care of bees, chickens, 4 dogs, 2 cats, lol Bees are the easy part


----------



## LAlldredge

@JW Palmer - so hilarious. @Robert- loved the story about Chickie. 

@Gypsi- I get my live meal worms from a supplier off of eBay (pnwmealworms) Layena is great. Our local chicken experts suggests additional protein. You just have to get over the undulating mass of worms housed in tupperware laying dormant in the refrigerator between feedings.


----------



## elmer_fud

JWPalmer said:


> My wife.came home from a business trip about 25 years ago to find several newly aquired chickens in the downstairs bathtub. She freaked out. I did not see the problem.


lol, I so want to do this, stupid HOA


----------



## elmer_fud

LAlldredge said:


> . You just have to get over the undulating mass of worms housed in tupperware laying dormant in the refrigerator between feedings.


I just keep a small container (50) of meal worms in the fridge to feed my plants


----------



## JWPalmer

elmer_fud said:


> I just keep a small container (50) of meal worms in the fridge to feed my plants


I gave a bunch of wax worms to a coworker to feed to her venus flytrap, which she named Morticia.


----------



## Cloverdale

JWPalmer said:


> I gave a bunch of wax worms to a coworker to feed to her venus flytrap, which she named Morticia.


Can you actually see the plant eat them?


----------



## elmer_fud

JWPalmer said:


> I gave a bunch of wax worms to a coworker to feed to her venus flytrap, which she named Morticia.


I have not tried wax worms. My flytraps and pitcher plants eat meal worms during the winter when I can not catch bugs in the sun porch. I dont have any creative names for mine though. 

The fly traps close very quick (less than a second) and you can easily see them close. The bugs just fall into the pitcher plants and get stuck in a sticky substance so there is not much to see. 

This is my collection (picture was this spring)


----------



## JWPalmer

Nice sized monsters on the flytrap. I think I need to get one for myself. Stinging insects, carnivorous plants, what's not to love?


----------



## Cloverdale




----------



## Cloverdale

elmer_fud said:


> I have not tried wax worms. My flytraps and pitcher plants eat meal worms during the winter when I can not catch bugs in the sun porch. I dont have any creative names for mine though.
> 
> The fly traps close very quick (less than a second) and you can easily see them close. The bugs just fall into the pitcher plants and get stuck in a sticky substance so there is not much to see.
> 
> This is my collection (picture was this spring)
> View attachment 58707


----------



## Ranger N

wow. the posts lately have been very interesting to say the least.

Are any of you all experiencing the phenomenal goldenrod flow that we are here in lancaster county, SC? I just added a 5 frame foundationless super to one of my nucs that is going gangbusters. Tomorrow I am going to add a shallow super to one of my full hives to see if they can do something with it in the next week or so. 
Does anyone think that it i might be detrimental to do so this late into October? Thanks


----------



## LarryBud

Ranger N said:


> wow. the posts lately have been very interesting to say the least.
> 
> Are any of you all experiencing the phenomenal goldenrod flow that we are here in lancaster county, SC? I just added a 5 frame foundationless super to one of my nucs that is going gangbusters. Tomorrow I am going to add a shallow super to one of my full hives to see if they can do something with it in the next week or so.
> Does anyone think that it i might be detrimental to do so this late into October? Thanks


I'm north of you in west-central Jersey and the goldenrod here just isn't stopping. It was a sunny 77 yesterday and today is overcast, forecast high of 73 F. We're just seeing the leading edge of the ruminates of Delta coming up and rain later tonight and tomorrow. My girls are flying like it's May, lots of yellow (goldenrod) and white (aster) coming in. I walked the dog in the field a few hundred yards away from my hives and looked at the goldenrod, early stuff is passing away but there still much more blooming and more budding up. I harvested 5 frames Wednesday (it was 80 degrees), removed the QE's and left one super that were about 40% capped on each of my two hives after an OAV treatment. Yesterday, I removed those supers, to do a second OAV and they were both had noticeable increased capping. I added a second super (waiting a couple hours) of wet comb to each, UNDER the first super for clean up. Kind of curious if they'll start filling those combs. I'm told by a local gardener that the goldenrod/aster could live through November here. First frost, not necessarily a killing frost, is usually mid November here. I'd kind of like it to end so I can wrap the hives and finish for the year but...

I was finishing building quilt boxes yesterday and left the basement bulkhead door open where I had the two nuc boxes from my bee purchase last spring. The inner door at the base was closed and when I went to try to get some screws down there I was confronted by what looked like hundreds of bees either trying to rob out the nuc's or late swarming. This was about 20 feet from my hives and it was very apparent that they were not my darker Italians and there was no traffic between the bulkhead stairs and the hives nor any robbing going on at my hives. Both are very strong and loaded with stores-the girls were still foraging during this event, coming and going in the opposite direction. I moved the nuc boxes to the far end of the yard and there we're still a few bees roaming around this morning. Bee will do what they want by why would these bees foraging like mine are?


----------



## Gypsi

I have a phenomenal goldenrod flow in North Texas. Hives smell appropriately like dirty gym socks. 

I used to raise mealworms for my chickens but after I got bees the mealworms were being neglected so I gave them to a young farmer and I think he also failed. You can't keep them outdoors or they get infested with mites. My office rolling cart did not have tools or office supplies in it. I free range the birds and they get layena and scratch, they have to hunt their own worms, lol. 

I've got to get some new bottom boards and spacers on the hives, get them ready for winter but with the goldenrod on and the bookkeeping going for taxes I keep postponing


----------



## Cloverdale

Yesterday a hive that had what I think is baldbrood into a 5/3 frame nuc; it was smaller, weaker hive because of this. At first I thought it was PMS, and found supersedure cell on 10/6.








I checked the ground to make sure I didn’t find the queen and did not see anything suspicious. So this morning I was checking mite drops and pulled out this tray and found this :








I put her on the landing board of the nuc near the s all entrance and they started taking care of her immediately, so it was their queen. I pushed her in more. Hopefully they can revive her, she was moving her tarsal claws.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Ranger N "phenomenal goldenrod flow" we have had no rain for months - zero Fall flow. I have given up on rain. We could not even catch a hurricane. Now I am hoping for snow.

Monday Oct 12 - It's spitting outside! We are still 10 to 12 inches behind barely a 1/4 inch since end of June. Maybe tromorrow we get some rain!?


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> So this morning I was checking mite drops and pulled out this tray and found this :
> View attachment 58723
> 
> 
> I put her on the landing board of the nuc near the s all entrance and they started taking care of her immediately, so it was their queen. I pushed her in more. Hopefully they can revive her, she was moving her tarsal claws.


Cloverdale:

This is interesting- what do you speculate led to the queen being down on the tray? 

Having inadvertently dumped a queen on the ground recently, I do appreciate how harrowing it is to find your queen like this.


----------



## Cloverdale

I remember someone recently had this happen but I couldn’t remember who. It was upsetting, I think I must have been sloppy in transitioning the hive from 10 frames to 5 frame. When doing this I looked but did not see her, I figured she was on a frame but I think she was on the side wall of one of the boxes when I tapped the bees into the nuc. The queen must have walked up to that drawer sensing a hive odor from the screened BB. The nuc has a tight tray. And I am assuming it was the nucs Queen because how the nuc immediately accepted her, grooming her on the landing board, at least I think that because there were eggs in there a few days ago. What I find interesting is I checked bottom boards again today and found dead bees on the same tray.


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> What I find interesting is I checked bottom boards again today and found dead bees on the same tray.


I am assuming it is a screened bottom board? If so, I once had a screened bottom board that had a spot where the screen was not affixed tightly to the surrounding rim, and this resulted in dozens of bees making their way into the tray and unable to find their way back out (akin to a trap-out cone). Possibly you might have a similar situation with your bottom board?


----------



## username00101

Robert Holcombe said:


> Ranger N "phenomenal goldenrod flow" we have had no rain for months - zero Fall flow. I have given up on rain. We could not even catch a hurricane. Now I am hoping for snow.
> 
> Monday Oct 12 - It's spitting outside! We are still 10 to 12 inches behind barely a 1/4 inch since end of June. Maybe tromorrow we get some rain!?


Yeesh... 12 inches behind?


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> I am assuming it is a screened bottom board? If so, I once had a screened bottom board that had a spot where the screen was not affixed tightly to the surrounding rim, and this resulted in dozens of bees making their way into the tray and unable to find their way back out (akin to a trap-out cone). Possibly you might have a similar situation with your bottom board?


I never thought of that; I might do one more inspection and check it out.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

username001001 - "Yeesh... 12 inches behind?" I just dug out a bunch of blueberry bushes and transplanted. U had ot soak the plants ahead of time to keep some dirt on the roots. It has been a long time for real rain.

"can you see the rain..." it is finally raining today - real rainfall - puddles. I can smile again. Unfortunately too late for any kind of Fall flow. Maybe my pasture will produce some quick flowers like clover.


----------



## JWPalmer

Robert, I am glad you guys up there finally got some rain. Sun came out briefly today after non stop drizzle and rain here since last Thursday. My work hive was out doing orientation flights and it was beautiful to see.


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> I am assuming it is a screened bottom board? If so, I once had a screened bottom board that had a spot where the screen was not affixed tightly to the surrounding rim, and this resulted in dozens of bees making their way into the tray and unable to find their way back out (akin to a trap-out cone). Possibly you might have a similar situation with your bottom board?


I checked the BB today, the screen is intact. Also found more dead bees on it again. :scratch: It seems tight, so they might be squeezing in where there is a slight gap and can’t get out again? I’ll be darned if I know.


----------



## jimbo3

Treated with OAV today, and one hive seems to have a crap ton of drones attempting to get back in. I'm hoping it hasn't gone drone-laying. I guess I'll find out in the spring????


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> I checked the BB today, the screen is intact. Also found more dead bees on it again. :scratch: It seems tight, so they might be squeezing in where there is a slight gap and can’t get out again? I’ll be darned if I know.


Well it certainly might be something else- I know in my case I was not able to find the point of access until I swapped bottom boards and brought the faulty unit into the garage for careful inspection.

I now keep staples on-hand for use in applying additional securement of the screen to the rim as a part of my bottom board preparations.

Another possibility is that there is an opening of 'bee size' somewhere along the perimeter of where the tray meets the rim of the bottom board?

Or a hole in the screen somewhere?

While it is hard to know for sure, the fact that your queen was down there would suggest to me that the bees are gaining access to the tray from inside the hive. 

Do you have a spare bottom board that you can deploy temporarily while you bring the culprit board into the shop for a good once-over?


----------



## Cloverdale

The queen that was down there on the board was not from that hive, it was from the nuc I made up from a weak hive. The queen in that hive with the dead bees is a nice big dark one. When I checked the screen BB it was heavily propolised around the edges, didn’t find any holes in the screen. I will check the perimeter again. I would have switched BB but I used the extra solids and only had another screened one without a drawer, and of course, the drawer on the hive didn’t fit the replacement BB


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> ...and of course, the drawer on the hive didn’t fit the replacement BB


I see Murphy's Law is alive and well in your apiary too!


----------



## Robert Holcombe

I started bottling this year's honey. I learned a bit by observation about the benefits of allowing the honey to sit and clarify. This second extraction batch is a Spring early summer honey that has been sitting since the end of June. I look forward to bottling my first extract of mostly Spring honey. I was amazed at how clear and sparkling the honey appeared when held up to sunlight. It also had a percent water content below 17%. (I will calibrate the refractometer tomorrow.) 

Taking fully or nearly fully capped frames resulted in a net extraction of 79 bottles or a net of 79 lb. plus for 20 medium frames - 4 lb. per frame average. Many frames came from 9 -frame spacing per medium super arrangement.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> This second extraction batch is a Spring early summer honey that has been sitting since the end of June. I look forward to bottling my first extract of mostly Spring honey.


Mine would be solid after sitting for 4 months,


----------



## elmer_fud

Today I found that the banana alarm pheromone appears to have a smaller particle size then smoke today. I put on a n95 mask working hives today because it seems to block most of the smoke, but I could still smell the banana smell well with one hive.


----------



## JWPalmer

Robert Holcombe said:


> I started bottling this year's honey that has been sitting since the end of June. I was amazed at how clear and sparkling the honey appeared when held up to sunlight.


Robert, last week I started bottling some of my June honey for wedding favors for the next door neighbor. Like you I was amazed at how clear the honey was. Usually I get particles (pollen) that adhere to the sides of the jars. Not this time around. Made for perfect favors in the little jars I put it in.


----------



## LAlldredge

Focused on end of season garden clearing, wildflower direct sowing & waiting to wrap. Seeing toasty brown bits on the inspection board so they still have winter bees hatching. Bulbs include- winter aconite, reticulated iris, trout lily, wood hyacinth, narcissi, tulips, parrot tulips. Tulips will be inside raised beds on top of landscape fabric and will be netted in spring. Direct sowing wildflowers like larkspur, lupine, poppies, oxeye daisy, etc. on prepared soil then walking all over it to get essential seed to soil contact.

I was super conservative with my beekeeping this year. Very little hive creep. Only added 2 hives and took a small harvest because of little rain. Ending with 7. 5 production and a resource hive (with 2). Love that number.


----------



## LarryBud

Sounds like heaven LA! I'm doing the same, cleaning up, getting things winterized or put away. We went down to the low 30's last night but didn't get to frost and even with that, the girls were flying at sunrise. Looks like they're bring in pollen this morning, buckets of it. I'm finishing up OAV over the next week and a half, threw some top feeders on between treatments. Looks like one hive is hitting the syrup but the other doesn't seem to have any interest. I have the ML 4.5 gallon type, split around a gallon plus or so between each side on both hives. I am still seeing bees doing what I think are orientation flights later in the day and when I pulled the supers last week, the Queen is still laying, eggs and capped brood. This week it looks like high's just over 70 and lows in the 50's-the east coast got a cold front this weekend but will recover for a week or so. I'm still seeing aster and goldenrod just won't stop. I'm praying that they're strong enough for winter.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

JWPalmer " amazed at how clear " A little patience with gravity never sleeping a lesson once again about beekeeping. What is also amazing is how I collected so much honey in the Spring with a drought all summer. It showed up as very little Fall foraging and buying lots of sugar. I started developing two nucs in the middle of the drought - another learning event.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud "Mine would be solid after sitting for 4 months," 

I think it is a high glucose to fructose ratio that causes the result. I am trying to learn about creamed honey. One question I have is "do all honeys totally solidify with time, suitable for making creamed honey?". Do I need specific ratio range? I help a guy on an island with his bees, not very far away. His honey solidifies top to bottom - quickly.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Lalldredge "very little hive creep" I have some creeping going on. Nine colonies may become 11 with the two maintenance nucs I am developing for winter. The real growth has been hive strength - nine strong hives going into winter requiring a lot for feeding as a result of the drought. The crazy problem is this year I had more, bigger, stronger foragin hives; 7 of 9 were good to big producers. Harvested more honey then I care to manage in spite of the drought. I am looking at giving two hives away next year for a donation. 

I run a small farm stand with free veggies and I accept "donations" for the honey. The neighbors, who use to get it free, donate often, often buying cases (business and CHristmas gifts, etc.) I am covering expenses and donating all the net proceeds to any environmental charity I think the bee will aprove. Plus some funds for my home, bee research project. I am looking at starting a non-profit corporation to get my grandkids involved as board members. 

Meanwhile, the first frost showed up last night, transplanting stuff now and putting the veggie garden to bed, got a big strawberry bed ready for coming spring - strawberry jam is yummmmy! And of course bottling honey daily now. I suggest insulating ASAP, mine has been on all year.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> elmer_fud "Mine would be solid after sitting for 4 months,"
> 
> I think it is a high glucose to fructose ratio that causes the result. I am trying to learn about creamed honey. One question I have is "do all honeys totally solidify with time, suitable for making creamed honey?". Do I need specific ratio range? I help a guy on an island with his bees, not very far away. His honey solidifies top to bottom - quickly.


I think it is a combination of glucose/fructose ratio and the water content. I suspect the lower water content (I have seen 15%) causes the honey to crystallize quicker. 

In general the difference between creamed honey and honey that solidifies on its own is creamed honey has a much smaller particle size. With lots of small seed crystals the cream honey gets smaller crystals and is smoother. I think all honey can be made into creamed honey, but I dont know this for a fact. When I made creamed honey last year I started with store bought creamed honey and used that for 5-10% of the mix.


----------



## JWPalmer

Robert Holcombe said:


> I started developing two nucs in the middle of the drought - another learning event.


I learned early on that trying to get nucs started once our dearth starts here around mid June is an exercise in futility. But, I can start in late March/early April and have them in 10 frame boxes in May with no problem. Around August 1st I can start making fall nucs to overwinter.

Put up another 48 of the mini-mason jars (2oz.) this morning before heading off to some of my side jobs. Hoping to sell around a 100 or so as stocking stuffers.


----------



## Cloverdale

JWPalmer said:


> I learned early on that trying to get nucs started once our dearth starts here around mid June is an exercise in futility. But, I can start in late March/early April and have them in 10 frame boxes in May with no problem. Around August 1st I can start making fall nucs to overwinter.
> 
> Put up another 48 of the mini-mason jars (2oz.) this morning before heading off to some of my side jobs. Hoping to sell around a 100 or so as stocking stuffers.


How are you filling them? I used a squeeze ketchup/mustard jar. And I tied a wrapped small honey dipper on them (this was for my daughters wedding) and I also sold the extras for $3.00.


----------



## LarryBud

We did 6 dozen 4 oz. Muth jars with some of our summer honey or rather my wife did. She used a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup and a rubber spatula using a ladle to fill the measuring cup, my daughter did the corking and shrink wrapping with the plan of giving them to her friends. Didn't spill a drop and they were done in an hour. If I had done it, there'd be honey everywhere, on the outside of the jar, on the table, on the kitchen floor, on the dog, on the front porch, on the neighbor's dog....


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud "I think it is a combination of glucose/fructose ratio and the water content." 

I think you are quite right about water content also - it is a super saturated solution, sugar in water. What I wonder is the where the water goes after crystalization or creaming. It does not split out but seems to be filling voids between crystals.


----------



## crofter

LarryBud said:


> We did 6 dozen 4 oz. Muth jars with some of our summer honey or rather my wife did. She used a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup and a rubber spatula using a ladle to fill the measuring cup, my daughter did the corking and shrink wrapping with the plan of giving them to her friends. Didn't spill a drop and they were done in an hour. If I had done it, there'd be honey everywhere, on the outside of the jar, on the table, on the kitchen floor, on the dog, on the front porch, on the neighbor's dog....


That certainly paints quite a mental picture! I used to put on those kind of performances too, but my wife is onto that trick and it doesn't work anymore; just dryly comments that "You've made quite a mess for yourself to clean up".


----------



## Robert Holcombe

JWPalmer "I learned early on that trying to get nucs started once our dearth starts here around mid June is an exercise in futility." 

Very curious comment. I unknowingly started two nucs in the first month of a drought / dearth in July. One has done extremely well buildling up as I realized the dearth issue and started feeding heavily. The second nuc started well, paused and resume laying worker brood but refuses to take 2:1 syrup and remains smallish. There is no real forage available and even the big hives are barely finding pollen. Hopefully we will get some Asters and such before a real freeze; first frost last night. I also put in some UltraBee to help out - ignored it. It seems really strange and contradictory - brood but no foraging, staying small. I am going to install a thermocouple to measure cluster temperatures. 

Any clues from your experiences? They are guarding the entrance and have syrup on a few frames.


----------



## JWPalmer

Cloverdale said:


> How are you filling them?


Deb, I filled a quart jar and then put in a hot water bath to warm it up. Poured straight from the quart jar into the minis. Only had a few drips which I got up with a wet towel. Probably should have finished my coffee first. I ordered 100 of the 3" individually wrapped honey dippers from Amazon this morning also. I was thinking about $3.50 each for the labeled jar of honey and dipper. I saw some sets on Amazon for less but question the quality of the honey itself.


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> We did 6 dozen 4 oz. Muth jars with some of our summer honey or rather my wife did. She used a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup and a rubber spatula using a ladle to fill the measuring cup, my daughter did the corking and shrink wrapping with the plan of giving them to her friends. Didn't spill a drop and they were done in an hour. If I had done it, there'd be honey everywhere, on the outside of the jar, on the table, on the kitchen floor, on the dog, on the front porch, on the neighbor's dog....


 you and my husband must be related somehow....


----------



## LarryBud

Wow, new format here, let's see how long it takes me to screw this up.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of an OAV 21 day treatment as part of my winter prep and now that the fall flow is just about done, decided to put the top feeders (ML type 4.5 gallon) back on. Put about a gallon and a half, split between each side, on both hives after the last treatment and in prep for another treatment, I open the cover. It appears the one hive has sucked up everything and the screen section is full of bees, buzzing happily. The other hive hasn't touched it, the screen is void of any bees (except a dead bumble bee who snoke in). Other than the second hive wasn't hungry, is there a reason for this? Both hives, despite it cooling down into the 60's F day, low 40's F nights, are still out flying at dawn foraging and bring back a heck of a lot of yellow-brown pollen. I'm figuring by this afternoon, the first hive will have killed the syrup and hopefully I can get the OAV done (4 days). I'm using a top hot box for treatment so I have to remove the feeders before and replace after. Should I keep feeding or wait for the OAV to be done (11 more days)


----------



## LAlldredge

Feeding squares with hardware cloth inserted over inner cover today to create attic space as part of quilt box. Gave them a snack of winter pattie & sugar slurry and water soaked sponge. Also ordered their lemongrass fondant. Let the fussing begin. Note to pros- I do realize how silly this sounds....


----------



## LarryBud

LAlldredge said:


> Feeding squares with hardware cloth inserted over inner cover today to create attic space as part of quilt box. Gave them a snack of winter pattie & sugar slurry and water soaked sponge. Also ordered their lemongrass fondant. Let the fussing begin. Note to pros- I do realize how silly this sounds....


Lemongrass fondant? LA, does sound like your running a bee spa! But I'll bite, never heard of it, got a link?


----------



## LAlldredge

Sweet B - Simple Bee Fondant, 10 lbs, Lemongrass, Winter Hive Feeding, Bee Food | eBay


Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Sweet B - Simple Bee Fondant, 10 lbs, Lemongrass, Winter Hive Feeding, Bee Food at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!



www.ebay.com





Ordered from Ebay last year. They loved it. A bee spa would be accurate. Just checked the kids this am and they are happily munching on the buffet. Being able to look in on them solves my bee boredom in the winter.


----------



## Cloverdale

LAlldredge said:


> Sweet B - Simple Bee Fondant, 10 lbs, Lemongrass, Winter Hive Feeding, Bee Food | eBay
> 
> 
> Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Sweet B - Simple Bee Fondant, 10 lbs, Lemongrass, Winter Hive Feeding, Bee Food at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
> 
> 
> 
> www.ebay.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ordered from Ebay last year. They loved it. A bee spa would be accurate. Just checked the kids this am and they are happily munching on the buffet. Being able to look in on them solves my bee boredom in the winter.





LAlldredge said:


> Feeding squares with hardware cloth inserted over inner cover today to create attic space as part of quilt box. Gave them a snack of winter pattie & sugar slurry and water soaked sponge. Also ordered their lemongrass fondant. Let the fussing begin. Note to pros- I do realize how silly this sounds....


You don’t use an upper entrance with this? Deb


----------



## LAlldredge

Cloverdale said:


> You don’t use an upper entrance with this? Deb


Yes I use an upper entrance.


----------



## Cloverdale

LAlldredge said:


> Yes I use an upper entrance.


Ok ... do the bees chimney up to the top? I think this year I am not using a sugar shim; I will put the empty shim on for feeding PP end of Feb. or emergency situation. I’m not sure if that is a good idea or not.


----------



## LAlldredge

I just took out my feeder spacer from under my vivaldi board. Will feed within the vivaldi board setup. Here is a picture. They usually hang out in the center and within the square because its the warmest place.






I cover with burlap to wick moisture.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Question about honey viscosity: I have been bottling honey in sequence to extraction dates; Spring honey first. I have observed that Spring honey ( trees?) is more viscous than summer honey. The % free water in honey is similar with Spring honey being the lowest water content, below 17%. THis year I have zero Fall honey due to the drought. I judge the viscosity by the way the honey piles up when filling the jars. I thought my late summer honey had a % water issue but the calibrated refractometer disagreed with me - below 18% in all cases. I'll try to research this later. Do others notice this effect?


----------



## LAlldredge

Bee Cozies and mouseguards on 3, 3 more to go including the resource hive. Temps are dropping to single digits this weekend. Some say snow. Colonies are eating at the snack bar within the vivaldi board installed a few days ago. Such pigs. Burlap is doing it's work absorbing moisture over the cluster and venting out. Fire in the woodstove.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

10 cord in the shed, 80 lb. to put them to bed but now for another lesson in beekeeping. I have been forced to learn honey managment from the hive to the bottle. The school of hard-knocks it not always fun especially when you have more honey then desired. 

So I am learning that very fine particles or pollen pass through a 400 mesh gravity filter. After sitting for a long time in 5 gallon buckets I discovered a film on the top of the honey. Of course I learned this after pouring into a bucket with a valve and thus mixing it all in together again and then bottled it. Somewhat cloudy honey bottles! I also learned I can lift it out of the honey buckets with Saran warp. 

Is this beeswax particles or pollen or both?


----------



## username00101

The new format is terrible. It's not enjoyable to see a big advertisement next to the screen flashing when I'm attempting to read something on this website.


----------



## JWPalmer

Robert, I am pretty certain it is pollen. The wax makes it to the surface fairly quickly.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

JWPalmer said:


> Robert, I am pretty certain it is pollen. The wax makes it to the surface fairly quickly.


THanks - logical but now the quandary; Some people like cloudy, say pollen, honey, and some go WOW! how nice and clear. Some like it dark some like it light. 

BTW, I am thinking of creating a non-proift corporation for my small apiary. Maybe add in neighboring beekeepers. After cost, I donate all proceeds to any charity that the bees would like, local and national. Know anyway to become a non-profit easily ( besides paying a lawyer). Once established it looks easy to maintain.


----------



## Arnie

The final figures ( minus giveaways and the honey we keep for ourselves) are: 

227 cut comb 
79 pints
32 quarts

Not great, but considering the rough spring the bees endured. Frost killed the maple bloom, snowstorm killed the fruit bloom, the hives were saved from starvation by a good dandelion bloom.

But the honey flavor is spectacular.


----------



## username00101

To make a not for profit, it's an entire registration process, and you have to fill out tax forms, etc etc. 

Looks like you need to apply for tax exemptions, through the IRS.


----------



## LarryBud

Robert;
I've set up non-profits in the past for our town's little league and I had two good lawyers working for free. It's not easy, it's not fun and if you screw up, the IRS will own you. No matter how small or well rooted the non-profit, they suspect fraud in all of them and the penalties are big$$$$. Talk to a lawyer, usually a half hour to explain is free.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LAlldredge said:


> Feeding squares with hardware cloth inserted over inner cover today to create attic space as part of quilt box. Gave them a snack of winter pattie & sugar slurry and water soaked sponge. Also ordered their lemongrass fondant. Let the fussing begin. Note to pros- I do realize how silly this sounds....


Thanks for an idea. I am going to build some screen boards with a dropped edge to put on top of my modified Mann Lake feeders. I have the unique problem caused by sliding my insulating sleeves on which can knock my covers around a bit allowing robbers to sneak up the air gap an to the syrup - especially yellow jackets. 8-mesh with formed edging should do the trick.


----------



## elmer_fud

one of my hives decided to do something special during the cold snap. They seemed to have part of the cluster coming out of the entrance reducer on the bottom of the hive during a cold spell. They lost a lot of bees (few hundred) doing this, but they still seem to be doing fine. 

The ones in the entrance were still moving around when i took the picture. Some of the dead ones are also drones that got kicked out


----------



## LAlldredge

Put a slice of lemongrass fondant inside the feeder shim. Also spritzed water on the sponges to give them extra water. All 7 are well and thriving in their bee spas.

Rented a dump trailer at our local rental place and dumped a load of 1/4 minus gravel on the driveway. The tractor guy will be here Friday to harrow the corral, make burms and fill in low spots in the driveway. Weather is changing.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud said:


> one of my hives decided to do something special during the cold snap. They seemed to have part of the cluster coming out of the entrance reducer on the bottom of the hive during a cold spell. They lost a lot of bees (few hundred) doing this, but they still seem to be doing fine.
> 
> The ones in the entrance were still moving around when i took the picture. Some of the dead ones are also drones that got kicked out
> View attachment 61172





LAlldredge said:


> Put a slice of lemongrass fondant inside the feeder shim. Also spritzed water on the sponges to give them extra water. All 7 are well and thriving in their bee spas.
> 
> Rented a dump trailer at our local rental place and dumped a load of 1/4 minus gravel on the driveway. The tractor guy will be here Friday to harrow the corral, make burms and fill in low spots in the driveway. Weather is changing.


elmer_fud - Noticed the TYVEK - do the bees propolize it?


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> elmer_fud - Noticed the TYVEK - do the bees propolize it?


They still fill the gaps between the boxes with propolis. I put they tyvex tape there because I painted the ends of the boxes one year and there were sticking together badly so this made them easier to get apart. The tyvex is also easier to scrape clean until it comes off.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud said:


> They still fill the gaps between the boxes with propolis. I put they tyvex tape there because I painted the ends of the boxes one year and there were sticking together badly so this made them easier to get apart. The tyvex is also easier to scrape clean until it comes off.


AaaH! I thought you were using it as a inner cover - good idea.


----------



## jimbo3

elmer_fud said:


> one of my hives decided to do something special during the cold snap. They seemed to have part of the cluster coming out of the entrance reducer on the bottom of the hive during a cold spell. They lost a lot of bees (few hundred) doing this, but they still seem to be doing fine.
> 
> The ones in the entrance were still moving around when i took the picture. Some of the dead ones are also drones that got kicked out
> View attachment 61172


What's the air fitting/hose for?


----------



## jimbo3

Did my last treatment of OA yesterday. Thankfully I got it in yesterday in between the rain. Today would have been a definite no-go. I'm not complaining though, we desperately need the rain (my well does, at least). I might do one more in a month or two.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

jimbo3 said:


> Did my last treatment of OA yesterday. Thankfully I got it in yesterday in between the rain. Today would have been a definite no-go. I'm not complaining though, we desperately need the rain (my well does, at least). I might do one more in a month or two.


How do you know you are done - last treatment?


----------



## jimbo3

Robert Holcombe said:


> How do you know you are done - last treatment?


Because I said I'm done. I treated with formic in May, did 5 rounds of OA from mid-August to early September, and did 5 more rounds of OA this month. I'm done except for maybe one mid-winter round. If that isn't an effective treatment, then so be it, but I'm mostly done treating until next year.


----------



## elmer_fud

jimbo3 said:


> What's the air fitting/hose for?


They spray for mesquitos in the evenings most weeks during the summer. I have a fish air pump in my basement in "clean" air and push a bit of clean air into the hive during the summer to keep the mesquito fog chemicals out. I do not have any data to say if it does anything or not, but it is the same theory as what they do with clean rooms.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud said:


> They spray for mesquitos in the evenings most weeks during the summer. I have a fish air pump in my basement in "clean" air and push a bit of clean air into the hive during the summer to keep the mesquito fog chemicals out. I do not have any data to say if it does anything or not, but it is the same theory as what they do with clean rooms.


Interesting idea and clever. Around here when the do spray for mosquitos which is rare, we are given a schedule by location - most people cover their hives. My zone has not been sprayed in years. They go after certain swamps which are monitored.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Now this is more like it for Southern New England - 2 days of rain and now a snow squall. Unfortunately it broke my schedule for OAV'ing. Dead Drop Counts were going low, 25-50 per hive after 5 days, and dropping rapidly. Varroa will get hammered again That makes 4-5 inches this month after a 3 month drought. The forest and my Blueberry bushes will be happy - Strawberry patch too.


----------



## LAlldredge

Robert Holcombe said:


> The forest and my Blueberry bushes will be happy - Strawberry patch too.


Speaking of- just left the tractor guy to put in a couple of hours at work. He's putting some berms in. Wildflower seed goes on top. Hundreds more bulbs go in early next week. Already lifted dahlias, divided and wrapped with cling wrap to store. May try to score some allium bulbs to sneak in the ground this weekend. Bees freak out over allium. Last big push until.............the big chill.


----------



## AHudd

I treated for mites today with the Johno's Pro-Vap. I do like that tool. When I went back to open the entrances I noticed they were bringing in a lot of pollen.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

AHudd said:


> I treated for mites today with the Johno's Pro-Vap. I do like that tool. When I went back to open the entrances I noticed they were bringing in a lot of pollen.
> 
> View attachment 61183
> View attachment 61183


Mine were making snowballs! At elast the drought is over. Did you photoshop this pic - nice clarity and depth of field.


----------



## AHudd

Robert Holcombe said:


> Mine were making snowballs! At elast the drought is over. Did you photoshop this pic - nice clarity and depth of field.


Thanks, It was taken with my Galaxy A10e, a relatively inexpensive phone. No photoshop, either. 
I'm glad to hear your drought is over. 

Alex


----------



## Robert Holcombe

AHudd said:


> Thanks, It was taken with my Galaxy A10e, a relatively inexpensive phone. No photoshop, either.
> I'm glad to hear your drought is over.
> 
> Alex


Drought is over as we are making up lost ground. Barely had time to OAV today. It is raining hard right now, had snow melt for two days. I've got garlic planting to do and a strawberry bed to be "put to bed". .


----------



## LarryBud

Just went out to check the hives and the girls are out, in mass bringing in pollen=dark brown, yellow and white. I was planning on adding a gallon or so more syrup but their flying all around the hives (both hives). Though it might be robbing at first until I saw all the pollen on them and there wasn't any kung fu fighting. I'll wait until later this afternoon when they quite down. Weather supposed to be in the mid 60'sfor the next ten days with no frost-lows in the low 40's. I don't want to over feed right now. ****, one hitchhiked a ride in the house with me, better go catch her.


----------



## LAlldredge

Drones??? I have drones flying still? That was a surprise to see. Since drones are a luxury that tells me my hives are doing well. The latest mated queen is showing strength in numbers.


----------



## Cloverdale

Most of the hives were orienting today which was nice to see, and finally got the rest of the cleaned supers off. I believe I need a vacation too much stuff going on!


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Cloverdale said:


> Most of the hives were orienting today which was nice to see, and finally got the rest of the cleaned supers off. I believe I need a vacation too much stuff going on!


I had good orientation flights too. My hives seem a little light and seeming slow taking syrup. I'll have to do a formal weight check and check the top medium for capped syrup honey soon, right after final Varroa Dead Drop Count - hopefully. Thankfully my "labels" arrived on time - election day. Tired of bottling but making syrup and feeding plus planting garlic cloves made for a peaceful day. The drought is over, the sun will rise tomorrow too!


----------



## elmer_fud

I am still seeing drones in from one of my hives. 


Sounds like someone is having a very bad night. It sounds like a semi with 400 hives tipped/rolled near Glendo, Wyoming. The local bee club got a message saying it was near Chyenne looking for help recovering, but now it sounds like it is a lot farther north.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Winter Reading from from the Royal British......: "
*"Nectar, humidity, honey bees (Apis mellifera) and varroa in summer: a theoretical thermofluid analysis of the fate of water vapour from honey ripening and its implications on the control of Varroa destructor" *Derek Mitchell Published:*10 July 2019 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2019.0048*

It's great to find someone publishing physical system models that are related to beekeeping - especially my pet interest in relative humidity, total water content of honey, ventilation ( fluid dynamics) and heat transfer. It all starts with a bit of chemistry; follow a water molecule, add a little oxygen and and carbon, describe via principles of simple Newtonian physics - off to the races!. 

In reality it is of interest to me as I violate typical beekeeping practices in the USA and explore some very interesting resultants. The least of which is seemingly healthier hives. Could it be cause .........  the TV is driving me crazy, more than bottling honey?


----------



## LAlldredge

Pulled back the burlap on all 7 to refresh the sugar slurry. Poured sugar through the screen and spritzed water on the sugar and the sponge (new addition this year). I live in a very dry climate so I'm making sure they have enough water and humidity but not so much moisture to drip down on the colonies. I also keep a top entrance. It's working great. Comforting to see them and gives me something to do. A bored beekeeper in winter can be a danger to themselves and to their bees.


----------



## AHudd

I did the second round of OAV today. The bees are still bringing in pollen and doing orientation flights. Some rather large flights at that.
No hard freeze yet. 

Alex


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LAlldredge said:


> Pulled back the burlap on all 7 to refresh the sugar slurry. Poured sugar through the screen and spritzed water on the sugar and the sponge (new addition this year). I live in a very dry climate so I'm making sure they have enough water and humidity but not so much moisture to drip down on the colonies. I also keep a top entrance. It's working great. Comforting to see them and gives me something to do. A bored beekeeper in winter can be a danger to themselves and to their bees.


BY keeping the hives warm internally I am able to top feed 2:1 syrup to a desired weight, even in November. We, fortunately for some around here, have hit a warm spell 60-70F daytime 50F night time. I verified one hive, which was nearly empty of honey as a result of the drought, to have all top medium frames with capped over syrup honey. I will sample check others but rely mainly on weighing for guidance. I am open feeding all my sugar or honey dirty buckets, pans and other hardware. They are being cleaned - spotless! Tomorrow I will feed about 2 gallons of honey via pans with hay that I would not bottle for donations. I am also continuing with top syrup feeders, 80 lb. honey net, minimum per hive. The hives seemed to have extended winter bee brood season - big orientation flights for all 9 hives and one nuc. I think the drought caused and usual timing pattern which responded to 2:1 syrup well. 

I had one colony building comb inside the tub feeder - during an Oct freeze and snow period. Thus the ability to cap in a warm hive is pretty much proven to me. I fear many local, backyard hives will be lost to starvation this winter.


----------



## LAlldredge

Robert Holcombe said:


> BY keeping the hives warm internally I am able to top feed 2:1 syrup to a desired weight, even in November.
> I had one colony building comb inside the tub feeder - during an Oct freeze and snow period. Thus the ability to cap in a warm hive is pretty much proven to me. I fear many local, backyard hives will be lost to starvation this winter.


I have a problem with authority. So when people advocate a position because thats the way its always been I usually want to prove them wrong With 40% backyard beekeeping losses each year its not just about the mites. There is a lot to know about nutrition and especially water and humidity. If we can increase survival rates at least another 10% its worth the research. I’m encouraged to hear you are able to get 2:1 on and have found a way to do it no matter the weather.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LAlldredge said:


> I have a problem with authority. So when people advocate a position because thats the way its always been I usually want to prove them wrong With 40% backyard beekeeping losses each year its not just about the mites. There is a lot to know about nutrition and especially water and humidity. If we can increase survival rates at least another 10% its worth the research. I’m encouraged to hear you are able to get 2:1 on and have found a way to do it no matter the weather.


Conservation of energy - there is nothing neater than having bee heaters convert the solar energy into heat when they need it. In my environment they also emulate a subrmarine, it seems, by managing and recycling moisture. Now if the bees could figure out how to recycle CO2 ..... hmmmmmh 🙂


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Earlier I mentioned a strange acting nuc which had brood but no syrup consumption. Yesterday I checked the nuc. Temperature at the top bottle feeder was over 63F. I saw the mobile queen and a small patch of capped brood along iwht some capped honey in the cluster area. There was no stored syrup on empty frames - clean frames. No signs of chalk or sac brood. Really no signs of Varroa but OAV killed a few - 5 to 10. The bees are lethargic. My "guess" is Nosema C. I am going to OA dribble twice, 21 days apart and hope. 

Could an alternate idea be to restart a nuc with nurse bees and maybe some capped brood and more winter bees, then transfer the Queen? She looked like the only healthy bee.


----------



## JWPalmer

I have previously mentioned that I was doing sort of a soft Bond culling in my apiary and allowing weaker hives to die out. By mid August, I had gone from just over 20 hives down to 11 hives and two nucs. These are the hives that were sampled for the USDA bee survey. As of today, all 11 hives and both nucs are still alive and have received their first OAV dose since July. All the inserts were scrubbed clean so an accurate 72 hour Drop Dead Count could be obtained. Hives with the lowest counts will be marked as potential breeders for next Spring, assuming they survive the winter. I just started feeding again to build up hive weights, but several are so heavy they are hard to tip. On the down side, I had so many drawn combs go beeless from the culling that wax moths have destroyed a great number of them. Nearly 200 deep frames to clean up. Most of my mediums are still web free but honey will not be a priority next year.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> As of today, all 11 hives and both nucs are still alive and have received their first OAV dose since July. All the inserts were scrubbed clean so an accurate 72 hour Drop Dead Count could be obtained. Hives with the lowest counts will be marked as potential breeders for next Spring, assuming they survive the winter.


JW:

I will look forward to reading about your evaluation efforts- hopefully you will post your findings and the evaluation criteria you settle on.

Best of success to you in your overwintering.

Russ


----------



## JWPalmer

Thanks Russ. I am not sure if I will have a chance to count each mite or not. Maybe more of a " hmm, not too bad" vs "holy crap that's a lot of mites". I will be posting the overall reaction and will follow up with breeding results this coming Spring as I get back up to 20+ hives. I have one swarm that is still downtown in a six frame double deep swarm trap. This hive is doing well and I am feeding it to build weight. It remains untreated. Those bees exhibit Italian coloration as opposed to the more Carni/Caucasian coloration of the home bees. No idea how they will winter.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

JWPalmer said:


> I have previously mentioned that I was doing sort of a soft Bond culling in my apiary and allowing weaker hives to die out. By mid August, I had gone from just over 20 hives down to 11 hives and two nucs. These are the hives that were sampled for the USDA bee survey. As of today, all 11 hives and both nucs are still alive and have received their first OAV dose since July. All the inserts were scrubbed clean so an accurate 72 hour Drop Dead Count could be obtained. Hives with the lowest counts will be marked as potential breeders for next Spring, assuming they survive the winter. I just started feeding again to build up hive weights, but several are so heavy they are hard to tip. On the down side, I had so many drawn combs go beeless from the culling that wax moths have destroyed a great number of them. Nearly 200 deep frames to clean up. Most of my mediums are still web free but honey will not be a priority next year.


JWP - "doing sort of a soft Bond culling" does not treating from January to mid-September qualify as "Bond culling" ? Allowing swarming and supercedures too?


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> Thanks Russ. I am not sure if I will have a chance to count each mite or not. Maybe more of a " hmm, not too bad" vs "holy crap that's a lot of mites". I will be posting the overall reaction and will follow up with breeding results this coming Spring as I get back up to 20+ hives.


Understood, JW. I will look forward to your observations. BTW if you figure out an easy way to count each mite, do let us know. I expect I am not the only one who would like to have this tool at our disposal .


----------



## elmer_fud

Litsinger said:


> Understood, JW. I will look forward to your observations. BTW if you figure out an easy way to count each mite, do let us know. I expect I am not the only one who would like to have this tool at our disposal .


You could probably get a decent estimate by counting 1/4 of 1/16 of the board if everything is evenly distributed. 

I wonder if there are any image processing programs/websites that will count the number of dark dots on a light surface in a picture. If so this may be an easy way to automate it


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud said:


> You could probably get a decent estimate by counting 1/4 of 1/16 of the board if everything is evenly distributed.
> 
> I wonder if there are any image processing programs/websites that will count the number of dark dots on a light surface in a picture. If so this may be an easy way to automate it


elemer_fud - When you look at a bottom board and go OH s*&^! Treat again until you go hummmH? Then count as the numbers will be below 50. I was around 15-25 for most hives on the last round - just one hive up around 50-60. The counts or curve is fololwing the same time count curve as last year when I counted diligently. I believe the peak was lower - significantly, but too many Oh s*&^ to count.


----------



## elmer_fud

Robert Holcombe said:


> elemer_fud - When you look at a bottom board and go OH s*&^! Treat again until you go hummmH? Then count as the numbers will be below 50. I was around 15-25 for most hives on the last round - just one hive up around 50-60. The counts or curve is fololwing the same time count curve as last year when I counted diligently. I believe the peak was lower - significantly, but too many Oh s*&^ to count.


all of my hives have solid bottom boards, but I understand the concept of screened bottom boards. I use sugar rolls to count mites on occasion. I can appreciate the this is bad, vs not to bad logic


----------



## Litsinger

elmer_fud said:


> You could probably get a decent estimate by counting 1/4 of 1/16 of the board if everything is evenly distributed.
> 
> I wonder if there are any image processing programs/websites that will count the number of dark dots on a light surface in a picture. If so this may be an easy way to automate it


Now this is thinking like an engineer! I see an expansion module to your hive monitoring system in your future.


----------



## elmer_fud

Litsinger said:


> Now this is thinking like an engineer! I see an expansion module to your hive monitoring system in your future.


Well, I am an engineer. Mechanical by training, currently working as a test engineer.


----------



## Litsinger

elmer_fud said:


> Well, I am an engineer. Mechanical by training, currently working as a test engineer.


I thought I remembered that correctly- if you come up with a beta model that you want to take for a test drive, I would be glad to give it a spin...


----------



## Robert Holcombe

elmer_fud said:


> all of my hives have solid bottom boards, but I understand the concept of screened bottom boards. I use sugar rolls to count mites on occasion. I can appreciate the this is bad, vs not to bad logic


Part of my approach has to do with Tom Seeley's Darwinian Beekeeping points. In particular, the least intrusion into the brood area / nest the better. To implement this I use a mostly closed, screened bottom board ( not tight fitting) and a standard, all-year brood chamber with a queen excluder (QE) on top, going into third winter now. I monitor with a weather station above the QE, entrance activity and bottom board examination rather than invasive procedures. It has been very accurate at detecting queen problems with my acquired data and learned observations - especially Spring queen issues. I included in the approach insualtion inthe form of sealed R10 side and R20 top foam insulation. If I suspect a varroa issue, I simply remove supers and do an OAV procedure and count dead drop after 5 days; a test and a partial cleaning at the same time. I dropped drone removal methods as they were non-productive for me and I do not need more honey. I think I am advancing as I now have all strong colonies with various selcted genetic queens, old one and new ones plus two self-sustaining hives with open mated queens from supercedure and swarm cells for four years. I have also lost zero colonies for two years. I think it is more than luck.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Another good rainy day! The bright side of the day is the chance to get a pair of barn cats. We have been searching for a year. This year, likely cause by the drought and our careless handling of chicken feeding, we were invaded by rats who bred quickly. Before I learned to pay attention we had a lot. It took a few weeks but I eliminated them using mechanical traps - about a 100 rats, believe it or not. Getting a pair of barn cats should help a lot in controlling rodents in the barn, mice ate into my bee jacket last year, squirrels love to chew passage holes. Hopefully the pair can handle the Fisher cats around here. Otherwise it will require Maine **** Cats. 

I assume they will learn quickly to leave the bees alone, the dog has.


----------



## JWPalmer

Robert, barn cats can only do so much. I prefer a .22. Very effective and loads of fun if you have the right mind set. Rain has been non-stop for the past two days so I have not gotten out to the apiary to check the inserts for mites, The bees at work have finally figured out the Boardman feeder I have on top of the swarm trap they are in and are sucking down the syrup. Must be pretty desperate as they are even flying in a light drizzle and 57 degree temps. This weekend should be in the 60's and sunny so will play with the girls then.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

JWPalmer said:


> Robert, barn cats can only do so much. I prefer a .22. Very effective and loads of fun if you have the right mind set. Rain has been non-stop for the past two days so I have not gotten out to the apiary to check the inserts for mites, The bees at work have finally figured out the Boardman feeder I have on top of the swarm trap they are in and are sucking down the syrup. Must be pretty desperate as they are even flying in a light drizzle and 57 degree temps. This weekend should be in the 60's and sunny so will play with the girls then.


 First - what is the O Maltado ad with a cops pic all about??? Jumps in at will. 

I had a Maine **** cat with a mate. Moose was incredible - nothing, and I mean nothing came into the yard without his permission. He beat up my dog. His mistake was trying to steal my sandwich when I was building the house and then tried to kill an old cat of ours. I shipped his butt North. We will see how well Barn Cats do controlling the area with a dry barn, some feeding as a reward ( and warm water). I have to fix up my chicken run, mayb epour some cement

Using a .22 is a bit overdone IMO. An air rifle is more then adequate from what I know. I did rat shooting in a dump a few times. I did not find it fun. Learning to trap multiple locations with no risk to my neighbors was more than adequate and far more time efficient then waiting to shoot. And it only cost me a 5lb. peanut butter jar and about ten replacement Victor traps - rats and maybe squirrels steal some.

I get to check my sick nuc tomorrow when it stops raining. They are on intensive care. If I see a good sign I will feed them honey. All the other colonies are up to weight and healthy for winter with bug count is way down. I'm shutting down very soon for 5 months except for a Jan. 2X OAV treatment. I am working on an improved test plan and sensor installation. I need a flexible or versatile bottom board, likely a box design suitable for what I do.


----------



## LarryBud

JWPalmer said:


> Robert, barn cats can only do so much. I prefer a .22. Very effective and loads of fun if you have the right mind set. Rain has been non-stop for the past two days so I have not gotten out to the apiary to check the inserts for mites, The bees at work have finally figured out the Boardman feeder I have on top of the swarm trap they are in and are sucking down the syrup. Must be pretty desperate as they are even flying in a light drizzle and 57 degree temps. This weekend should be in the 60's and sunny so will play with the girls then.


JW, I'm must have grown up with the "right mind set," LOL!!! As a teenage, a summer Saturday night down at the town dump with a .22 was a right of passage. As we got older (as teenagers) and found out that a 30 round clip was available for a Ruger 10-22, well, lots of cheap Chinese bricks wasted a lot of brass. Never to disparage Robert but eventually we graduated to .357's and .45 pistols. Yes, it can be thought of macho nonsense but it did "graduate" 4 military combat officers who left basic with sharpshooting badges.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LarryBud said:


> JW, I'm must have grown up with the "right mind set," LOL!!! As a teenage, a summer Saturday night down at the town dump with a .22 was a right of passage. As we got older (as teenagers) and found out that a 30 round clip was available for a Ruger 10-22, well, lots of cheap Chinese bricks wasted a lot of brass. Never to disparage Robert but eventually we graduated to .357's and .45 pistols. Yes, it can be thought of macho nonsense but it did "graduate" 4 military combat officers who left basic with sharpshooting badges.


Larry " it can be thought of macho nonsense" - that's thought provoking. What changed direction for me is when we were making ZIP guns and had an actual test range as kids. Packing match sticks and improving our materials and skills until my friend, a good center fielder, blew some fingers off his right hand. Then I never got over killing a bird with a hip shot for no good reason - just killed it. I determined it was really stupid for me to do that. I was later ROTC trained - I think we did M1 shooting in a rang but never got drafted. One issue we had, as a kid growing up, was no money, no money to waste on guns or drugs. Guns were not cheap unless you could steal one. A friend did that - I never saw him again. Everyone wonders what I have on the little farm - I don't say. Today, guns are all over the place - not smart.

Side-point: I know people get excited with a gun in their hands. A couple of guys have ARs, they sure get excited when shooting. Why are cops in direct contact, direct danger, during an arrest when we have incredible robotic technology? A cost issue or a union issue? I personally think all these simple arrest shootings are really stupid. I want one of those "things" that makes your skin boil as a show stopper.


----------



## JWPalmer

Litsinger said:


> JW:
> 
> I will look forward to reading about your evaluation efforts- hopefully you will post your findings and the evaluation criteria you settle on.
> 
> Best of success to you in your overwintering.
> 
> Russ





Robert Holcombe said:


> JWP - "doing sort of a soft Bond culling" does not treating from January to mid-September qualify as "Bond culling" ? Allowing swarming and supercedures too?


Robert, this year I attempted to catch all my swarms, moderately successful but not entirely, and sold many as nucs once they had built out. I allow supercedures to take place because I do believe the bees are better than I at figuring out when a queen is failing. Not treating from Jan. thru July is SOP here. No need to treat when you start the year off with extremely low mite counts. Two years in a row my Spring mite counts have been zero as confirmed by the State Apiarist. I'm sure there were a few but they did not show up in the alcohol wash. The start of the summer dearth and robbing is when mites begin to be an issue here.

So how did things work out after I finally treated with OAV last week? My counting was not by any means precise. Essentially, it was broken down as <50, 50-100, 100-200, and holy $hitake. Five of the hives were less than 50, five were between 50 and 100, and one hive fell into the mushroom category with the insert completely covered in dead mites. One of the less than 50 hives was still dropping brood cappings and another is weak (only counted four frames of bees) but has two saucer sized areas of eggs and larvae. My guess is the warm weather has them fooled since I rarely have brood beyond the middle of October. I am very encouraged by these observations of mite drops and plan on grafting from the five that had really low counts.

Still feeding syrup to the lighter hives. The pollen sub feeder, a hive with mason jars full of Ultra Bee lying on their sides, was getting mobbed this afternoon.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

JWPalmer - I also checked on my hives today, cold, damp and windy - beuatiful. There is always a surprise it seems. First my mite counts, Dead Drop continues to follow last years schedule. VDDC averaged 25, some were 10 two were approximately 40. I will hit them once more.

Feeding - most hives nearly drained the tub feeders again, my good nuc chug-a-lugs quarts. I think they are turning into pigs - weights are really up. But two hives had significant fluid on one side of the split tubs. Fluid temperatures in the insulated hives ranged form 64F to 67F even with the cold weather. I have seen this condensation twice before. I am heavily insulated and not top vent - this worried me. This time I investigate - it was condensation alright but not internal humidity - water condensing from clouds falling on leaky roofs which had carpenter ant holes in the them - small at first but they get big. Internal holes matched stain marks on the canvass inner covers. THat's what I get for using old foam, eaten by ants, to make my new insulation sleeve system. Gotta go buy some Poly-Seam seal / caulking - used up a tube already. Sugar too! I'll have to think about a frugal rain and sun proof cap. 

I wonder how many hives have had condensation problems due to "ventilation" issues but really had roof leaks and wall cracks which wind driven rain penetrates. It is not a coincidence that all my events were noticed after heavy rains - even when I was thin-walled and vented. 

It's a good day when one figures out a problem. I have 9 strong hives ready for winter, one strong nuc and one Intensive Care Nuc. It will be an interesting winter here.


----------



## Gypsi

I injured my right arm/wrist about a week ago, so I had to have a little help changing the bottom board on my largest hive. We did that today, it got a new screened board, with a half inch plywood well painted coverboard. It was in mid 70s today, very pleasant. 

The bees were so sweet.
The big hive is reduced to 2 deep boxes, it's still big, but less so. and the stacked nuc hive got a couple of frames of brood and some nectar and partially capped honey, we just stuck the box in the middle. Their queen is laying, and they are working with a diminished force from robbing, but putting up stores in their 3 nuc boxes so we stuck a deep nuc with more on top the bottom deep and strapped them together.
The newbie beekeepers that came to help got some great pictures, got to see eggs and brood and nectar and capped honey and it was amazing, a good time was had by all.
Even the bees. We went thru one box at a time, prevented robbing by not leaving anyone open unnecessarily and very few were accidentally injured. And there seem to be no mites. SHB, yes, and we gave them clothes to trap beetles in. but no mites on the paper under the hive. I've only treated once this fall.
Not doing removals and removing the big wild hive from my neighbor's house seems to have fixed the incoming mite load a lot


----------



## Cloverdale

Wrapped the hives here in roofing paper, foam boards next week; a bee, brought in bright orange pollen. Some plants have re-bloomed. Extraordinary.


----------



## LAlldredge

Opened up the tops, pulled back the burlap and all 7 are in the vivaldi board snack bar munching on the sugar slurry. Refreshed it by pouring dry sugar first, then spritzing water on the sugar and wetting down the water sponge. This will be my weekly routine through winter. Not necessary but mentally reassuring since they were fed to weight.


----------



## LarryBud

LAlldredge said:


> Opened up the tops, pulled back the burlap and all 7 are in the vivaldi board snack bar munching on the sugar slurry. Refreshed it by pouring dry sugar first, then spritzing water on the sugar and wetting down the water sponge. This will be my weekly routine through winter. Not necessary but mentally reassuring since they were fed to weight.


Are you feeding just plain old granulated sugar? 

As you know, I pulled my top feeders in anticipation of colder weather which never really happened. Here on the east coast, we're seeing highs in the upper 60's and the bees are active. I am concerned that I may have to retreat (rather than a 1 time brood less) AOV. The girls have been very busy with the warmer weather, some are bringing in a white pollen (?) and others appears to be foraging in the leaves on the ground around my property. I am concerned that if they're not productive, that they burn up resources now that might be needed if the weather get cold later on. I'm also seeing what might be orientation flights-are my winter bees turning into foragers and is my queen laying new eggs for another round of winter bees?


----------



## JWPalmer

LarryBud said:


> I'm also seeing what might be orientation flights-are my winter bees turning into foragers and is my queen laying new eggs for another round of winter bees?


I suspect we are going to see one of those rare occasions when many of the hives on the east coast do not go broodless at all. I still think I have brood. Ddillon reports orientation flights this afternoon where he lives in VA. Queens here typically start back up right around Christmas, and that is just 4 weeks away. Keep feeding 2:1 sugar and have some form of pollen sub available.


----------



## LarryBud

Heck JW, if this keeps up, might as well throw some supers on and start watering the garden. the bees are moving around like it's April-do they know something we don't?

seriously, we're less than a month out to the winter solstice


----------



## elmer_fud

I still had some drones today, and I have been seeing some orientation flights on warm days. My bees are spending a lot of time collecting water, I don't think there is anything else for them to find.


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> Are you feeding just plain old granulated sugar?
> 
> As you know, I pulled my top feeders in anticipation of colder weather which never really happened. Here on the east coast, we're seeing highs in the upper 60's and the bees are active. I am concerned that I may have to retreat (rather than a 1 time brood less) AOV. The girls have been very busy with the warmer weather, some are bringing in a white pollen (?) and others appears to be foraging in the leaves on the ground around my property. I am concerned that if they're not productive, that they burn up resources now that might be needed if the weather get cold later on. I'm also seeing what might be orientation flights-are my winter bees turning into foragers and is my queen laying new eggs for another round of winter bees?


Yes, just plain granulated sugar. I take a large mason jar filled with regular sugar and a spritzer filled with water with me.


----------



## JWPalmer

OMG, the grass is still growing! Went out Sunday and gave the girls their Thanksgiving OAV treatment. This is not working out like it is supposed to, all the hives have brood in them. Typically the queen stops laying mid-October and for most of November and early December, the hives are broodless. Not this year. Looks like I will have to treat regularly for the next three weeks to be mite free for the coming Spring. One of the hives that I previously reported as dropping around 100 or so mites continued to drop and now the estimate is around 250 or more. Another hive that will get requeened in March. I cleaned all the boards so I can get good follow-up counts and had to scrape brood capping wax off all of them. Also starting to get dead SHBs on the bottom boards. We have had a few chilly nights where the temps are dropping below freezing, guess the bees would not allow them into the "inner circle" and they got chilled. Looks like it is finally going to start getting cold though after today (63 degrees) so I expect to have more dead beetles soon. Separately, I must have killed close to 50 SHB that came out of one of my nucs. They were all on an end frame so I just shook them onto a telly top and made a mess with the hive tool. Hehehe. Bees did their best to get out of the way so there was no collateral damage.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

JWPalmer said:


> OMG, the grass is still growing! Went out Sunday and gave the girls their Thanksgiving OAV treatment. This is not working out like it is supposed to, all the hives have brood in them. Typically the queen stops laying mid-October and for most of November and early December, the hives are broodless. Not this year. Looks like I will have to treat regularly for the next three weeks to be mite free for the coming Spring. One of the hives that I previously reported as dropping around 100 or so mites continued to drop and now the estimate is around 250 or more. Another hive that will get requeened in March. I cleaned all the boards so I can get good follow-up counts and had to scrape brood capping wax off all of them. Also starting to get dead SHBs on the bottom boards. We have had a few chilly nights where the temps are dropping below freezing, guess the bees would not allow them into the "inner circle" and they got chilled. Looks like it is finally going to start getting cold though after today (63 degrees) so I expect to have more dead beetles soon. Separately, I must have killed close to 50 SHB that came out of one of my nucs. They were all on an end frame so I just shook them onto a telly top and made a mess with the hive tool. Hehehe. Bees did their best to get out of the way so there was no collateral damage.


There are no climate effects, just weird weather the honey bees will adjust too.. It has been really wet, damp and foggy here. Time to mow again and weigh the hives to adjust management efforts and likely another OAV to verify Dead Drop Counts. Good luck.


----------



## jnqpblk

I once had a swarm move into a single 10 frame deep baithive in my apiary. Frames were built comb.
I didn't realize they were there until about a week after they did move in, and by that time, they had filled nearly every cell +-3/4 full of nectar. Noticed literally nectar bound when inspecting every frame after knowing they were there.
Saw nice looking queen during the inspection, but not a single egg.
Simply added a second deep of built/empty-cell frames, and voila, checking the second day after the 2nd deep, gobs of eggs. She simply hadn't any place to lay prior. Maple flow was on heavy, due to prime weather conditions, and them bees were haul'n by the bucket load.


----------



## username00101

Thanks for sharing @JWPalmer.

When my November OAV treatment went out, I did not observe any mite drops in a number of colonies.

The most I saw was perhaps 20.

We did have a rather cold late October.


----------



## LAlldredge

Weekly sugar pour, spritz water check yesterday. Clustered, warm and well fed bees greeted me. Will be ordering long handled Eliot Coleman weeders from Johnnys Seeds. Weeding while standing sounds stinkin awesome. Getting some long delayed allium bulbs next Monday. Hope I can pry up my soil to plant.


----------



## Gray Goose

Did some final wraps yesterday, bubble wrap with strips of old tarps, stapled and tied.
Added some rocks and Bricks to the lids for winter winds.

Planning to start cutting wood for hive builds. looking for deck screws to go on sale.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Played with bees. Big flying day for the 7. Spritzed water on top of their coroplast awning and on the front of their BeeCozy. They were landing on me in an unthreatening way so the challenge was keeping it together when they landed on my head and face (no veil).


----------



## LarryBud

Winter has finally hit New Jersey, it's in the low 30's days and upper 20's at night. I got a shot of AOV ibn both hives and have put the 1" pink foam insulation back on the hives sp hopefully we're in for a long winter's nap. Still have the occasional bee flying out on a cleansing flight but I am assuming they're older foragers on a kamikaze flight of no return. Some dead bees were being pushed out on the sunny days which gave me a chance to look for any mites, DFW or other potential maladies with a magnifying glass, nothing so far and just older bees. Nearing the winter solstice-can spring be that far away?

GOD BLESS TEXAS


----------



## JWPalmer

Indeed, God bless The Republic of Texas! Off topic, but did you see where one of their state legislators slipped and bumped her head? Thinks that criminals deserve to have your stuff.

You can take the man out of Texas, but you can't take Texas out of the man. Native Texan, born and bred.


----------



## LarryBud

Well, we're into the winter rollercoaster! Maybe not quite as crazy as our friends out west experience but just the same nutty weather. 55 F right now, snow two days ago, this morning 28 F. Walked out today at lunch to check the hive and the girls are very active, hundreds flying around the front of the hive and crawling around the boxes. A few landing in the leaves and crawling in, maybe looking for something? And now it looks like one hitchhiked back in the house with me and is buzzing the cat-hours of kitten fun but I'll get a jar and do a catch and return. These bugs....


----------



## LAlldredge

30 degrees- light snow. Peeled burlap back to find warm snug happy colonies. Poured sugar and spritzed with water. Spritzed their water sponges again to rewet them. Water feeding done well is so important here. One day we’ll consider this as important as protein and carbs.

Planning OAV around winter solstice. Glad I got the late arriving allium bulbs in and the rest of the wildflower seeds scattered.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LAlldredge said:


> 30 degrees- light snow. Peeled burlap back to find warm snug happy colonies. Poured sugar and spritzed with water. Spritzed their water sponges again to rewet them. Water feeding done well is so important here. One day we’ll consider this as important as protein and carbs.
> 
> Planning OAV around winter solstice. Glad I got the late arriving allium bulbs in and the rest of the wildflower seeds scattered.


"One day we’ll consider this as important as protein and carbs." Not one day - it is just as important along with "air". Did you know that an bee egg requires both temperature ( 93 -95F) and relative humidity control ( 90 -95%) or it does not develop properly. I have eleven hives being monitored and studying related reports from all over the world. Never thought I would have to revisit my thermodynamics and heat transfer courses at this age. Winter sure is dry, even when snowing or raining. Water is a complex subject btu we now have some tools to help learn "in situ".


----------



## LAlldredge

Robert Holcombe said:


> "One day we’ll consider this as important as protein and carbs." Not one day - it is just as important along with "air". Did you know that an bee egg requires both temperature ( 93 -95F) and relative humidity control ( 90 -95%) or it does not develop properly. I have eleven hives being monitored and studying related reports from all over the world. Never thought I would have to revisit my thermodynamics and heat transfer courses at this age. Winter sure is dry, even when snowing or raining. Water is a complex subject btu we now have some tools to help learn "in situ".


Wouldn't it be something if water research helped reduce losses by another 10-20%? I'd love to see a winter water feeding product that I can fit within my vivaldi board. I like the sponge but I'd rather have a product I can fill with water on top without bees flying out. Modified small Boardman within a quilt board?


----------



## crofter

LAlldredge said:


> Wouldn't it be something if water research helped reduce losses by another 10-20%? I'd love to see a winter water feeding product that I can fit within my vivaldi board. I like the sponge but I'd rather have a product I can fill with water on top without bees flying out. Modified small Boardman within a quilt board?


I played around a bit with capillary tubes to give a slow release of liquids; formic acid focus at the time but it would work as well with water. With the insulation we are considering the space above cluster remains well above freezing.

The plastic tube I was using was about 3/16 " id. and the capillary membrane was simply about an inch wide strip of paper towel rolled into a spaghetti and pulled into the tube. The amount left exposed regulates the feed rate. I believe the ambient relative humidity could be used to feed as needed. I didnt proceed far with it as that was about the time I switched to oxalic acid vapor for mite control.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LAlldredge said:


> Wouldn't it be something if water research helped reduce losses by another 10-20%? I'd love to see a winter water feeding product that I can fit within my vivaldi board. I like the sponge but I'd rather have a product I can fill with water on top without bees flying out. Modified small Boardman within a quilt board?


With no top vent, small bottom entrance area, and foam insulation resistant to water vapor permeation or moisture loss, with 8" of snow on the ground and a rising temperature today (37F), my 9-hive average temperature at the top is 63F at 77% RH - pretty good numbers. This results in a dew point of 56F - no condensation is possible in this area. A solo nuc, similar in hive construction, cannot keep up with the full hive colonies - cannot generate or will not generate the heat necessary . I think they go into a tight cluster mode. It is going to get pretty wet here as a 50F day with rain and then freezing is expected for Christmas day . Enjoy your holidays.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

crofter said:


> I played around a bit with capillary tubes to give a slow release of liquids; formic acid focus at the time but it would work as well with water. With the insulation we are considering the space above cluster remains well above freezing.
> 
> The plastic tube I was using was about 3/16 " id. and the capillary membrane was simply about an inch wide strip of paper towel rolled into a spaghetti and pulled into the tube. The amount left exposed regulates the feed rate. I believe the ambient relative humidity could be used to feed as needed. I didnt proceed far with it as that was about the time I switched to oxalic acid vapor for mite control.


Innovative idea - I have read of a slow release formic - oxalic acid releasse for long term treatments. A strip thing again but I like reusable, no waste, methods.


----------



## Swarmhunter

Robert Holcombe said:


> With no top vent, small bottom entrance area, and foam insulation resistant to water vapor permeation or moisture loss, with 8" of snow on the ground and a rising temperature today (37F), my 9-hive average temperature at the top is 63F at 77% RH - pretty good numbers. This results in a dew point of 56F - no condensation is possible in this area. A solo nuc, similar in hive construction, cannot keep up with the full hive colonies - cannot generate or will not generate the heat necessary . I think they go into a tight cluster mode. It is going to get pretty wet here as a 50F day with rain and then freezing is expected for Christmas day . Enjoy your holidays.


Robert-
Have med. - deep - med. configuration with openings 1/3 the way up the hive. No top openings. Very interested in your temp. and RH readings in your hives through the winter. Wish I had your instrumentation. Could you post your readings as often as possible. I think a lot of us out there would appreciate it. Thank-you!
Jerry


----------



## Swarmhunter

Swarmhunter said:


> Robert-
> Have med. - deep - med. configuration with openings 1/3 the way up the hive. No top openings. Very interested in your temp. and RH readings in your hives through the winter. Wish I had your instrumentation. Could you post your readings as often as possible. I think a lot of us out there would appreciate it. Thank-you!
> Jerry


19 F this morning. No snow this winter yet.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

Swarmhunter said:


> Robert-
> Have med. - deep - med. configuration with openings 1/3 the way up the hive. No top openings. Very interested in your temp. and RH readings in your hives through the winter. Wish I had your instrumentation. Could you post your readings as often as possible. I think a lot of us out there would appreciate it. Thank-you!
> Jerry


Some values: 1) 14 day average from Nov. 26th to Dec.9, 2020 is 72.5 F at 71% RH with a 63F Dew point; peak to peak is 63F to 85F and 65 to 77% RH. 2) with snow on the ground but rising external temperatures I am seeing daily internal temperatures of ~65F at 75%RH. If you want to know more or even help with observations and testing email me, my preferred method of communicating - [email protected]


----------



## LAlldredge

Refreshed their sugar slurry. All 7 alive and looking great. In the top box for warmth and convenient food source. Love being able to check on them. Sponge rewetted as water source. Close to single digits at night. May add a couple more inches in height to the quilt box and more burlap next year but winter config operating great. These are the days when they don’t get out as often.


----------



## Tigger19687

Oh thanks for the reminder. I had checked earlier on the sugar but forgot to nail in the "porch roof" I didn't put on right last month.
We are suppose to get 50-60+ mph winds tonight to tomorrow.

FYI all 3 hives are alive.... 1 bee from each came out p.o'd that I was banging on the door LOL


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LAlldredge said:


> Refreshed their sugar slurry. All 7 alive and looking great. In the top box for warmth and convenient food source. Love being able to check on them. Sponge rewetted as water source. Close to single digits at night. May add a couple more inches in height to the quilt box and more burlap next year but winter config operating great. These are the days when they don’t get out as often.


I have two stand-alone nucs which are insulated. Both started-up at the same time but one di not 'boom" the other did. I syrup fed form the beginning until today - a warm day to be followed by rain tomorrow to wipe out our White Christmas. I removed the syrup feeder from the boomer to reduce hive surface exposure even though insulated, surface area plays a big role. I expected the second nuc to be a dead-out with snow and many days in the 'teens as this hive failed to take and stock up on syrup honey. Surprise it is still alive and witht he warm day there were bees taking syrup that had dribble out of the bottles. At least they are alive and eating something - so I put it back the way it was with a sensor to see if I can tell when it expires or survives under Intensive Care regimen. We are soggy with water after the two snow falls post drought. This is coastal RI and we get all kinds of crazy weather and today we hit the 50's - cleansing flights like mad! I can feel single digits coming.


----------



## LAlldredge

Robert Holcombe said:


> I have two stand-alone nucs which are insulated. Both started-up at the same time but one di not 'boom" the other did. I syrup fed form the beginning until today - a warm day to be followed by rain tomorrow to wipe out our White Christmas. I removed the syrup feeder from the boomer to reduce hive surface exposure even though insulated, surface area plays a big role. I expected the second nuc to be a dead-out with snow and many days in the 'teens as this hive failed to take and stock up on syrup honey. Surprise it is still alive and witht he warm day there were bees taking syrup that had dribble out of the bottles. At least they are alive and eating something - so I put it back the way it was with a sensor to see if I can tell when it expires or survives under Intensive Care regimen. We are soggy with water after the two snow falls post drought. This is coastal RI and we get all kinds of crazy weather and today we hit the 50's - cleansing flights like mad! I can feel single digits coming.


Feed is a great remedy for small hives. Gives them the strength to stay warm. What a boost to find them alive. Well done. Personally I think a hands on approach in winter if done properly is the way to go.


----------



## JWPalmer

The work hive was out flying today, temps got up to 61F but it was raining. Refilled the feeder and wished the girls a Merry Christmas.


----------



## massbee

All of mine are still alive and kicking! Took a peek in. No one needs anything.


----------



## LAlldredge

Winter OAV for the 7. Going for broodless.


----------



## Swarmhunter

-10F on Christmas morning. 33 hives tucked away 1 Nov. Fed heavy 15 Sept.- 15 Oct. Happy with the weights 1 Dec. They had a couple of warm spells in Nov. for cleansing flights. All seem happy today. Won't open until 1 March. Could use some snow around them. Keep on Buzzing!


----------



## massbee

A warm Christmas had all the hives out flying and doing house cleaning. Good to see all up and about.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Refreshed their sugar slurry. All 7 alive and looking great. In the top box for warmth and convenient food source. Love being able to check on them. Sponge rewetted as water source. Close to single digits at night. May add a couple more inches in height to the quilt box and more burlap next year but winter config operating great. These are the days when they don’t get out as often.


Seasons greeting LAII,

on your water idea, what about a long sponge drawer, say 2 of the 2 inch by 4 inch 8 inch sponges, Have the bottom be screen or heavy cloth, Have a ring or rim around the sponges. Pull them out, toss in a bucket, squeese, replace. the ring would be the needful item to pull them out, could be a strip of seat belt like material, the screen floor would prevent rolling bees.

GG


----------



## leadchunker

All of the girls above the floodplain are out flying today. Lost 4 colonies due to flooding. They were swarms from after the latest hurricane that I caught. Very unusual to get extra high tides this time of year and the heavy rains upstream.


----------



## Cloverdale

leadchunker said:


> All of the girls above the floodplain are out flying today. Lost 4 colonies due to flooding. They were swarms from after the latest hurricane that I caught. Very unusual to get extra high tides this time of year and the heavy rains upstream.


The storm here caused local flooding of the West Branch of the Delaware; my hives OK, but another beekeeper lost 9 out of 10 /(due to flooding) and all of their equipment, boxes, frames etc.

This was some of the water on my street:














h


----------



## LarryBud

Wow, I fly fish just to the north of your area. I don't think a lot of people here in the NY metro are realize how big the Delaware Basin is even though its the source of most of NYC's water. I can see it down here (Washington's Crossing) about 2 days later.


----------



## leadchunker

I back filled the area 4 feet after hurricane Florence. Filled in behind the colonies first then moved the entire row then filled in where the row was located. I lost fifty colonies in that yard due to flooding. 
Lost none of the woodware. It was cabled down to prevent the wind from blowing colonies over. I had upper entrances for ventilation so the bees didn’t drown. They absconded, mostly. Couldn’t get to the bee yard for about 3 weeks. A lot of bees gone, a lot of frames shot from wax moth damage. Was a sad time in my bee keeping career.


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> Wow, I fly fish just to the north of your area. I don't think a lot of people here in the NY metro are realize how big the Delaware Basin is even though its the source of most of NYC's water. I can see it down here (Washington's Crossing) about 2 days later.


Where do you fish? And yes the Delaware River is very big; we are West Branch, and East Branch, which flows into the Pepacton Reservoir and into Cannonsville Reservoir, which feeds to NYC. I want to say Beaverkill for trout fishing East Branch area.


----------



## Gray Goose

leadchunker said:


> I back filled the area 4 feet after hurricane Florence. Filled in behind the colonies first then moved the entire row then filled in where the row was located. I lost fifty colonies in that yard due to flooding.
> Lost none of the woodware. It was cabled down to prevent the wind from blowing colonies over. I had upper entrances for ventilation so the bees didn’t drown. They absconded, mostly. Couldn’t get to the bee yard for about 3 weeks. A lot of bees gone, a lot of frames shot from wax moth damage. Was a sad time in my bee keeping career.


Sorry to hear of your loss of bees.

GG


----------



## Cloverdale

leadchunker said:


> I back filled the area 4 feet after hurricane Florence. Filled in behind the colonies first then moved the entire row then filled in where the row was located. I lost fifty colonies in that yard due to flooding.
> Lost none of the woodware. It was cabled down to prevent the wind from blowing colonies over. I had upper entrances for ventilation so the bees didn’t drown. They absconded, mostly. Couldn’t get to the bee yard for about 3 weeks. A lot of bees gone, a lot of frames shot from wax moth damage. Was a sad time in my bee keeping career.


I agree, losing hives is depressing, especially 50! Back in 2016 my yard had AFB, from scale in frame from a nuc I had bought a few years earlier; the frame was very old, black comb, so didn’t use it but still had it stashed away; I used it needing more frames and burned 11 hives with their honey crop. That is when I went sustainable, only buy queens now to try out. I like Mike Palmer’s queens, a few were OK, but most were very good to excellent, gentle bee’s, overwinter nicely and don’t eat much, nice honey producers and seem to stick around unless I screw up and they swarm. Still have to treat them but that’s a given nowadays.


----------



## leadchunker

Temperatures will be up today and for the next few days. Going to get the feeders set up and make some syrup.


----------



## username00101

Localized flooding barely missed flood stage around my apiaries.

I know some beekeepers on the Delaware, I wonder if they lost their hives.


----------



## Cloverdale

Used the FLIR this morning; all look good except the two that didn't  (but I knew that) I only got one image to download, Francis hive, MPalmer queen from last year. This was one of the best queens I was talking about.


----------



## leadchunker

I made 10 gallons of syrup and set up a community feeder at one of my yards today. Darn handle snapped off one of the five gallon buckets in the middle of the pour. So I’m guessing I got a total of 7-8 gallons in the feeder. The rest is on the ground.


----------



## Cloverdale

leadchunker said:


> I made 10 gallons of syrup and set up a community feeder at one of my yards today. Darn handle snapped off one of the five gallon buckets in the middle of the pour. So I’m guessing I got a total of 7-8 gallons in the feeder. The rest is on the ground.


Bummer.


----------



## leadchunker

Yup bummer for sure. I’ll be setting up a feeder in two more yards tomorrow. I’ll take 25 gallons of syrup and top that yard off enroute to the other yards.


----------



## jimbo3

Treated my two hives with OA today. Around 39F. I was afraid both hives were dead as I saw no flight activity the other day when it was over 50F. I've seen them flying in the 40's previously, so I have no idea why they weren't flying with relatively warm weather. I couldn't hear any activity when I banged on the hives, either.

Anyway, the bees didn't like my barging in and greeted me at the entrance on one hive, and a few bees came out after the OA in the other hive, so I at least I know they're not dead.


----------



## leadchunker

Got a late start today. I did get 1 more yard set up with a feeder. Handle pulled out of another bucket. I was ready this time. Picked up the bucket and part of the lip of the bucket snapped off. Well that tells me it’s bucket culling time.


----------



## JWPalmer

leadchunker said:


> Got a late start today. I did get 1 more yard set up with a feeder. Handle pulled out of another bucket. I was ready this time. Picked up the bucket and part of the lip of the bucket snapped off. Well that tells me it’s bucket culling time.


Hmm. Sugar is expensive, 5 gal buckets, even food grade ones at Lowe's, are cheap. I think new buckets are a good idea.


----------



## leadchunker

Got my fourth yard setup with a feeder today. Bees were out foraging for pollen. Checked the weight on a colony with little activity. Nice and heavy and very active all the sudden like. Lol


----------



## LarryBud

Hmm. Sugar is expensive, 5 gal buckets, even food grade ones at Lowe's, are cheap. I think new buckets are a good idea. 

This is probably a good one for the "You know you're a beekeeper..." thread. You know your a beekeeper when you know the prices of 5 gallon food grade buckets at Lowes!

Today we hit a round 50 degrees F so I went out to check the hive, stick in some protein patties and to just check the general population. I had been worried since the big die-off after that snow store a few weeks ago that perhaps my hives were having some issues. the girls were out with the warm sun doing their happy dance around the entrance. When I popped open the first one (bad term) which and the top frames we're packed with bees. The patties that I had put in last month were just about gone (lucky timing) and there were some many bees that I had to recover the hive briefly and get a brush and smoker out so I could lay the patty on the frame tops. i did notice a couple of SHB on that top frame, not sure how to deal with them in early January-any thoughts? The next week looks like highs around 40 degrees F with night lows in the lower 20 degrees F. I was hoping to let them "bee" for the next few weeks until another warm spell. At least the colonies are strong going into the cold part of winter-60 days or so until the early pollen starts and I'm hoping to split all of the hives as early as possible with some new queens and nuc's ordered. Happy New Year All and thank you for all of the help and advice. Best regards.


----------



## Cloverdale

Well got the FLIR going again and a big surprise! We have a small apiary at a friends where strange stuff happens with the bees often, usually 2 hives. First a small swarm, maybe 2 frames, moved into a swarm box sitting forgotten and grew, yielded some honey and is doing well.







Thenthis past year a hive requeen and swarmed again and had the NASTIEST bees ever when trying to capture, stung all over, so left them and hopefully the swarm died. The mother colony dwindled (didn’t want those bees) and finally had no bees but honey. Kept the hive up to split the swarm hive in the Spring. Now, here is an image of the “empty” hive!







Looks like bees right?


----------



## LarryBud

Cloverdale said:


> Well got the FLIR going again and a big surprise! We have a small apiary at a friends where strange stuff happens with the bees often, usually 2 hives. First a small swarm, maybe 2 frames, moved into a swarm box sitting forgotten and grew, yielded some honey and is doing well.
> View attachment 61624
> Thenthis past year a hive requeen and swarmed again and had the NASTIEST bees ever when trying to capture, stung all over, so left them and hopefully the swarm died. The mother colony dwindled (didn’t want those bees) and finally had no bees but honey. Kept the hive up to split the swarm hive in the Spring. Now, here is an image of the “empty” hive!
> View attachment 61625
> Looks like bees right?


That is so cool-where did you get that and how much did it cost?


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> That is so cool-where did you get that and how much did it cost?


Thank you, I am grateful to have this, it’s a big help and others use it for questionable hives. A gift about 4 yrs ago; it attaches to an older Samsung phone I believe my husband paid $250? I think. Back to bees, I wonder if a swarm moved into that empty hive, late October. I’ve had swarms survive late but it that late. We’ll see. I’m going to take a peek tomorrow, before the snow.


----------



## LarryBud

Thank you, looks like a great tool.

i forgo to add that when i did my quick inspection today and opened the hive (removed quilt box) i noticed that the girls were still building some burr come between the top brood and the quilt box. Not a lot oif room in there and I had purposely scrapped most of he previous comb off last month when I first put in the winter patties. So much for the idea they don't build comb after July or only when it's warm. I'm also thinking that my queens are sill laying and I'm having a non-broodless winter-the frames were packed-in January. I'm going to continue with OAV as we go, it's still along way until Spring.


----------



## JWPalmer

LarryBud said:


> That is so cool-where did you get that and how much did it cost?


The swarm came in on it's own and didn't cost a dime. Oh, I bet you were asking about the FLIR, not the bees. I thought the bees was the cool part.


----------



## leadchunker

Yup that FLIR comes in handy. My wife gave me one for Christmas year before last.


----------



## LAlldredge

Pulled burlap back, refreshed sugar slurry around the colonies and spritzed water on their sponge. Really sold on water feeding. No losses. Saves them foraging time. Just ordered a two tier LED light stand for seedling starting. $$$ Will use that combined with winter sowing and direct sow. Just like a beekeeper to overthink everything. Ordered the rest of my seeds (yeah right) from Swallowtail Nursery. Glad 2020 is in the rear view. 

My biggest lesson for 2020- remain flexible and listen to what the bees are telling you to do.


----------



## JWPalmer

Not actually in the apiary but, I was successful this year in ordering two queens from New River Honey Bees. Last year the online ordering started at 12:01 on 1/1/20 and I did not try until about 6 am, only to find him sold out already. I am getting the New River Caucasian Rep. of Georgia line and hope to mate their daughters with the Caucasian/Carnica hybrids I currently have. Hybrids sound so much better than mutts, no? Wife and I will plan a (long) day trip and drive to Calvin, WV from Richmond, about 290 miles each way, to fetch them when they are ready.

Just went back to the website 40 minutes later and all production queens appear to be sold out already. They went fast! Breeder queens are all still available at this time.


----------



## elmer_fud

My wife got me an endoscope camera so I used it to check my hives today. 1 was flying, I found moving bees in 2 with the camera, I heard noise from one when I opened the top, and the last one is inside and still alive. 

hmm, I can't attach a 5 second video to this post, oh well


----------



## LarryBud

Just went out to check on the ives this morning, it 29 degrees F outside, clear and sun's rising. A few dead's on the landing board, they're pushing them out through the mouse guards. Did you know that on one of the hive, one of the girl, peaked out and flew off. Where's she going? To a sure and certain death? I fed winter patties a week ago when we had a day in the upper 40's F and the hives were packed. Not sure what she was thinking.


----------



## Swarmhunter

LarryBud said:


> Just went out to check on the ives this morning, it 29 degrees F outside, clear and sun's rising. A few dead's on the landing board, they're pushing them out through the mouse guards. Did you know that on one of the hive, one of the girl, peaked out and flew off. Where's she going? To a sure and certain death? I fed winter patties a week ago when we had a day in the upper 40's F and the hives were packed. Not sure what she was thinking.


Same thing here. 27 degrees.Everytime it gets up around freezing there's a few dead bees around on the snow. One flew onto my boot today. Hives had a ton of bees in them yet in Nov. I think there is still a lot of Summer bees being pushed out yet. 31 of 33 still making noise though. Supposed to be a real cold spell by next weekend. I'm already thinking about Spring. Got more Nuc boxes painted.


----------



## LarryBud

Went out around noon-38 degrees F and the girls in both hives were out if force. Looks like the older foragers-which would be(?) late November brood, were all around the yard flying, buzzing loudly, landing on the ground and house, dancing in front of the hives. Not what I'd expect, could see my breath. Both hives were doing house cleaning, some debris and dead bees-not a lot but some. Just checked and the boards are clean and the bees are back inside. I'm gonna guess the more experienced Beeks are laughing say yep, that's what happens.


----------



## Cloverdale

Cloverdale said:


> Well got the FLIR going again and a big surprise! We have a small apiary at a friends where strange stuff happens with the bees often, usually 2 hives. First a small swarm, maybe 2 frames, moved into a swarm box sitting forgotten and grew, yielded some honey and is doing well.
> View attachment 61624
> Thenthis past year a hive requeen and swarmed again and had the NASTIEST bees ever when trying to capture, stung all over, so left them and hopefully the swarm died. The mother colony dwindled (didn’t want those bees) and finally had no bees but honey. Kept the hive up to split the swarm hive in the Spring. Now, here is an image of the “empty” hive!
> View attachment 61625
> Looks like bees right?


Well the empty hive,image above, is definitely empty. I was quite surprised. Curious that it showed the same image yesterday; the bottom box and top box are lighter pink, middle box is dark dusty purple. I guess it holds more warmth (darker color) contrary to what was discussed on Bee-l. I thought the image would appear but it didn’t. I’ll try again.


----------



## Gray Goose

The image is fairly consistent across the whole hive.
A "Live" one has a hot center, , fading to lighter at the edges.

Also try to image at dust or dawn, when there is less likely sun effect.

there is "tuning" on the Flir as well

GG


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> Well the empty hive,image above, is definitely empty.


That is interesting, Deb. Is the middle box a different color or having a different surface finish than the other two?


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> That is interesting, Deb. Is the middle box a different color or having a different surface finish than the other two?


Hi Russ, yes, I thought it was mice. Top and bottom boxes are lighter pink, middle box is darker dusty purple. There was a small discussion on Bee-l regarding box color and retpaining heat, the consensus being it didn’t matter much. The image was taken on a cloudy day, and when I looked yesterday it was again cloudy, same image appeared.


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> Top and bottom boxes are lighter pink, middle box is darker dusty purple.


Thanks for clarifying. I had erroneously assumed the colors you were referring to were the color rendering coming from your thermal camera.


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> Thanks for clarifying. I had erroneously assumed the colors you were referring to were the color rendering coming from your thermal camera.


OK Russ; what strikes me is I havent noticed this before. Sometimes when a cluster is smaller near the back of the box it “glows” muted somewhat, instead of the bright center you see in a bigger cluster. This looked like it had littler brighter spots spread out. My opinion. 🙂


----------



## LAlldredge

Refreshed sugar slurry in all 7 and dodged the flying bees at 50 degrees. Since its sunny and warm I spritzed the front of their bee cozy and awning to give them more water to forage. All look healthy. Starting seeds indoors. First is lisianthus, lavender, echinacea and columbine. Beautiful day here in the mountains.


----------



## elmer_fud

I checked the hive that I brought inside, and it is not doing well. It is way down in size, and had wax moths so I moved it to a smaller box with mostly new frames. At this point I am not sure they are going to make it thru the winter, but I was sort of looking at it as a learning experience when i started it. The moths got a blow torch test. 

I treated my hives outside with OAV. I scraped out space for the OAV wand and some small seeds came out with the dead bees in 2 of the hives. I am not sure if the bees brought in some seeds for some reason, if the wind blew them in, or if a mouse tried getting in there at some point. I did not see any big chunks of of wax, mouse poop, or other signs of mice actually living in the hives, so I think they are ok until spring.


----------



## JWPalmer

It got up close enough to 50, don't know the exact temp, for me to check on the hives today. All the colonies are still alive. The smallest hive going into winter now appears to be queenless, no brood and a small cluster. The five over five deep nuc is absolutely packed with bees (still had a few drones in it that must have overwintered), as are most of the other hives, and even the little nuc has a small patch of brood in it. All the of the other hives that I pulled frames on had capped brood and I spotted several of the queens. The purpose for going in was to check food stores, add feeding shims, and pollen patties. Two of the hives had a pretty significant number of SHB so I reduced those numbers with a hive tool. Mass carnage on the adjacent hive tops. Yuck. 200-300 dead from a single hive.

Got my first sting of the year when one of the girls crawled up my leg and got me on the ankle. (Covid-19 booster shot) 

After coming back in from the beeyard, I found the box with my new Apimaye hive sitting on the front porch. It is a good day.


----------



## Litsinger

JWPalmer said:


> I found the box with my new Apimaye hive sitting on the front porch.


JW:

I have always been intrigued by these hives- I'll be interested to hear about your experience with it and how it compares side-by-side to your other set-ups.


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> JW:
> 
> I have always been intrigued by these hives- I'll be interested to hear about your experience with it and how it compares side-by-side to your other set-ups.


Me too.


----------



## Ranger N

South Carolina here. 59 degrees and mostly sunny with 9 mph SW winds. Removed the honey super on each hive and completed the last round of OA treatment on one bee yard. I do my OA treatments from the top with a 3inch shim with lexan covering the top so I can observe the burn. I seem to get great results this way. I was impressed on how many bees were still in the hives. They have just started moving the honey from the super down or removing the cappings from the lower half of 6-7 frames anyway. Looks like I will make it to the maple and redbud bloom. I probably should check again in mid march to be sure. I did not go into the two lower boxes, but did observe a few frames of honey down in the second medium. Bees looked healthy and active even coming in with pollen from somewhere. I am presuming from winter camellias? I know they are hitting the several I have around the house.I will do the finals burn on the hives here at the house next thursday as it is supposed to be around 60. I will probably take a look at a lower box or 2 that day if it does get that warm. Anyone around this area getting similar results? 

JW, what are your initial thoughts on the Apimaye hive? 
Thanks everyone


----------



## JWPalmer

I think it is well made and is fairly heavy, which is good. Debating putting a small nuc ito it now vs waiting to do the mating nuc challenge in another month or so. I will make a decision by this weekend. One month in the insulated hive might get them built up enough to transfer back into a five frame box.


----------



## Swarmhunter

I'd sure like to start thinking of looking at the bees. -1 degree this morning here in eastern Iowa. Looks like this cold air is headed east this week. Winter is not letting up here.


----------



## LAlldredge

Snow 4-6 inches. Checked the kids. Pulled back the burlap to add to their sugar slurry. Even at 31 degrees not a big deal to open the top of the stack for a minute. Rewetted their water sponge. All 7 look great and active. Having a vivaldi board setup helps to take the anxiety off during winter. Not theirs, mine.


----------



## LAlldredge

Replenished sugar slurry and spritzed water sponge. All 7 alive and feeding. One of my resource hive colonies is on the smallish size from the top. Sprinkled a little dry pollen on their slurry just in case I'm dealing with a nutritional imbalance or they need it for starting brood. Way too early to look inside. In the future I'll have a small section for dry pollen sub in addition to their water sponge and slurry area. Open feed dry pollen window just ahead in February.


----------



## LarryBud

I am so doing those Vivaldi boxes next year. I looked at my hives and they are just pink foam covered boxes. Just around 5-10 dead bees on the landing board and no activity in a week or so with the exception of one bee that flew out a couple of days ago, taking a few loops and then disappearing over the neighbors house. Figured it was a suicide mission, 27 degree afternoon. Watching all of the neighbors getting ready for snow-mageddon, up to 20" expected and light snow just started. Me? I got 2 boxes of Oreos and plenty of coffee. Me and the dog (Hey Get Over Here) are planning on doing a lot of reading-well, I'll do the reading and the dog will share the Oreos.


----------



## JWPalmer

Temps got up into the high 50's here today. Tomorrow snow. Next week the lows will be around 11 degrees F. Checked on the bees and found that the small nuc starved on brood and was being robbed out. Another hive that was small and which I suspected was queenless also starved out with no stores anywhere. The remaining 10 hives and 1 nuc are looking good, both in number of bees and hive weight. The pollen feeder was very active. I expect to start making splits in about three weeks, at least the one split that will create my cell builder. Hope to be grafting by the second week of March.


----------



## Ranger N

JW, we were in the mid 50s today our selves. checked on bee yard and the they look like they are getting low on light on stores. Ended up adding a pollen patty to each and also added a couple of cups of sugar on top of the inner cover. got my 1st sting of the new year as well. 2 to be exact. tomorrow I will check the other yard and do the same I reckon. So far, knock on wood, all the hives in the yard today look strong on bee population. Keeping my fingers crossed.. Will see how tomorrow ends up...


----------



## Ranger N

Update on my other yard. The temp today was mid 50s and sunny again. Opened the hives here today and to my surprise all hives have good populations of bees. These hives as well have almost gone through a medium super of food. I went ahead and placed a cup of pure cane sugar with a small amount of pollen substitute mixed in on top of the inner cover around the opening. I was extremely pleased with the amount of bees in the 5x5x5 medium nucs. They look great and it appears I am going to have to keep a close eye on them between now and the middle of March. These are my first overwintered nucs so I dont have much experience with them. The elders at the bee club encouraged me to transfer them to 10 frame hives last fall as they thought they would not make it. Well, knock on wood, they are looking pretty good. 

Does anyone have any advice going forward with what I should be aware of for the nucs to keep a watch out for? I have not put a feeder on them only the raw sugar/pollen mix on the inner cover. Any suggestions are definitely welcome. My goal with the nucs is to use them in the spring for comb building and providing splits for additional nucs. Any thoughts? 

One more question; Can I take a split (3 frames of mixed brood w/bees and the queen from my big hives to make a split and still get a good honey crop from the main hives while they are making a queen, additionally preventing swarming?

Thanks...


----------



## althea

Just east of JW in Richmond Va, Popped the tops on All 15 hives and the 5 overwintered Nucs yesterday. Results-
14 of 15 hives alive with all but 1 of those looking really good. 1 looks like it is just limping along, we shall see.
4 of the 5 overwintered Nucs look really strong and will need to be put in full size hives during the maple bloom i suspect. Last overwintered Nucs is small and not doing much.

As a bonus Saturday was the first day this year I saw all but the week nuc bringing in a significant amount of pollen. With all the bees flying dead east to the river flood plains I suspect something is in bloom in the bottom.


----------



## LarryBud

Althea-you may be getting the first pollen from Skunk Cabbage in the wetlands, that's usually the first up here in February. I'm 300 miles or so north and I doubt we'll see much activity anytime soon after a brief warm up last week. We just got 7" of snow yesterday on top of the 20" last week and the forecast for the next two weeks has us barely hitting above freezing as highs.


----------



## LarryBud

I'm looking out the window at my hives and there appears to be a handful of dead bees in the fresh snow. When we had a short warm up last week after the last snow, they were out con cleansing flights but it looked like several hundred dead in the then fresh snow. I am insulated with 1" pink foam panels, a 4" vented quilt box and a 1" foam panel over the quilt box. Am I keeping the inside temps artificially high and stimulating the cluster to shed some bees or something else. The quick inspection last week during the warm up last week showed plenty of stores and population. Are they just thinning out the herd? Last OAV was Jan 17th. but I'm not convinced they're broodless.


----------



## username00101

The dead bees in the snow = healthy normal colony.


----------



## LAlldredge

50 degrees sunny and all the flying kids are out prior to our snow storm (8-12 expected). Opened the stacks, refreshed slurry, dry pollen and spritzed their sponges. Put out paper grocery bag with dry pollen in it. Cut a big U in the top for access. Put plate of warmish water with more sponges outside of hives. Sponges prevent drowning. Making sure everyone is fed and snug.


----------



## username00101

The only bee related activity I've partaken in recently is shrew tracking in the fresh snow.

No obvious evidence of shrews entering the colonies at this point, but they're still out there...


----------



## LarryBud

Snow keeps coming, very unusual for February which is our driest month- a couple of feet on the ground. That's really rare here. Temps continue to hover overnight in the teens with highs in the mid twenties. Forecasts for the next ten days is pretty much the same with some alternating snow storms in the mix. When the melt comes, make sure your hives are out of the flood plains! My hive are pretty much (finally) in for the long winters nap. I had check the winter patties a week or so ago and they haven't been touched-the boxes were still heavy with decent and active populations- 4 more weeks and maybe we made it.


----------



## JWPalmer

We are going to be back in the 50's in two weeks, just in time to start some grafts, assuming I have capped drones. For now, more snow is in the immediate future. Spring is soooooo close for us in VA.


----------



## althea

JWPalmer said:


> We are going to be back in the 50's in two weeks, just in time to start some grafts, assuming I have capped drones. For now, more snow is in the immediate future. Spring is soooooo close for us in VA.


Yep right around the 22nd back into the mid to high 50’s. Maple bloom by March 1-4 I bet and we are off to the races. So close am ready.


----------



## LAlldredge

Post snow storm- rapidly melting. All 7 hives fine and snacking. Added to their slurry, water and dry pollen. Temps going back up. Major soil blocking seed starting going on in the house in my 3 tier LED light stand system. Love that light setup. Bantams (Skipper, Zipper, Polo, Buttercup, Lucy Lou, Eva, Peanut and Sweet Pea) good, mini donk Daisy & tennessee walker Cloud decided to eat their way through the storm.


----------



## massbee

Riding out the February snowstorms this year apparently. Hives are quiet, the occasional dead bee in the snow out front. Should be 40 degrees tomorrow and looking forward to getting a peek under the lids to check the sugar supply.


----------



## little_john

We've been snowed-in for the last seven days, with day-time temperatures well below zero - which is unusual for the UK. In contrast, yesterday was shirt-sleeve weather, and it was good to see the bees flying again. 100% winter survival so far - but then, it's only mid-February ...
LJ (who isn't counting his chickens ... just yet  )


----------



## JWPalmer

LJ, good to see you posting again. Agree, still too early to be counting chickens.


----------



## Ranger N

50 degrees and clear finally. Opened the hives and NUC here at the house. Nuc looks to be getting a little crowded even though it is in a 5x5x5 frame medium. All of the cane sugar w/ dry pollen mixed in on the inner cover was gone. Placed another cup of the mix on top and closed it up. Happy with the nuc. Big hives were still working on the cane sugar w/ pollen mix, added another dose and closed them up as well. Will get to out yard on sunday weather permitting. Next week looks to be in the 60s and will start reversing boxes and checker boarding then.  Looks like spring is right around the corner here. Fingers crossed...


----------



## massbee

Poked my head in for some disappointing results. Two hives dead out. One looks like they had gotten caught out of their cluster in a temp drop. They are all around the edges of the hive at the top near the edges of the dry sugar.
The other which was alive and well three weeks ago was dead in their same location I last saw them in the middle of their sugar cake. Small cluster underneath. This hive also struggled with pests all year so I’m sure that they have some underlying issues.
Good news, the hive I expected not to make it at all this year greeted me with a buzz when I peaked in. They continue to surprise me. One more hive I think is still ok. Not at the top, but always a few dead bees in the snow every few days there. We shall see.


----------



## Ranger N

Mass bee, sorry to hear about your losses. I keep hearing from Bee keepers in my area losing hive after hive. this winter. seems peculiar. I just spoke with a feller today and he has lost 6 of 10 hives. Very frustrating to keep hearing this. I still have to go out to another location where I have hives this weekend and sure hope they are healthy. Last time I checked them 3 weeks ago they were still looking good. I will see this Sunday...


----------



## massbee

I hope it goes well Ranger. Sometimes overwintering is a crapshoot here. I thought I had made it over the hump. Meanwhile, the guy I mentored all year has his two hives nice and strong so ... _shrug_


----------



## LarryBud

Looks like at least another week of cold, below freezing here in NJ and still almost a foot of snow on the ground. We had a slight warm up yesterday into the upper 40's F when the sun broke through. I've been worried about a die off seeing a lot of dead bees in the snow and the landing board covered with dead ones. As the day went on, the girl came out in forces and were doing cleansing flights, with a few just flying out and dying in the snow. All of my hives were active and even with the sever weather this year, I think I've had brood all winter. I put out a plate with a tablespoon of dry pollen on top of one hive just to see how they react and they took to it pretty strongly. Lots' of stained snow (between the dead bees) so they must be eating. By the end of the day, they had cleaned off all of the anding boards but there must be a few hundred dead laying around. Just a few more weeks-hopefully-waiting for the fat lady to sing.


----------



## Swarmhunter

-15F to -20F tis last week- would be nice to see above 0 again. N.E. Iowa


----------



## JWPalmer

Swarmhunter said:


> -15F to -20F tis last week- would be nice to see above 0 again. N.E. Iowa


Had to go to Flagler Beach, FL for work this week. Having trouble with these 70 degree temps. 😁. Be back in VA soon enough that I won't manage to get used to the warm weather.


----------



## AR1

I really do wonder what this weather is doing to the population of Africanized bees in TX and other parts of the South.


----------



## Ranger N

Mid 50s & sunny today in SC. Took a peak in hives at my other bee yard today. Bees look pretty good. they had gone through the cane sugar mixed w/ pollen on the inner cover. Added another helping to each. Bees were active and almost every bee coming in had pollen. It is supposed to be in the mid 60s Wed & Thurs this next week. I plan on manipulating frames and brood boxes to get a good judge of where the hives are at for the flow that is right around the corner....
Hope everyone else is finally seeing some positive signs as well..


----------



## little_john

JWPalmer said:


> LJ, good to see you posting again. Agree, still too early to be counting chickens.


Thanks.

Lots of activity today ('shirt-sleeve' weather is persisting) - spotted the first pollen coming in: orange, so I guess it's from snow-drops, as nothing else is in flower right now, afaik. Could be an early start ? On the other hand ...
LJ


----------



## LarryBud

It's always that "other hand" that gets ya!


----------



## Tim KS

Okay.......I've been busy lately and haven't visited for awhile....election years can do that to me. All I have to say is that I didn't like the outcome, but can't seem to make any difference. 

Then winter comes along with low temps like -17º for a few weeks and 5-10º for daytime highs. Geeez, I hope that's done for this year.

Finally a quick warm up into the low 60's today.....ah. I popped the lids on my 20 colonies today and find that their sugar in nearly gone. I put out a couple of cardboard nuc boxes with pollen substitute and the bees are going crazy over them. Tomorrow I'll be adding sugar brick to make sure they don't starve until we get something to bloom here.

The colonies (2) in my one long lang.......1-1. The larger of the two looks dead. I haven't had time to dig into it yet, but it looks like they may have lost their queen late last fall and their numbers dwindled down to too small a cluster to avoid freezing last week. The smaller colony looks like it's going great.

House cleaning day for the bees today. They are throwing out dead bees by the hundreds and even some brood that froze to death. I hope today is the light at the end of the 2020 tunnel. I guess I can live with a 5% casualty rate...if the rest survive for a few more weeks. Come on summer......


----------



## ursa_minor

This is my first winter with bees. I ended up with 3 layens hives, one bought, one split, and one cut out. After 14 straight days of -30C to -40C nights we have had a 3 day warm up and today it was a very windy + 5C. At least one of my hives is alive and a few came out in the sun. I think the smaller cut out is dead and the other hive is a question mark as +5C is still quite cold for a cleansing flight and the high winds were not good.


----------



## Gray Goose

to the question about the Africanized bees

maybe making them more winter hardy so they can continue the trek north ....

GG


----------



## Tim KS

Gray Goose said:


> about the Africanized bees
> maybe making them more winter hardy so they can continue the trek north ....
> 
> GG



...or maybe to freeze them out and back them up a bit.


----------



## Gray Goose

Tim KS said:


> ...or maybe to freeze them out and back them up a bit.


 hmm could be
but nature is a funny thing.
Ok so if 75% of them freeze out the 25% left are "cold tolerant" now they swarm and retake the empty hive spaces from the 75% and they may be ready for a new push.

or Not,, this is a 1 off, several years of this would be a better predictor.
And in My opinion a week of cold is not a bee slaying vector.

food for thought at any rate.

GG


----------



## Gray Goose

Had 3 hives break cluster yesterday and 2 the day before _Ahh the smell of bee poop in the spring_.
Also herd some birds chirpin not here all winter, we maybe on the cusp of spring here. Give them a week then start hauling in the dead outs and getting the traps ready with the darkest comb. And feed the light ones.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

We hit 55 F today and all of the girls were flyn'. Looks like all of the hives have made it but I don't think the Fat Lady has sung yet. I'd feel better in three weeks or so when the temps might justify putting the top feeders on and maybe start hitting OAV. Gotta lot of work to get done in the next month.


----------



## massbee

Nearly 50 today and the upper entrances were being used exclusively for much needed cleansing flights.


----------



## Ranger N

72 degrees yesterday in SC. Manipulated the hives here at the house. Reversed brood boxes, Pulled a few frames and replaced with foundationless frames consolidated brood and moved queens to the bottom box. Checker boarded a medium super on each of them. still had 2-3 frames of honey . Bees look good. Small amount of brood in each. Saw eggs as well.

Got into my overwintered nuc and started manipulating it in the same manner. 5x5x5 medium nuc. Checker boarded the 5 frame medium. Got to top 5 frame brood box found capped brood both drone and worker 2nd frame in. Found UNMARKED queen on middle frame so thought that they superseded my OHB blue marked queen. Pulled the frame she was on and put in a box for safe keeping. Got to the frame on the outside and LOW AND BEHOLD, The Blue dot queen fat and happy????? Ended up pulling a second frame of brood a couple of honey and pollen frames and put the unmarked queen in another nuc with a couple of shakes of bees. Both queens look healthy and fat. 

So I split the NUC I think a couple of weeks early.
FIRST, How are 2 queens in the same Nuc? There is no old queen cells or even queen cups in this nuc?
SECOND, What are the chances of the unmarked queen nuc surviving? I think if I keep an eye on them they will be OK.

.














Looks like mature queen to me. Your thoughts.... Thanks for any advice, opinions and comments/suggestions.


----------



## Gray Goose

Ranger N said:


> 72 degrees yesterday in SC. Manipulated the hives here at the house. Reversed brood boxes, Pulled a few frames and replaced with foundationless frames consolidated brood and moved queens to the bottom box. Checker boarded a medium super on each of them. still had 2-3 frames of honey . Bees look good. Small amount of brood in each. Saw eggs as well.
> 
> Got into my overwintered nuc and started manipulating it in the same manner. 5x5x5 medium nuc. Checker boarded the 5 frame medium. Got to top 5 frame brood box found capped brood both drone and worker 2nd frame in. Found UNMARKED queen on middle frame so thought that they superseded my OHB blue marked queen. Pulled the frame she was on and put in a box for safe keeping. Got to the frame on the outside and LOW AND BEHOLD, The Blue dot queen fat and happy????? Ended up pulling a second frame of brood a couple of honey and pollen frames and put the unmarked queen in another nuc with a couple of shakes of bees. Both queens look healthy and fat.
> 
> So I split the NUC I think a couple of weeks early.
> FIRST, How are 2 queens in the same Nuc? There is no old queen cells or even queen cups in this nuc?
> SECOND, What are the chances of the unmarked queen nuc surviving? I think if I keep an eye on them they will be OK.
> 
> .
> View attachment 62244
> View attachment 62245
> 
> 
> Looks like mature queen to me. Your thoughts.... Thanks for any advice, opinions and comments/suggestions.


superceded last fall.
watch the old queen she may or may not be laying, if you "like" her you may get more QCs

GG


----------



## Ranger N

Gray Goose said:


> superceded last fall.
> watch the old queen she may or may not be laying, if you "like" her you may get more QCs
> 
> GG


GG so you are saying that the Blue dot queen, introduced 7/2020 was superseded in the fall and stayed in the nuc throughout the winter?
I will keep an eye on her and check back in a few days to look for eggs. Thanks...


----------



## Cloverdale

Do you think the unmarked queen is mated? She looks like a virgin....


----------



## Gray Goose

Ranger N said:


> GG so you are saying that the Blue dot queen, introduced 7/2020 was superseded in the fall and stayed in the nuc throughout the winter?
> I will keep an eye on her and check back in a few days to look for eggs. Thanks...


yes exactually..... 

so if they did not like her, and superceded,, they "May" try again.
IF both splits have eggs in a week or so you are good to go, But the new Queen may be unmated, and the old Queen may be failing, no guarantees on either, they both may be fine as well.
But keep an eye on the old one to monitor supercedure, and make sure the new one has worker brood.

Read an article from a keeper who noticed a nice large supercedure cell, he took it and formed a NUC as it was from a hive he liked. The bees then supercede attempted again, Fast forward by fall he had 6 queens from this one before she finally failed. This could be an interesting one to watch and get a queen or 2 if you need them.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

In the final stretch- So far so good. We're in the tricky starvation bracket before blooms. Playbook continues to be twice weekly slurry check, dry pollen and spritz water sponge. I had fantastic stock to start my sustainable apiary so as long as I can keep the line going I should be good. I'd like to add to the genetic pool at some point but favor their own supercedure decisions. Right now I'm dealing with very early fungus ghats in my seedlings. Spritzed mix of hydrogen peroxide and water this am, drying out between waterings and brewing chamomile tea as a diluted drench in the coming days. Having great success with soil blocking so far. 

My earliest bee mentor used chamomile tea bags in his sugar syrup and called it bee tea. I'm reading that it's a natural fungicide. Wondering if the fungicide property helps the bee digestive tract.


----------



## AHudd

I plan on doing an OAV treatment today. I finished my post deep freeze inspections yesterday. Generally by this time of the year there are quite a few full frames of brood.
Saturday, from the outside I could see many dead bees and pupae on the bottom boards that were being dragged out. By Tuesday they had completed the clean-up and the temperature was supposed to climb into the 70's so I decided to have a much needed look inside. There were only small patches of capped brood in most of the hives, but some larger patches in a couple. I also found some cells being uncapped that looked to be almost ready to emerge. It looks as though they got caught with too much brood to cover successfully. There were many eggs, but precious few larvae of any stages.
The good news is that they are all alive with plenty of stores, yet much smaller clusters and amounts of brood that I expect for this time of year. One of the 5 Frame nucs is very weak. I suspect I will be combining some colonies soon.
This will likely slow their swarm preps.
I may do two rounds of OAV just to make the most of the situation.

Alex

Alex


----------



## Surviving Our Bees

OAV yesterday winter clean up. Preferably, very low mite counts after the OAV.


----------



## Ranger N

Cloverdale said:


> Do you think the unmarked queen is mated? She looks like a virgin....


That is what I thought initially, but I saw zero signs of any hatched old queen cells or queen cups on 15 frames. Additionally, now that I have studied the pics I am thinking the unmarked one is plump and rolling along. To be sure I agree with GG and will check back in a week to see if there are eggs in both nucs. I think it is a good problem to have, hopefully...


----------



## AHudd

Tim KS said:


> ...or maybe to freeze them out and back them up a bit.


Like fire ants and SHB, probably. One step back, three steps forward.

Alex


----------



## jimbo3

My 2 hives were flying more today at 40F than they were 10 degrees warmer a few months ago. I thought they might be dead then and also knocked on them a couple of weeks ago and heard nothing. Put 4 lbs of mountain camp on each one and received my first sting of the year. Ungrateful b*****s. I was smart enough to put a veil on but not smart enough for gloves or a smoker. The itching has now started and wondering how much my hand will swell up.

Didn't do any inspection, but there were a ton of bees at the top of one hive (the one I didn't receive the sting, actually). I was going to wait for the snow to melt more and maybe be warmer out to put the sugar on, but I'm glad I didn't.

Will hit them with OA this Sunday maybe.


----------



## AHudd

I did a round of OAV today. 
The bees are bringing in a lot of pollen.
















Alex


----------



## Ranger N

77 and sunny to day in South Carolina. 
I had posted 5 days ago about finding 2 queens in an overwintered Nuc. What I ended up doing that day was taking the unmarked queen with a frame of mixed brood and eggs, a frame of pollen and a couple of frames of honey and a couple of shakes of nurse bees and placed in another 5 frame medium Nuc. For the past 5 days I noticed No bees coming and going from the new Nuc.

Today, I took a peek in the top and saw that there was only about a half of frame of bees. Apparently a lot of the bees flew back to the original Nuc. So, I went back to the original Nuc and pulled a frame of nurse bees and shook them into the new Nuc. Then I checked both for queen cells and saw eggs in both Nucs. (I am still puzzled how 2 queens could be in the same 5 frame Nuc.) Anyway, I decided to swap the Nucs locations today at 1pm to try and get some foragers and more bees in the New Nuc. I will check back in a week to see if both queens are still laying. Only then will I be convinced that both are good to go.

What an interesting way to start off the new year..


----------



## Cloverdale

Well, here in the snowy cold western Catskill Mountains robins were seen yesterday. Yay!


----------



## Cloverdale

Ranger N said:


> 77 and sunny to day in South Carolina.
> I had posted 5 days ago about finding 2 queens in an overwintered Nuc. What I ended up doing that day was taking the unmarked queen with a frame of mixed brood and eggs, a frame of pollen and a couple of frames of honey and a couple of shakes of nurse bees and placed in another 5 frame medium Nuc. For the past 5 days I noticed No bees coming and going from the new Nuc.
> 
> Today, I took a peek in the top and saw that there was only about a half of frame of bees. Apparently a lot of the bees flew back to the original Nuc. So, I went back to the original Nuc and pulled a frame of nurse bees and shook them into the new Nuc. Then I checked both for queen cells and saw eggs in both Nucs. (I am still puzzled how 2 queens could be in the same 5 frame Nuc.) Anyway, I decided to swap the Nucs locations today at 1pm to try and get some foragers and more bees in the New Nuc. I will check back in a week to see if both queens are still laying. Only then will I be convinced that both are good to go.
> 
> What an interesting way to start off the new year..


If you have more open brood in that nuc and shake in a good amount of nurses they will stay with the brood; if you keep ready to hatch frames in the other they will soon hatch and you will have enough nurses in that nuc. Have fun.


----------



## LAlldredge

Finally- put out dry pollen and they are starting to go to it. Some snow still on the ground in 6a. Only time of year they are attracted to it when nothing else is out there.


----------



## Tim KS

LAlldredge said:


> Finally- put out dry pollen and they are starting to go to it. Some snow still on the ground in 6a. Only time of year they are attracted to it when nothing else is out there.


I put out dry pollen substitute about mid-Feb. and the bees went crazy over it......I had to refill the feeder everyday. 

I quit giving it because I was afraid they'd fill up the brood nest with it and leave no place for the queen to lay. Does anyone know if that's a danger? Our elms looks like they should be blooming in a few warm days, so I'll let them find the real stuff.


----------



## LAlldredge

Tim KS said:


> I put out dry pollen substitute about mid-Feb. and the bees went crazy over it......I had to refill the feeder everyday.
> 
> I quit giving it because I was afraid they'd fill up the brood nest with it and leave no place for the queen to lay. Does anyone know if that's a danger? Our elms looks like they should be blooming in a few warm days, so I'll let them find the real stuff.


If they need it I would feed it. In my mind you're risking more by not offering proper nutrition for brood rearing. Giving the queen space to lay is an easier problem to solve.


----------



## Vance G

Here in the thawing northland, the average daily temp is 48F and we finally got a little above the average. I decided my bees were probably thirsty so I made preparation to replace mountain camp sugar with baggie feeders of 1:1 syrup. Even though I run insulated wraps I doubt that putting syrup in the frame feeders would be useable by the bees after the cold of night which is mostly back in the teens. The baggie feeders on top of a couple pollen patties and the cluster seem to stay at a temperature the bees can ingest the syrup in four or five days. I had to give up after five hives because it was way too windy. Probably thirty mph and just too hard to keep everything from flying away as I had to skin the wrap down to remove the dry sugar. Another windy day tomorrow but later in the week the wind is supposed to drop and the temperature actually go up! I saw a drone today! not unusual, as my bees tend to carry a few over winter every year.


----------



## LAlldredge

28 degrees- opened the top of the 7 to refresh sugar slurry, spritz with water and refresh dry pollen as needed. In and out in less than a minute. Even though the colony will shrink down some from cold they come right back up after I put the burlap back. (I have peeked) Will not go further down until maybe April. Weather dictates. Will switch to liquid feed later when nights are warmer. 

Have one smallish colony from view up above (baseball size) and looking at entrance activity. Not sure if they lost their queen, otherwise don't see any signs of virus. Other 6 are very healthy and large in size (basketball). How do I know that? - from the massive cleansing and orientation flight they just took. My Russian hive is stupid big. Like take over the world big. Oh lord. Like owning a stallion. Tell a gelding, discuss it with a mare, ask a stallion. I'll need to bring the A game. Again. God I love that queen.


----------



## LarryBud

Got up to mid 50's here in NJ yesterday and all of the hives were actively flying. Bees everywhere!!! Threw a tablespoon of pollen sub on each of the landing boards and they took it all in 5 minutes! Today, cooler, low 40's and freezing at night through the weekend same old. Looks like in a few days, 4 or 5 days next week in the 50's and 60's, above freezing at night and I am soooo anxious to get the top feeders on. Problem is that the farther out forecast is back down in the 40's and low 30's nights-do I put the top feeders on or wait a few more weeks???


----------



## Surviving Our Bees

Here in the frozen north, temperatures reached into the 40s yesterday.

Larry how many frames of honey do they have remaining?

What do you mean by top feeders?


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> Got up to mid 50's here in NJ yesterday and all of the hives were actively flying. Bees everywhere!!! Threw a tablespoon of pollen sub on each of the landing boards and they took it all in 5 minutes! Today, cooler, low 40's and freezing at night through the weekend same old. Looks like in a few days, 4 or 5 days next week in the 50's and 60's, above freezing at night and I am soooo anxious to get the top feeders on. Problem is that the farther out forecast is back down in the 40's and low 30's nights-do I put the top feeders on or wait a few more weeks???


Not sure which feeders you use but you can always feed a sugar slurry as a bridge until it warms enough for liquid. You could for sure do that with rapid feeders.


----------



## LarryBud

It's kind of funny, I was talking to another beekeeper yesterday up in Essex County, nearer to you, and he was only in the mid 40's. Seems the difference in elevation between us is the breakline between 6A and 6B zones. All the hills are just north of us and the coastal plain is directly to the south. I did the "lean-over test" and the hives are still heavy, was hesitant on opening with out a stronger reason. They are still heavy and by the number of bees in the air, well populated. I was talking about the Mann Lake type 4-1/2 gallon ones. I currently have 1" foam on all sides on double deeps and a 5 " vented quilt box full of pine shaving and a 1" foam on top-apparently worked well. I don't think we ever went broodless-the bees I looked at were young, not baldies. With the forecast for a warming spell here, OAV and maybe some pollen patties next week. I guess I'm a little anxious to play with the girls.


----------



## LAlldredge

Hey there Larry- I'm so happy for you. Being nervous is not a bad thing. Another idea for low tech but works- insert a feeding shim to give you space, put down newspaper and pour sugar on it and spritz with some water to create a slurry, then put down a pollen pattie and close it up. Can be done quickly. Also- I'm open feeding dry pollen using a paper grocery bag on the ground with a big U cut into the top for access. Open feeding dry pollen does not have the headaches that feeding liquid feed does. It doesn't cause robbing. Mine is pretty close too. 6 feet. You deserve a big pat on the back. Overwintering bees is a big deal.


----------



## rtaylor

In the mid 60's today and the bees were bringing in lots of pollen. I put pollen patties and filled up the frame feeders with 1:1 on Saturday. The pollen patties were gone but they aren't doing much with the syrup. It is still getting down in the 30's here at night so the syrup probably isn't warm enough for them to want it. When I checked the hives Saturday there was nectar being stored. Not sure where they were getting is from because there isn't much blooming. The queens were ramping up laying as well.


----------



## LarryBud

Surviving Our Bees said:


> WOW - all these high losses, new threads popping up daily.
> 
> Winter's not even over yet, still a full 2 months of possible starvation and dead out weather ahead.


 I was doing some research on VSH earlier this month on USDA and (I forget exactly where but I did save the file) and the USDA reported that average over winter losses of 2019-20 was 39% and Feral first year exceeded 90%. i have my concerns with Apivar although I did use them my first spring. I think the way out is going to be VSH and the organic acids. I see organic acids as a stop-gap measure, not a long term solution too. Continued selective breeding is probably the only way out.


----------



## leadchunker

Temps were in the low 60s the last few days in eastern NC. Split and moved 11 colonies yesterday and will install queens this afternoon. I will split another 10 today if my weather window stays open long enough. 
Colonies are looking strong and have plenty of honey and pollen on board. They are also bringing in more pollen. There is a lot of wet nectar coming in as well.


----------



## Robert Holcombe

AHudd said:


> I did a round of OAV today.
> The bees are bringing in a lot of pollen.
> View attachment 62283
> View attachment 62283
> 
> 
> Alex


Nice lookning photo! It seems you are a lot warmer than sunny, southern RI. Still have snow and no pollen. But soon as I got my first egg from old chickens.


----------



## AHudd

Robert Holcombe said:


> Nice lookning photo! It seems you are a lot warmer than sunny, southern RI. Still have snow and no pollen. But soon as I got my first egg from old chickens.


Thank you.
We had some of that sub-zero weather here, also. Fortunately, it doesn't usually persist as long as it does up North.
Speaking of chickens, we got some new ones on the Saturday preceding the Arctic Blast.
I ordered them in early Dec. for February delivery as it is generally a lot warmer by then. I did build a brooder before hand for them. I don't have a good picture of it at the moment, oh well.
I tried to link the plans, but now I keep getting the dreaded "Not Found, 404." Maybe it is temporary. Build a 200-Chick Brooder in 2 hrs for $20 | Robert Plamondon's Rural Life
They were two weeks old at this point, I believe.
The bees were out early harvesting dew drops. 
















Alex


----------



## JWPalmer

The Tractor Supply stores in our area have chicks in, although the breed selection is limited.

I really like my cool weather bees at the home apiary. Today it was 45 degrees F and all but two hives were flying. Those two were still clustered. The Italians at work did not poke their heads out yesterday until it hit 52. Added syrup to the hives that needed it and refilled the empty jars in my pollen feeder. Took the bees less than 10 minutes to start hitting the Ultrabee sub. Will be doing a more thorough inspection next week when the temps get near 70.


----------



## elmer_fud

I want chickens, Stupid HOA will not let me get them


----------



## username00101

Temperatures today were 35F, my local survivor stock bees were effortlessly flying.


----------



## rtaylor

Moved hives a short distance yesterday. There was already drone brood in the stronger hives.


----------



## LarryBud

The warm weather is finally hitting Central NJ, just about 60 F and should hit 65 F after lunch. From the outside, looks like all the hives made it, each one has a cloud of girls doing their spring dances and a few (on each hive) are bringing in some dark yellow pollen-wow, seems early. Other seem busy on cleaning out the hive of dead bees and debris, spring is here and I'm thinking we made it. Waiting on my partners, "Can I have $10.00?" to get home from school and we'll at least pop open the tops, check the upper boxes and if all looks good, some Apivar strips and maybe some pollen patties if they look like they need it. I'm going to hold off a week or so and check the weather before I add some syrup. The weekend forecasted for mid 40's and below freezing over night before a warm up the first part of the week. I'm hoping that the fat lady has sung!


----------



## username00101

First cleansing flight of the entire year today.

3 days of warm weather smack dab in the middle of the work week.


----------



## Cloverdale

High 40’s to 50, all hives flying. Very nice I must say. 50’s tomorrow so out comes the Ultra Bee on the bench and inspect a few small ones.


----------



## clyderoad

First time opening them this spring. Still good weight, bringing in grey alder pollen,( no maple pollen seen yet but the buds are big,) added 1.5lbs pollen patty, treated for varroa, closed them up.
Yard of 13 pretty much looked the same 6 to 7 seams of bees.


----------



## JWPalmer

Looking good Clyde, looking good.


----------



## Murdock

Red Maple pollen is gray/brown and very hard to see on bees unless you catch a girl loitering at the entrance. Alder pollen is yellowish but so are many other other types. That's a good looking mess of bees for early spring.


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> First time opening them this spring. Still good weight, bringing in grey alder pollen,( no maple pollen seen yet but the buds are big,) added 1.5lbs pollen patty, treated for varroa, closed them up.
> Yard of 13 pretty much looked the same 6 to 7 seams of bees.
> 
> View attachment 62425


Very nice!


----------



## AHudd

rtaylor said:


> Moved hives a short distance yesterday. There was already drone brood in the stronger hives.


That's good to know. I better take a deeper look into mine. It just seems too soon after that bad cold spell.

Alex


----------



## LarryBud

So we opened the hives yesterday and inspected the top boxes frames, this was mainly just a pop open a quick look at the top box. It appears that we are loaded with bees and the hives themselves still feel heavy, in fact, they barely touched the patties we put in I think in late January. (Sorry no photos yet) Both yesterday and this morning, they were ignoring the pollen supplement I had put on the landing boards and were bringing in big baskets of a dark orange pollen-crocus? Tomorrow we should be in the low 70's F here so we're going to full open up all of the hives, clean off bottom boards and examine individual frames for stores and brood-I'll try for some photos. I honestly don't think they shut down over the winter, lots of young bees but I didn't see any drones and the frames were covered. I know I've ranted about this but I'm thinking on adding an undrawn deep on top of each hive in an effort to get some deep frames drawn, but also to give them some room and will add some insulation panels (pink 1" foam board) to the new deep just incase but the weather going forwards appears to be just bouncing off 50 F and just above freezing for the next few days. Yes, I am concerned about chilling brood and am holding off on the top feeders at least for another week. Anyone have some thoughts-maybe I am jumping the gun because of the lack of drawn deep frames-plenty of mediums for when a flow starts. Apparently, all of the hive will need to be split early, full double deeps. If I do the third deep and they get some comb started, I'll start manipulation after I get the feeders on.


----------



## clyderoad

Murdock said:


> Red Maple pollen is gray/brown and very hard to see on bees unless you catch a girl loitering at the entrance. Alder pollen is yellowish but so are many other other types. That's a good looking mess of bees for early spring.


Too early for red maple here, soft maples are first and the pollen color is a lite yellow. The grey alder in this neck of the woods gives mostly a pumpkin orange color pollen although I've seen it brownish orange as well. Waiting for the lemon yellow pollen of the winged elm but it just turned warmer. Willows should follow soon too.
Saw some of that soft maple lite yellow pollen coming in this afternoon as well as the alder. Bees flying with high 40's and a SE breeze.
They won't touch those patties I put in yesterday and today (and will the next 2 days) until it cools back down Saturday below flight temperatures. Then they'll hit them hard being cooped up for week.


----------



## JWPalmer

Larry, the bees probably will not touch the foundation in an upper box yet. You can place undrawn frames in the two positions next to the existing broodnest without running the risk of chilling the brood The bees will draw them out as soon as they need the space. Lather, rinse, repeat.


----------



## LarryBud

You're right (again) JW, still should wait, it's too early here. Some patties, clean up, wait. Got plenty of other work to do and the waiting time is getting shorter.

One thing I'm learning from beekeeping is patience. I've never been a patience person, gotta push and get it done-the bees seem to have no interest in my time line.


----------



## clyderoad

Another warm day and 2 more yards visited. Checked weights- no feed needed, recorded seams of bees-one 5 seamer the rest were 6-8, treated for varroa, fed 1.5lbs pollen patties, pulled homasote inner covers, replaced a bad outer cover.
Picture of pollen being brought back to hive, the winged elm popped today.


----------



## JWPalmer

The weather gods cooperated today and I found myself playing hooky halfway through the day. Told the boss that thousands of little girls were asking me to come out and play. And...I spilt four of my hives today, attempting to make flyback splits. Only I could not find the queen among all the bees in two of them. So two are true flybacks and two are divide in half splits. I'll know by Sunday where the queens are. Main purpose of splitting is to get the bees to make a few emergency queen cells in each Q- section for use in nucs. Lots of bees, lots of brood. Drone comb in the feeding shim of the strongest hive I took apart today. Capped drone cells on frames in the same hive. SHB everywhere. I will put Beetle Blasters in after I check on QC development.


----------



## jimbo3

clyderoad said:


> Another warm day and 2 more yards visited. Checked weights- no feed needed, recorded seams of bees-one 5 seamer the rest were 6-8, treated for varroa, fed 1.5lbs pollen patties, pulled homasote inner covers, replaced a bad outer cover.
> Picture of pollen being brought back to hive, the winged elm popped today.
> 
> View attachment 62472


My 2 hives were bringing in a bunch of pollen. Are you sure it's winged elm? Wikipedia has it not even close to being native up here, but I don't necessarily believe Wikipedia. I'm just trying to figure out what pollen they're bringing in.


----------



## clyderoad

jimbo3 said:


> My 2 hives were bringing in a bunch of pollen. Are you sure it's winged elm? Wikipedia has it not even close to being native up here, but I don't necessarily believe Wikipedia. I'm just trying to figure out what pollen they're bringing in.


Grey alder is the orange pollen in the picture , the yellow pollen is winged elm as we call it. Some may call it rock elm or cork elm.
Also pollen of lite yellow, brownish orange and some pale green color. Couldn't get a photo of those colors though.
The lite yellow I expect to be soft maple but I didn't have time to go check the trees today, I'll look for the bees on them tomorrow.


----------



## MajorJC

Today in the Apiary.... (Can I still call it an apiary if I don't currently have any bees in my equipment?)

Started early at Lowes to get a few sheets of plywood to build some bait hives. I'm using this cut list which only has 5% waste per sheet of 15/32 plywood.
It'll give me 3 bait hives per sheet of plywood and I got 3 sheet, so I should have 9 new bait hives right now. However, my porter cable finish gun blew out an o-ring while I was assembling my first one. This nail gun is quite old and I'll probably put a new ring and gasket kit in it someday but this gave me the perfect opportunity to buy a new tool. So another trip to Lowes for my new Bostitch brad gun, and heck, while I was there I went ahead and got a new air hose and some brass fittings and a fern for my wife. I've found that whenever I buy new tools that it is a good idea to visit the garden center and get her a plant. So by the time I got home and everything was hooked up, I was finishing the first box while slapping mosquitoes at the same time as the sun was setting.
I'm ready to knock out those other 8 boxes bright and early in the morning though.

This is a slight modification of the one built by Brink's Bees in his YouTube video. I made my box deeper to utilize most of the wasted wood per sheet and increase my volume some. I believe the volume of my box is slightly over 55 liters.


----------



## Carabexo5

Today I checked on my bees


----------



## leadchunker

Been equalizing colonies, splitting colonies, installing queens, repairing/painting wood ware. Tomorrow rinse repeat. Colonies are building up rapidly. I had to remove some honey frames and distribute them to other colonies. I have a lot of colonies that are heavy and quite a few that are almost honey bound. I was expecting to feed them and got a pleasant surprise. 
I have over 600lbs of sugar I need to store. A great problem to have.


----------



## JWPalmer

Today was the day I FINALLY brought home the "work" hive. It was a swarm that I caught last May and just left in the swarm trap there at work. It has been a real blast watching them every day when I get off work. But it is time to get them into a real hive and rebait the trap for another swarm. Temps were 55F but at 8:00 this morning, these girls were still tucked in. Stapled a piece of #8 hardware cloth over the entrance and tossed them in the backseat for the 45 min trip back home. I placed them in their new permanent location, removed the screen, and left them alone for a few hours. I came back around 1pm and opened the trap to see what kind of mess the bees had made. All six frames were packed with bees. Surprisingly, the five foundationless frames were perfectly drawn. There had been a drawn frame in the trap when I set it, so they did have something to go by. I will let them build for another few weeks and then split them.


----------



## LAlldredge

A day at the bee spa. 63. Added shim then lemongrass fondant and pollen patties. Dry pollen sub and water plate with sponges are out. Nice to feel that meditative feeling again. Kids look good. Wolfs Bane in bloom. Too early for full inspections In 6a.


----------



## AR1

Pollen coming in in N Illinois. First I have seen this year. Light yellow and also dark orange-yellow.


----------



## JWPalmer

Update on Thursday's splits.
First split I checked still had eggs in it but not enough bees to cover all the brood. No QC's started. Maybe there were two queens in the parent colony, or maybe I just killed a bunch of bees for no reason. I added two shakes of nurse bees from another hive to boost the ranks,. With any luck, not all the brood is lost. 
Found the queens in the other two hives. I ended up chilling some brood in a Q+ hive, but there were fresh eggs to replace the brood they were dragging out. Of the three remaining splits, one has three cells on each of two plastic foundations. Not much one can do but put a whole fame with all the cells in a nuc. Although, I may try to use a push in cage to protect the queens until I can safely remove the extras after they emerge. In another split, there were probably close to a dozen cells, all along the bottom of a piece of foundationless comb. Jackpot! Finally, in the third split a single frame had about five cells in the center of the comb, also foundationless, but a little harder to remove with damaging them. All in all, about twenty cells. I had intended to make three additional splits today but two of the hives were not strong enough, and one of those has a crappy pattern so she is getting replaced with one of the new virgins. Finished getting my nucs prepared for bees and leveled two of the nuc hive stands. Wrapped up the day cleaning more wax moth damaged frames.


----------



## leadchunker

Cleaned frames, sanded and repainted tops and bottom boards. Equalized 4 colonies, put queen excluders on them. Will move the top box to another yard tomorrow.


----------



## elmer_fud

my strongest hive seemed to be trying to collect water from the snow today. A lot of them didn't seem to make it back, but I watched a few land on the snow, collect water, then fly away


----------



## LAlldredge

elmer_fud said:


> my strongest hive seemed to be trying to collect water from the snow today. A lot of them didn't seem to make it back, but I watched a few land on the snow, collect water, then fly away


I think they get cold this time of year. I'm feeding warm water with sponges to avoid drowning. They are ravenous for it. More popular than dry pollen. Cannot wait for me to put their water plate down before landing all over it.


----------



## elmer_fud

LAlldredge said:


> I think they get cold this time of year. I'm feeding warm water with sponges to avoid drowning. They are ravenous for it. More popular than dry pollen. Cannot wait for me to put their water plate down before landing all over it.


I have bucket of warm water out that they have been going to all winter. I think it may be a lot of new forgers that are not oriented to the hives, looking for water, and confused by the snow around the hive. There were about 20 on the fence collecting water from the wet wood today. I also think the 2 weeks of 60 degree weather lead to them starting to brood up.


----------



## althea

Crazy day here in Richmond, watched it snow all morning, then by 2 pm it was sunny 48 and all the hives were having impressive size orientation flights, and the henbit was being hit hard By the ladies.


----------



## Tim KS

JWPalmer said:


> . Wrapped up the day cleaning more wax moth damaged frames.


I see I'm not the only one who leaves these "FUN" jobs until last.


----------



## JWPalmer

Temps were mid fifties today and the bees were very active. All the Q+ colonies were dragging in crazy amounts of pollen, not so much with the Q- splits. Speaking of which, I decided to go ahead and just use the frames with three cells each and placed them in two nucs. Actually, I have them in the Apimaye nuc, three frames to each side. Removed the cells from the foundationless frame that had what I thought was about a dozen cells, turned out to be a lot more, but I damaged several in the cutting process so ended up with thirteen that I think are viable. Hive is packed with nurse bees so I grafted 36 cups and placed the cell bar in that same hive. I should know how well I did tomorrow when I check for acceptance. It has been two years since I grafted and I kept depositing the larva on the side of the cell as I was removing it, Couple of dozen smushed larvae later, and I finally got the hang of it. I am using a combination of JZBZ and Nicot cups on the cell bars. The Nicot cups fit the hair roller cages better but I do not have enough of the bases. Cut four additional cells off the frame in the fourth split to give me 17 cells in the incubator. Left one or two on that frame to finish out in the hive. The first split that did not have a QC managed to produce one cell. I did lose a good bit of the brood, but the additional bees were able to save the majority of it. I rotated the boxes in the breeder colony I made the grafts from and cleaned up the frames on the lower deep which is now on top.


----------



## BlueRidgeBee

Here in higher elevations of North Carolina mountains I’m seeing the first maples just begin to bloom. Flying days alternating with chilly/rainy ones. I’ve been very impressed with the winter-patties I tried out this winter (from Dadant I believe) It was a relief during the really cold snaps that I could make sure a patty was right above some of my smaller clusters.

I’m trying out a new Layens hive. Planning to explore a Lang-compatible modified Layens/Lazutin hive this year. It’s already made me feel like a beginner again in some ways and that has been both fun and a good reminder of that constantly-puzzled feeling of the first few years.

Meanwhile in the workshop, kicking myself at the amount of comb I let get damaged by moths. Dang.


----------



## LarryBud

As you may have seen in my "Adding a 3rd Deep" thread, I got into the hives yesterday and added that third deep on the two hives at the house. I'm cutting it close with the weather but I did re-install the 1" foam insulation and extended it down to cover the whole stack. Place the big top feeders on with 2-1/2 gallon of syrup in each, it may slightly early yet but the hive s are insulated, including the top-we'll see. The bees were surprisingly calm, and the hive were packed with bees, almost like last summer. Interestingly, on one hive, I left a medium super of extracted comb and there was a palm sized patch of freshly capped honey with about half the frame having fresh, uncapped nectar. It appears that they are already building comb and there was an unending train of bees bring in white, orange and light yellow pollen. Lots of brood, fresh eggs and capped but no drone yet. I'm going to see what happens over the next week before I move over to the other 3 hives and add a third on them. Look like 60's this week, game on?


----------



## JWPalmer

Tim KS said:


> I see I'm not the only one who leaves these "FUN" jobs until last.


I am able to see the end of the wax moth tunnel. Finished removing frames from boxes and scraping cocoons off the boxes and bars. What's left of the seriously damaged frames are now all on the back deck waiting to be de-waxed and cleaned. Found about 20 brood frames with only moderate damage that I cut back to solid comb and will give to the bees to fix. Ditto with one of my supers that had some damage on six of the ten frames.
Two of my qc's appear to be intercaste queens. They emerged today and are pretty small. The split was made Thursday March 11th and the queens eclosed today, the 21st, two full days ahead of schedule. In both cases however, their thoraxes were large enough that they could not fit through the queen excluder of the marking tube, so they are still larger than any of the workers. Feeling very fortunate that I moved the cells yesterday, by all rights I should have waited until today, but then I would've had a real problem. I robbed a bunch of nurse bees from one of my resource hives and made six mini mating nucs with about a cup and a half of bees each. I am using temp queen for the first time to try to anchor them while they are waiting for a virgin queen.


----------



## mtnmyke

Boy, it was one of those 9 hour working days where when you're done, the last thing you want to see is another bee.

All 28 queen castles are up and running with 25 virgins and 3 cells from last week.

However, I'm beginning to either regret my decision to use single deeps on 8 frame equipment, or forgot just how prolific the girls can be. It was almost challenging working the frames with just how many bees there are in the hives. For the last few weeks a few hives have insisted on building swarm cells. If anyone ever tells me a queen cannot lay every cell in an 8 frame box - I'll know that's a lie. Many are using the lower super for pollen as they are PACKED in the deep. For those hives I decided to just give them another deep, pyramid the brood, and give them mostly newer drawn out comb so the queens can keep chugging along. However, I'll plan on taking those back to singles once swarm season ends and the flow begins to taper.

I did have one hive that was managing the single deep better than any other. They are now 5 supers tall, the deep is completely full of brood, and they haven't shown any signs of swarming. This was the hive I was going to graft from this week so I rest assured in my original decision to keep these genetics going in the yard. This same queen was caught as a wild swarm last year and then swarmed again a month later into the neighbors vineyard. I originally thought I would replace this "swarmy" queen but glad I gave her a chance as she's not as much swarmy as she is incredibly prolific.

Most of the hives, however, are somewhere in the middle with 2-3 nearly full supers and although some cups, not yet any with life in them. They many not have the "brilliance" of some of the others but sure are a lot easier to manage.

Now to go sit in the hot tub for an hour and think about my life choices.


----------



## Ranger N

66 today in Lancaster County, SC. Bees were flying. Had to do a double take as the first drones emerged out of the hive for first flight. Mark the calendar. Time to start some splits..


----------



## Litsinger

mtnmyke said:


> Now to go sit in the hot tub for an hour and thing about my life choices.


Sounds like good problems to have- glad to hear that everything is off to a roaring start for you.


----------



## mtnmyke

Litsinger said:


> Sounds like good problems to have- glad to hear that everything is off to a roaring start for you.


Thank you.

The flow definitely hit hard this year due to the mild winter. This usually also means a long and terribly dry summer. I'm hoping to find a few yards closer to town so they can get some flowers from managed gardens/yards.


----------



## LarryBud

Came home at lunch to see what looked like a robbing event or early bearding event on the house hives. Well, upon closer inspection it became apparent that we had traffic jams of bees trying to get out and bees loaded with pollen coming in. It was almost comical as I have a mouse excluder/guard on the opening and the top row of perforation appeared to be out bound and it was just a line up on inbound like they were paying a highway toll. I decided it was too nice to work and spent the day with the bees. The third deep experiment look promising, updated forecast is now for some low 70's and the daffodils look ready to pop! I took a peek in the top feeders and they were loaded with girls-lunch rush? I drove over to the out yard and did an inspection which showed that these hive are packed and bringing in big buckets of pollen too. Looks like they'll get their third deep and top feeders tomorrow and then (hopefully) off to the race track. Note to self-Don't be an idiot and load up the top feeders when you will need to get into the hive in a few days to start some manipulation. They are refillable, no more than a gallon! And take the mouse guards off, they're a road block!


----------



## Gray Goose

JWPalmer said:


> I am able to see the end of the wax moth tunnel. Finished removing frames from boxes and scraping cocoons off the boxes and bars. What's left of the seriously damaged frames are now all on the back deck waiting to be de-waxed and cleaned. Found about 20 brood frames with only moderate damage that I cut back to solid comb and will give to the bees to fix. Ditto with one of my supers that had some damage on six of the ten frames.
> Two of my qc's appear to be intercaste queens. They emerged today and are pretty small. The split was made Thursday March 11th and the queens eclosed today, the 21st, two full days ahead of schedule. In both cases however, their thoraxes were large enough that they could not fit through the queen excluder of the marking tube, so they are still larger than any of the workers. Feeling very fortunate that I moved the cells yesterday, by all rights I should have waited until today, but then I would've had a real problem. I robbed a bunch of nurse bees from one of my resource hives and made six mini mating nucs with about a cup and a half of bees each. I am using temp queen for the first time to try to anchor them while they are waiting for a virgin queen.


let the small queens run the NUC to get it going, when you find a big swarm cell just use it to replace her.

somewhat a "temp" queen.

GG


----------



## Tumbleweed

LarryBud said:


> Came home at lunch to see what looked like a robbing event or early bearding event on the house hives. Well, upon closer inspection it became apparent that we had traffic jams of bees trying to get out and bees loaded with pollen coming in. It was almost comical as I have a mouse excluder/guard on the opening and the top row of perforation appeared to be out bound and it was just a line up on inbound like they were paying a highway toll. I decided it was too nice to work and spent the day with the bees. The third deep experiment look promising, updated forecast is now for some low 70's and the daffodils look ready to pop! I took a peek in the top feeders and they were loaded with girls-lunch rush? I drove over to the out yard and did an inspection which showed that these hive are packed and bringing in big buckets of pollen too. Looks like they'll get their third deep and top feeders tomorrow and then (hopefully) off to the race track. Note to self-Don't be an idiot and load up the top feeders when you will need to get into the hive in a few days to start some manipulation. They are refillable, no more than a gallon! And take the mouse guards off, they're a road block!


Good tip, Larry. 
Don’t load up top feeders near an inspection date.


----------



## JWPalmer

Gray Goose said:


> let the small queens run the NUC to get it going, when you find a big swarm cell just use it to replace her.
> somewhat a "temp" queen.
> 
> GG


Exactly my thoughts as well. Had another two small ones emerge today and one that appears to be regular sized. All three went into mating nucs this evening.


----------



## jimbo3

Did a quick inspection in both hives. The first hive had some pollen patty and a bunch of mountain camp still on it. Bees were chewing through it, hive appeared to have a lot of bees. I didn't use smoke and was just kind of trying to get everything separated so the next time won't be so bad. They started getting agitated and got me once so I stepped away for a bit.

Later, the 2nd hive had no mountain camp left and a chunk of patty with shb worms in it, so I chucked it and added a hunk of more dry sugar. Looked like a big population.

Both hives bringing in huge amounts of pollen, and I still haven't seen where they're getting it from.


----------



## mtnmyke

Grafted 45 cells from my strongest colony this year, currently 5 supers high and as gentle as a teddy bear. Got the grafts into the builder and went inside to grab a drink - suddenly my partner came running in the house that there were bees flying EVERYWHERE! I went outside and sure thing, a swarm in progress. They went about 25 feet up into one of our oaks. So just when I thought I was done working bees for the day, things were just starting.

Put the truck under the tree and got the ladder set in A-frame mode in the back. They were still just out of reach so some duct tape, a bucket, and a stick later, I had them dumped into a nuc. Naturally they collected into the same spot again so did another dump. With most of the bees now going into the nuc my partner quickly points out she sees the queen, no, it's a drone. "Is that the queen?" She immediately asks again...yup, it sure was!

Caged the queen and moved the whole nuc with the swarm over to an empty spot on a row of other hives. Put them in an 8 frame deep with a frame of brood donated by the hive next to it and all seemed well. I then took the queen out of the cage, marked her, and put her back on top of the bars to go back down...nope...she flew off! I saw her little dot go up, and then back toward the entrance of the hive...sure hope she went in there!

I looked everywhere for a lost queen and couldn't find one so I'm pretty sure she's in the box, I'll have to check in a few days for her...or queen cells from the frame I added...

On another note, I have no idea which hive it came from. I went through the hives my partner claimed they came from but they all look chum full. Next time I go through the hives I'm sure I'll figure it out. I know a few were being a little swarmy buy guess I missed a cell. Certainly won't be raising queens from the hive that swarmed out...I'm not a fan of swarmy bees and refuse to split from swarm cells for that reason.

And finally peeked into a few of the queen castles. First chamber had a very young queen with "man parts" still attached to her, second chamber had fresh eggs, and third chamber checked also had fresh eggs. I'll check the other 24 in a week as things appear to be going very well on that front!

Bee season is full on!


----------



## username00101

Weather's been absurdly warm for this time of year in the Northeast.


----------



## JWPalmer

Looks like I got 15 out of 36 on the grafting. Man, I stink at this! One of the double mini mating nucs had all the bees move across the feeder into the other half. I need to modify the reflectix that I am using as an inner cover to cover the feeder as well. In one of the other nucs, all the bees decided to cluster IN the feeder. When I last looked, the queen was on the excluder trying to join the rest of the bees. Not sure how that one is going to play out. Two queens emerged with damaged wings. Hoping it was the timing of my moving cells and not DWV. Taking a half day off tomorrow to make up some full sized nucs and fix the mating nuc problems.
Bees are already scouting the traps I set out. One has been out for maybe ten days, the other just four.


----------



## LarryBud

username00101 said:


> Weather's been absurdly warm for this time of year in the Northeast.


How did you make out with the pollen-things blooming up there yet? Daffodils are in full run, trees are busting open here, magnolia, maple, looks like a good start-time for a mid-day inspection on the triple deeps now!


----------



## username00101

This is a dangerous time of year for inspections, I only do it if I have no other choice. 

Poking through the colonies to evaluate the amount of resources remaining, cluster, etc.

Bucket feeding suddenly declined the other day. Very warm season...I am without words. Weather like this is generally not observed until Mid April.


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> How did you make out with the pollen-things blooming up there yet? Daffodils are in full run, trees are busting open here, magnolia, maple, looks like a good start-time for a mid-day inspection on the triple deeps now!


Just got my first pollen alert of the season!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's GOOOOOO.


----------



## clyderoad

username00101 said:


> This is a dangerous time of year for inspections, I only do it if I have no other choice.
> 
> Poking through the colonies to evaluate the amount of resources remaining, cluster, etc.
> 
> Bucket feeding suddenly declined the other day. Very warm season...I am without words. Weather like this is generally not observed until Mid April.


Oh user, the weather drama! 
You'll have to change your signature line now and drop the "cold climate" and settle for simply -northern queens  .

Our spring progress is behind 30 year averages this year even with some recent warm days, same with the bee yards up north in Mass. Thanks to February. Maybe your spring is behind 30 yr averages as well, I think that there is a good possibility it is.


----------



## Ranger N

i put this nuc box out on wednesday to prep for split this weekend. had removed an empty dark brood frame from once of the hives. decided to put it into the nuc until this weekend. the guy who owns the property called me yesterday and stated that he and his wife sitting on their porch and a cloud of bees came by headed toward a swarm box i had on a wood line past the hives there. he said they went into the swarm box and then it started pouring rain. today he went up to check the swarm box to see if bees were going in and there was nothing. he walked by the hives and saw the front of the nuc box covered in bees. by the time he got back with his phone to take a picture they had moved into the nuc. I told him to leave them alone for a couple of days and I would come over sunday and see what was up. Hopefully they stick around.


----------



## MajorJC

Just driving along a country road while out checking my swarm traps this morning and all of a sudden I see this.










Sadly, that was the highlight of my morning because none of my swarm traps had bees in them.

When I got home, I assembled a few 8 frame deeps.


----------



## JWPalmer

I sure would not want my nucs so close to the road that anyone driving by could... well, do something very UN neighborly.


----------



## MajorJC

JWPalmer said:


> I sure would not want my nucs so close to the road that anyone driving by could... well, do something very UN neighborly.


Agreed! However, I guess I should say, this road is deep in the country and goes nowhere, from nowhere. Only locals use the road.


----------



## username00101

The pollen bucket timing was just about perfect, because natural pollen has begun, and is entering the hives in earnest. 

there's a scheduled freeze for next week down as low as the teens.

Hopefully the freeze doesn't kill off the maple buds, or I'll be bucket feeding for a while.


----------



## MajorJC

Today, I believe a swarm moved into a bait hive in my backyard.


----------



## Jim Braun

We hit 74 F here in mid Missouri so I went out and changed my double deeps to single deeps. Tomorrow or soon I will put my supers on the hives, ran out of room in my truck. It may be to early but most of my 6 colonies are at 6-8 frames of brood. I have feeders in them so they are full and need some space. Most were putting nectar in the top deep so it was time. 
One little nuc seems to have lost their queen. I was in it 3/8/20 and there were 2 frames of capped brood. Today just 50 or so left. I'm guessing they left. Bummer because I hoped to graft from her. I did take a frame a brood from a bigger colony in the same yard and put it in that box. I should have put that frame back into the donor colony but I didn't. I saw drones in most of my colonies so maybe I'll let them make a new queen.


----------



## MajorJC

Assembled and primed some eight frame boxes today and made three more bait hives.


----------



## LarryBud

username00101 said:


> The pollen bucket timing was just about perfect, because natural pollen has begun, and is entering the hives in earnest.
> 
> there's a scheduled freeze for next week down as low as the teens.
> 
> Hopefully the freeze doesn't kill off the maple buds, or I'll be bucket feeding for a while.



Told ya! same here, saw my first dandelion bloom today. Cold for two days at the end of the week but not a killing frost, couple more hurtles and then we're over it!


----------



## mtnmyke

Hive swarmed for the 3rd time in the last 4 days. I sprayed the area with water and they flew back into the hive. I finally broke it down and found a HUGE queen. I'd expect her to be a virgin since this was their 3rd swarm, and the bees were all over her, but we'll have to see.

On top of the fatty queen I found 3 queens emerging from cells - located by their piping. I caged them and then shook ALL the frames to look for more cells. Took a frame of brood for each queen and placed them in a queen castle, then left foundationless frames in the hive. I gave them an hour or so to settle and when I heard that all important "hopelessly queenless" roar I put the fatty queen back in. They immediately went silent and all should be good, for now.

Also marked all the queens pink, since my white pen was somewhere in the house. I quite like the pink and may use it to signify this line of bees. They were two deeps and 5 supers full when they started swarming so probably worth keeping around.


----------



## JWPalmer

mtnmyke said:


> . I gave them an hour or so to settle and when I heard that all important "hopelessly queenless" roar I put the fatty queen back in. They immediately went silent and all should be good, for now.
> Also marked all the queens pink, since my white pen was somewhere in the house. I quite like the pink and may use it to signify this line of bees.


Listen to the bees. I need to get a few non-standard colors to mark the queens I want to keep and breed from. Posca has a 29 color multi pack of the medium tip pens on Amazon for $65









Amazon.com : Uni Posca Paint Marker FULL RANGE Bundle Set , Mitsubishi Poster Colour ALL COLOR Marking Pen Medium Point ( PC-5M ) 29 Colours ( 22 Standard & 7 Natural ) Japan Import : Office Products


Amazon.com : Uni Posca Paint Marker FULL RANGE Bundle Set , Mitsubishi Poster Colour ALL COLOR Marking Pen Medium Point ( PC-5M ) 29 Colours ( 22 Standard & 7 Natural ) Japan Import : Office Products



www.amazon.com


----------



## mtnmyke

Listened I did. Amazing how they can tell you what's going on that way.

I also thought about getting some off colors. Pink was as off as I had on hand. Last year I used 3 different shades of blue to differentiate my lines. I may just break protocol and start marking each line a different color. I keep great notes so I don't really care what color I have on a queen, only that I know when she was marked that color. If there ever isn't a marked queen in the colony I know she was supersceded.


----------



## username00101

*Freeze and Hard Freeze Warnings in effect through the week*


_Thursday night into Friday morning will be even colder with low temperatures dipping into the low to mid-20s. Due to this, a Hard Freeze Warning has been issued for most of Middle TN from 10 p.m. Thursday through 9 a.m. Friday morning.









Freeze and Hard Freeze Warnings in effect through the week


Get ready for several cold nights and mornings ahead.




www.wkrn.com




_


----------



## Gray Goose

snowing in northern Mich, I feel for anyone who reversed already in the top half of Mich, well,, feel for the bees anyway.
glad mine are still wrapped and uncracked, still may loose a bit of brood. way they been hauling pollen , I am sure they are max brood, not sure if they can keep it all warm for 2 days.

time will tell

GG


----------



## username00101

Up here, brood is still 1-3 frames, even with all the hauling, the queens tend to not to rear much brood until the middle of April.


----------



## Gray Goose

username00101 said:


> Up here, brood is still 1-3 frames, even with all the hauling, the queens tend to not to rear much brood until the middle of April.


I have 3 with 3 deeps and 4 with 2 deeps and a medium.
I popped the lids and a couple were 7 seems of bees in the top box, added a pollen patty, that was 10 days ago.
I am somewhat sure there are some with 6-8 frames of brood.
I find out Monday it is supposed to be 65 here and I am chomping at the bit to do the spring eval to determine who the Queen mommas are going to be. have 13 candidates, hope to see 8 in good enough shape and using other traits to do 3 or 4 way splits on them in a month.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Added Apivar strips to top box since everyone has moved up for winter. I run a med/deep/med with no QE- because it made me mad last year. Had already added pollen patties and leftover lemongrass fondant two weeks ago. Italian hive- nothing left. Figures. Such an Italian move. 5 very strong, 2 smallish but gentle nice bees. If you're nice you get to stay even if you're small. Feels good to suit up and not be such an idiot. Thank God this gets easier. Next move- full inspection and assessments and reversing when warmer.


----------



## Tumbleweed

LAlldredge said:


> Added Apivar strips to top box since everyone has moved up for winter. I run a med/deep/med with no QE- because it made me mad last year. Had already added pollen patties and leftover lemongrass fondant two weeks ago. Italian hive- nothing left. Figures. Such an Italian move. 5 very strong, 2 smallish but gentle nice bees. If you're nice you get to stay even if you're small. Feels good to suit up and not be such an idiot. Thank God this gets easier. Next move- full inspection and assessments and reversing when warmer.


Oooh, fagetaboutit!


----------



## vicky888




----------



## username00101

Freeze damage today throughout portions of the Midwest.

In my northern cold climate, temps were 17F this morning.

I do worry about our friends in Tennessee, and Kentucky, and West Virginia.


----------



## username00101

*Arctic blast to threaten all-time record lows*
*Since 2000, only 2 April mornings dropped to 32°; we will make a run at doing that both Friday and Saturday*









Arctic blast to threaten all-time record lows


Since 2000, only 2 April mornings dropped to 32°; we will make a run at doing that both Friday and Saturday.




www.wsfa.com






---------------------------------------


*Record Low Possible Saturday*

RICHMOND, Va. -- Friday will be mostly sunny, breezy, and chilly, with highs only reaching the upper 40s to lower 50s.

Temperatures will fall into the 20s Saturday morning, and a new record low is possible in Richmond. The current record for April 3rd is 27 degrees, and our forecast is for a low of 26. A nice warm-up is expected by afternoon, with highs in the upper 50s and low 60s. Easter Sunday will be beautiful, with sunshine and highs in the upper 60s and low 70s.

Cold and breezy Friday


----------



## Litsinger

username00101 said:


> I do worry about our friends in Tennessee, and Kentucky, and West Virginia.


Fingers crossed- but after uncovering my stone fruit trees here in Western Kentucky this afternoon it appears that only some of the tips got bit in the lowest areas of the orchard.

Good luck to the bee community East of here, and Happy Easter to one-and-all.

Russ


----------



## username00101

16F last night.

The bees are desperately collecting water today after 2 of the coldest April days/nights in recent memory.


----------



## LAlldredge

username00101 said:


> 16F last night.
> 
> The bees are desperately collecting water today after 2 of the coldest April days/nights in recent memory.


Just so you know, bees are ultra hardy in cold. My bees would be like “what evs....” in 16. It can work you though if you’re not used to It. Kids will be fine.


----------



## elmer_fud

I did a through inspection of all of my hives today. 2 are strong and raising several frames of drone and brood each. One was small and qeenless so I put in a frame from one of the strong hives to boost it and give it a source or an egg for a queen. It had a few queen cells, but I don't think they took. One is small but it still had the queen and a few bees. I think I need to add a frame of capped brood to this hive to boost it because it is way to small. Both of the smaller hives were small going into winter, but they made it to spring.


----------



## username00101

Despite record cold, colonies appear relatively un-phased. 

One colony which I made the mistake of rotating, did not appear particularly impressed with my decision.


----------



## AHudd

Today in the apiary started in the garden. I wanted to get my new strawberry patch put in before starting my Snelgrove board manipulations. After I finished as I was washing the sand out of the bed of my pick-up one of my hives issued a swarm. 
I thought it was going to be a large one because there was a huge cloud of bees, but they circled the hive for a long time, then about half of them went back in and the other half finally landed in a Pine tree. 
They hung around long enough for me to gather all of the gear to catch them, then on to step one of the Snelgrove manipulations.
Much to my surprise I found no more Queen cells other than in the hive that swarmed. There were eight to twelve frames of capped brood in each hive, although not all were edge to edge. I hope tomorrow to find more of the same. Oh yeah, lots of Drone brood and no mites on the Drone pupae that was torn open when separating the brood boxes.
I hope everyone's weather cooperates this year. March and April have been good after that cold February. 
Some are even storing a bit of nectar in the supers.

Alex


----------



## Litsinger

AHudd said:


> ...one of my hives issued a swarm.


Thanks for the update, Alex. Means I better get busy here a bit North of you. Your bloom cues tend to be a +/- a week ahead of mine. Glad to read you were able to keep them in your apiary.


----------



## username00101

Maple is great right now in warmer locations. (zone 5b+).

Could be looking at serious splitting opportunity in that apiary. Not trying to increase too heavily, but this is a great early season boost.


----------



## JWPalmer

My queens from the last round of grafts are starting to emerge, two this evening of the 37 cells in the incubator. One was out when I got home from work and was placed in a mating nuc. The other, which emerged after dark, and whatever emerges over the next 20 hours, will get installed tomorrow. I used a brush to put some honey on the hair roller cages the cells are in to try to make sure the queens stay alive until I get home from work. Made four walk away splits Sunday. Three of them have started queen cells and one did not; it will get one of the new queens. I made another three splits today and they will get virgins also. So far I have nucs/Q- hives made for just 8 of the remaining queens. hoping to get a few more made tomorrow and may end up banking a few virgins until the weekend. Trying something new to me with the splits. After shaking in the bees, I am locking them down for 72 hours before releasing them to fly. Previously, a large number of the bees, foragers mostly, have flown back to the parent colony the same day. This has left a good amount of the brood to get chilled and has been a cause for concern for the past several years when making early Spring splits. Pleased to report that after opening the hives up yesterday, the bees began orienting to the nucs. Today I could not see any appreciable bee loss in any of the splits. My goal is to make 30 nucs by May.


----------



## JWPalmer

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, 33 of the 37 cells emerged. Three appear to have died developed, one looks empty so died as a larva. I installed thirteen today, gave away three, had one get killed when another queen got her while in her cage, and still have sixteen to go. I will be giving a few of the remaining virgins away and plan to make another 10 mating nucs if I can find the frames of bees. One of my flyback splits that I was sure was queenless ended up having a mated queen after all. Of course I had already direct released a replacement virgin into the hive and did not see the one little patch of eggs until dividing the hive into two nucs (an after thought). Safely recovered the virgin and put her in the Q- nuc after verifying the location of the newly mated queen. The cell builder that made these cells snuck a QC in on me too. Saw a torn down cell which lead me to look for the properly emerged one while dividing it up for mating nucs. Good thing I had not tried for another round of grafts! Anyhow, I do not think I will be able to find the loose virgin with all the bees in the nucs. If not, both sides get a new queen.


----------



## JWPalmer

Why I leave cells that fail in the incubator an extra day or two. Two of my "duds" emerged this morning, large and vigorous. Makes me 35/37. If I appear excited, I am. Most of my grafting attempts over the past several years have been, shall we say, less than successful. Feels good to finally be making some progress.


----------



## LAlldredge

JWPalmer said:


> Why I leave cells that fail in the incubator an extra day or two. Two of my "duds" emerged this morning, large and vigorous. Makes me 35/37. If I appear excited, I am. Most of my grafting attempts over the past several years have been, shall we say, less than successful. Feels good to finally be making some progress.


Congratulations. The best queen breeding operation I've seen is Ian's in Canada (A Canadian Beekeepers Blog on YouTube). Carrie does a fabulous job of grafting for him. Before he started his breeding operation he had to depend upon others doing the queen rearing and shipping. His apiary went to a whole new level after he started his queen rearing operation. MP's operation looks like the same model. I would like to see a template of a very small operation. Right now even the idea of catching a queen fills me with dread. Instead I lift her out frame and all and put them in a quiet box. If I could bubble wrap her I would. MP's favorite days are his queen catching days. Oh to be that experienced and good at doing that.....


----------



## LAlldredge

In the bridge before the flow- feeding slurry and treating with Apivar. Too cold for liquid feed. Refreshed sugar slurry this am. Deciding if I want to fill my extra resource hive. Strongest hive and strongest queen is now 3 years old. Russians. She would outgrow a resource hive in nothing flat. We've learned to work together. Just throw cover cloths over their boxes, don't leave their stores in the open and put lifted frames in a quiet box. My Russian hybrid is a different story. The "fly to your hands" type. Picking a time during our next warm spell to reverse.


----------



## username00101

@JWPalmer 

Which incubator do you use?

also - how do you introduce virgin queens to a queenless colony? Do you make a split, and then wait several hours and just put the virgin in the colony?


----------



## JWPalmer

username00101 said:


> @JWPalmer
> 
> Which incubator do you use?
> 
> also - how do you introduce virgin queens to a queenless colony? Do you make a split, and then wait several hours and just put the virgin in the colony?


Incubator is homemade using a glass front merchandiser, which is small refrigerator used to sell drinks at convenience stores, a heater w/fan, and a temperature controller. All told, about $100. I also have a thermometer/humidistat to make sure that the temps and humidity levels stay within range. The square pan on the bottom in front of the heater has a few folded towels and water in it. I use scraps of wood with 1-1/4" holes to hold the Nicot hair roller cages that I let the queen emerge in. A poorly cut medium nuc front will hold twenty cages.









Yes, making splits, waiting until the foragers fly home, then direct releasing after two to three hours. I have also caged all the bees in and waited three days, removed any cells they started and then direct released. This part is still relatively new to me, but my understanding is that there is good acceptance with newly emerged virgins. I will be much more educated on this topic in two weeks.


----------



## AHudd

I was about to give up on this Queen ever getting started. She was only laying small patches of brood last month. I was very surprised to see these frames yesterday.














I'm glad I left her alone.

And then I found this weird Queen cell in a different hive.













It looks like a Queen has emerged, but there is a larva in there.


----------



## Tim KS

Yesterday in the low 80's and I pulled a few frames from the top brood boxes....loaded with bees and they were loading up with nectar & pollen. So what do I do but stack the supers on..........earliest I've supered. Finished supering all my colonies today and now the weather is forecast to dip into the low 50's for the next week....(upper 30's at night).. Two extra boxes on now to keep warm .......should I be worried?


----------



## username00101

Anyone in the Northeast seeing swarm cells yet? 

Was a great month (minus the deep freeze a couple of weeks ago).

The dandelions are starting to open up...


----------



## LAlldredge

Reversing. Well hello boys.


----------



## elmer_fud

I need to clean and rebuild my quilt boxes come fall. I pulled one off and some water (few ml) poured out of it today. The bees have almost completely propolized the screen on this quilt box shut so it was collecting water in it that ran out when I tipped it.


----------



## AHudd

I made up five mini mating nucs a couple of days ago with the idea of putting in some ripe Q-cells the bees had made in the top boxes of some of the hives I have put on Snelgrove Boards. Cutting the Q-cells from old dark comb without causing damage was very difficult. I am going to take a stab at grafting when the weather warms a bit. I can see how much more efficient grafting would be, overall I like the entire concept. I followed the instructions from the UoG videos, although on a much smaller scale.
I used the Temp-Queen as suggested and boy am I glad. I was a little bit clumsy in my efforts to measure bees and get them in the box, so there were so many bees in the air it looked like a swarm, but when a few bees that were in the boxes began fanning the rest of them started landing and walking right in. All I had to do was equalize the populations.
All in all it was fun and interesting.

Alex


----------



## username00101

Another hard freeze this week. My area in the Northeast, definitely going to cause issues...

We're weeks ahead of normal, its difficult to even figure out what to do in the apiary.

I'm already seeing colonies trying to prep for swarming.


----------



## Gray Goose

AHudd said:


> I was about to give up on this Queen ever getting started. She was only laying small patches of brood last month. I was very surprised to see these frames yesterday.
> View attachment 62921
> 
> View attachment 62921
> I'm glad I left her alone.
> 
> And then I found this weird Queen cell in a different hive.
> View attachment 62922
> View attachment 62922
> It looks like a Queen has emerged, but there is a larva in there.
> View attachment 62923
> View attachment 62923


Larvae is the next queen, they are reusing it as a "cup", maybe take it for increase in a few days when capped.
bees have enough "black" in them to have some carni or Russian, they often start and then tear down QCs just for practice.

GG


----------



## username00101

Record cold is forecast for Missouri...



https://www.komu.com/weather/tracking-late-season-snow-tuesday-hard-freeze-wednesday-morning/article_6a5f3074-a0f4-11eb-94c7-2bc6e9d912a2.html


_
The record low for Wednesday is 29° set back in 1907. It is likely that we will either tie, or break this record.

Plants sensitive to cold weather must be covered up to prevent being significantly damaged and/or killed by the freezing cold. Disconnect water hoses from outdoor pipes to prevent a pipe burst.

Another frost is likely on Thursday morning and a freeze is possible as lows fall into the lower 30s._


----------



## mtnmyke

Bees are weird.

All my nucs were sold and left this past weekend. This leaves me to get back to the fun of beekeeping and not having to meet customer demands.

I had moved some queens around recently and requeened a few hives. Checked one I requeened a week ago. They had swarmed since I got behind on them and they were certainly cramped. I shook each frame out after looking for a queen/virgin and knocked down EVERY cell before introducing my new queen.

Today I found a slew of new swarm cells with eggs in them that would have had to be from the new queen. I went through each frame 3 times and while looking found a ball of bees on the bottom board. Smoked them and pulled out an unmarked queen. Continued to look through the colony and found my introduced marked queen doing just fine...no idea where this new queen came from. Perhaps a virgin I had previously missed?

Put the other queen into a mating nuc and added a second deep onto the colony. Hopefully that will stop the swarming instinct they seem to be stuck in.

Bees, it's always something.


----------



## mtnmyke

Found a worker inside a capped queen cell.

Had a hive swarm out last week and went in to inspect. Found a virgin queen with another huge swarm cell. To make sure they didn't swarm again I removed it and slowly opened it. I've often found a virgin in these ready to emerge so always open them carefully. I have mating nucs in the ready for just such occasions.

However, upon opening I saw the butt of a bee. Assuming the queen was in there backwards, which happens, I opened the apposing side only to be greeted by a worker.

No idea how she got in there, or why it was capped with her in there...but that's bees for you!

I checkerboarded with foundationless and put the remaining brood comb above a newer colony to give them a good boost. Hoping all the extra space with only one queen will stop any future swarms.


----------



## elmer_fud

I found a new favorite Lego figurine


----------



## lemmje

elmer_fud said:


> I found a new favorite Lego figurine


Is this real??


----------



## elmer_fud

lemmje said:


> Is this real??


yes, I ordered one from ebay instead of ordering a 1 in 12 chance package 

link Series 21 71029 | Minifigures | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop US


----------



## lemmje

Thanks E! I just ordered one off Amazon too. Paid too much, but this is why I work so hard all day, right??


----------



## Cloverdale

mtnmyke said:


> Found a worker inside a capped queen cell.
> 
> Had a hive swarm out last week and went in to inspect. Found a virgin queen with another huge swarm cell. To make sure they didn't swarm again I removed it and slowly opened it. I've often found a virgin in these ready to emerge so always open them carefully. I have mating nucs in the ready for just such occasions.
> 
> However, upon opening I saw the butt of a bee. Assuming the queen was in there backwards, which happens, I opened the apposing side only to be greeted by a worker.
> 
> No idea how she got in there, or why it was capped with her in there...but that's bees for you!
> 
> I checkerboarded with foundationless and put the remaining brood comb above a newer colony to give them a good boost. Hoping all the extra space with only one queen will stop any future swarms.


Last year or maybe two I found a capped queen cell that was empty.


----------



## mtnmyke

Cloverdale said:


> Last year or maybe two I found a capped queen cell that was empty.


Very strange.

And this cell was fully capped. I had to carefully tear and open the bottom of the cell to see the back of the bee and only then switched to the top. Looked entirely normal.

My only guess is she went in there and was capped in? There was a lot of royal jelly in the cell so she must have been living off that. Perhaps went in there to feed a queen larvae when she was capped in?

But yeah, I'm stumped.


----------



## Cloverdale

mtnmyke said:


> Very strange.
> 
> And this cell was fully capped. I had to carefully tear and open the bottom of the cell to see the back of the bee and only then switched to the top. Looked entirely normal.
> 
> My only guess is she went in there and was capped in? There was a lot of royal jelly in the cell so she must have been living off that. Perhaps went in there to feed a queen larvae when she was capped in?
> 
> But yeah, I'm stumped.


I asked on Bee-l and was told that sometimes they will recap a QC but I really don’t remember why, but I do remember the answer didn’t fit the scenario of the hive.


----------



## Litsinger

mtnmyke said:


> My only guess is she went in there and was capped in? There was a lot of royal jelly in the cell so she must have been living off that. Perhaps went in there to feed a queen larvae when she was capped in?


Roger Patterson notes that he frequently finds this and suggests that the worker has gone into the cell after the queen has emerged only to be recapped inside by her sisters.


----------



## mtnmyke

Litsinger said:


> Roger Patterson notes that he frequently finds this and suggests that the worker has gone into the cell after the queen has emerged only to be recapped inside by her sisters.


Definitely a first for me but good to know I'm not the only one who has experience it.


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> Roger Patterson notes that he frequently finds this and suggests that the worker has gone into the cell after the queen has emerged only to be recapped inside by her sisters.


I really like Roger Patterson; I liked his talks on the National Honey Show, especially on queens and how they have changed the past 20 years or so; he also keeps Dave Cushmans site updated.


----------



## Litsinger

mtnmyke said:


> Definitely a first for me but good to know I'm not the only one who has experience it.


Just be glad you're not the worker who has to experience it... kind of like being buried alive .

Some bees must have a morbid sense of humor.


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> I really like Roger Patterson


Me too, Deb. It seems he does a lot of outreach and advocacy for beekeepers and beekeeping in general.


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> Me too, Deb. It seems he does a lot of outreach and advocacy for beekeepers and beekeeping in general.


Did you ever read any of Dave Cushmans site?


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> Did you ever read any of Dave Cushmans site?


I do- if you haven't seen it, Roger offers a nice homage to Dave and explains how he came to manage the website here:


----------



## Cloverdale

Thanks Russ; did you ever read Dave’s Ley Line post that Roger had commented on?


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> Thanks Russ; did you ever read Dave’s Ley Line post that Roger had commented on?


I did- and Roger frequently refers to Ley Lines in his BIBBA talks. He keeps threatening to do a webinar on the topic, but I have yet to see him do it yet.

He does refer to a string of swarm catches in a couple of the talks where he kept catching swarms at one location and simply moving the swarms down the apiary line as they came in. He then confirmed by dousing that the spot was the conjunction of multiple lines.

The skeptic in me says, 'prove it'. The pragmatist in me says, I've seen it work for finding water...


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> I did- and Roger frequently refers to Ley Lines in his BIBBA talks. He keeps threatening to do a webinar on the topic, but I have yet to see him do it yet.
> 
> He does refer to a string of swarm catches in a couple of the talks where he kept catching swarms at one location and simply moving the swarms down the apiary line as they came in. He then confirmed by dousing that the spot was the conjunction of multiple lines.
> 
> The skeptic in me says, 'prove it'. The pragmatist in me says, I've seen it work for finding water...


That’s because he will be ridiculed on Bee-l, if those beekeepers that post there have the nerve to do it to Roger P. Now that there is a new moderator since Aaron Morris passed away no one gets away with talk like that anymore. I found it interesting that two intelligent men agree on those Ley lines and swarms. Something to ponder.


----------



## LarryBud

Well, it's been the month from hell. It all started with the nuc's I ordered arriving about three weeks early this year. My supplier called me on Easter, saying they'd be on the truck for the following Wednesday. I had a couple of pallets of supplies on order at Mann Lake's Wilkes Barre warehouse but my truck was down and so I loaded up the old land Rover LR3, rented a U-Haul trailer and headed out the 156 miles to Wilkes barre on a rainy Tuesday. Think I had at least 3 weeks, I really let it get ahead of me (never again!). To compound the fun, I got an undersized trailer had a fault electric hook up (my truck) and I miss read the load dimensions and weights. Fortunately the people at Mann Lake, Wilkes Barre are true professionals and helped me out loading and when it became apparent that I was not going to fit a pallet of medium supers, offered to put them back in the warehouse for a later pickup. Ok got home late, parked a trailers and SV full of supplies, got up at 4 am and ran over to the shop, unloaded, returned the trailer and bought some paint, brushes and other painting implements, came back and began painting and assembling 25 hives - thank God I order built sets rather than knockdowns or I'd still be gluing things together. Anyway, even assembled, bases, deeps, covers, feeders and everything became completely absorbing from 4 AM to 6 PM for several days. Then hiving the nuc's, completing out yard agreements and then installing the hives, bees , getting feed and dealing with yo-yo weather. I'm shot! But done-oh wait, I have those 5 triple deeps to split soon-weathers going from a low of 34 today to a high of 80 next week. But I'm done, I can now have fun at beekeeping but have to say this stuff is a lot like work! 2 to 5 to maybe 30 hives this year-I think I'm ready ;-)


----------



## mtnmyke

LarryBud said:


> Well, it's been the month from hell. It all started with the nuc's I ordered arriving about three weeks early this year. My supplier called me on Easter, saying they'd be on the truck for the following Wednesday. I had a couple of pallets of supplies on order at Mann Lake's Wilkes Barre warehouse but my truck was down and so I loaded up the old land Rover LR3, rented a U-Haul trailer and headed out the 156 miles to Wilkes barre on a rainy Tuesday. Think I had at least 3 weeks, I really let it get ahead of me (never again!). To compound the fun, I got an undersized trailer had a fault electric hook up (my truck) and I miss read the load dimensions and weights. Fortunately the people at Mann Lake, Wilkes Barre are true professionals and helped me out loading and when it became apparent that I was not going to fit a pallet of medium supers, offered to put them back in the warehouse for a later pickup. Ok got home late, parked a trailers and SV full of supplies, got up at 4 am and ran over to the shop, unloaded, returned the trailer and bought some paint, brushes and other painting implements, came back and began painting and assembling 25 hives - thank God I order built sets rather than knockdowns or I'd still be gluing things together. Anyway, even assembled, bases, deeps, covers, feeders and everything became completely absorbing from 4 AM to 6 PM for several days. Then hiving the nuc's, completing out yard agreements and then installing the hives, bees , getting feed and dealing with yo-yo weather. I'm shot! But done-oh wait, I have those 5 triple deeps to split soon-weathers going from a low of 34 today to a high of 80 next week. But I'm done, I can now have fun at beekeeping but have to say this stuff is a lot like work! 2 to 5 to maybe 30 hives this year-I think I'm ready ;-)


And people ask why honey is so "expensive"?

That sure does seem like a lot of work but it sounds like you got on top of it! My back hurts just thinking about all you had to get done is such a short amount of time.


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> Well, it's been the month from hell. It all started with the nuc's I ordered arriving about three weeks early this year. My supplier called me on Easter, saying they'd be on the truck for the following Wednesday. I had a couple of pallets of supplies on order at Mann Lake's Wilkes Barre warehouse but my truck was down and so I loaded up the old land Rover LR3, rented a U-Haul trailer and headed out the 156 miles to Wilkes barre on a rainy Tuesday. Think I had at least 3 weeks, I really let it get ahead of me (never again!). To compound the fun, I got an undersized trailer had a fault electric hook up (my truck) and I miss read the load dimensions and weights. Fortunately the people at Mann Lake, Wilkes Barre are true professionals and helped me out loading and when it became apparent that I was not going to fit a pallet of medium supers, offered to put them back in the warehouse for a later pickup. Ok got home late, parked a trailers and SV full of supplies, got up at 4 am and ran over to the shop, unloaded, returned the trailer and bought some paint, brushes and other painting implements, came back and began painting and assembling 25 hives - thank God I order built sets rather than knockdowns or I'd still be gluing things together. Anyway, even assembled, bases, deeps, covers, feeders and everything became completely absorbing from 4 AM to 6 PM for several days. Then hiving the nuc's, completing out yard agreements and then installing the hives, bees , getting feed and dealing with yo-yo weather. I'm shot! But done-oh wait, I have those 5 triple deeps to split soon-weathers going from a low of 34 today to a high of 80 next week. But I'm done, I can now have fun at beekeeping but have to say this stuff is a lot like work! 2 to 5 to maybe 30 hives this year-I think I'm ready ;-)


You are truly a beekeeper now that you know it IS work!


----------



## clyderoad

LarryBud said:


> Well, it's been the month from hell. ...
> But I'm done, I can now have fun at beekeeping


You may think you're done but the work hasn't even started yet.


----------



## AR1

Cloverdale said:


> I found it interesting that two intelligent men agree on those Ley lines and swarms. Something to ponder.


I saw dowsing work once in finding a buried water line...that's all I got to say on the issue.


----------



## LarryBud

clyderoad said:


> You may think you're done but the work hasn't even started yet.


Momma said there'd be days like this, Momma said....(que music)


----------



## MajorJC

I got a phone call yesterday from Gardner, my four packages that were scheduled for May 17 will be shipping on Monday next week. I guess today I'll be assembling frames and getting some hive stands built.


----------



## Cloverdale

MajorJC said:


> I got a phone call yesterday from Gardner, my four packages that were scheduled for May 17 will be shipping on Monday next week. I guess today I'll be assembling frames and getting some hive stands built.


Where did you order your packages from?


----------



## MajorJC

Cloverdale said:


> Where did you order your packages from?


Gardner Apiaries in Baxley, GA


----------



## mtnmyke

It's not even March and I have 25 boxes full of honey. I'm usually at this stage mid June.

We're well over 1-2 months ahead of schedule on blooms and I have a feeling this is going to be a terribly long summer.


----------



## Cloverdale

Me, I overwintered with minimum 2 deeps 1 medium. We had a tremendous flow last Fall and left lots of nectar and Fall honey on hives to overwinter on; now, we have a few hundred pounds of crystalized honey. And nectar. Loss 4 out of 20 the most ever. It seems out here there has been heavy winter losses, many losing all their hives.


----------



## LarryBud

I had one of my new hives swarm today. I have a secondary "out" yard on a friends farm in a 2 acre meadow that she over seeded with white clover. We had transfer 4 nuc's into 10 frame deeps and had temporarily placed them on an old ladder laying on the ground a week ago while prepping a smaller permanent area right behind the ladder. I had planned to do a quick inspection, cut the grass around where the hive stands would go with a push mower, place the stands, mount the hive (back a foot or two from the ladder) possibly some manipulations, check the frames for any early queen cells. I cut an area suitable for the apiary when my friend's boyfriend comes out of the barn with the is big a***ed zero radius mower, runs in front of the hives blowing grass and exhaust straight into the landing board openings. I quickly waived him off but the damage was done. The one hive which had exploded since the transfer into the 10 frames immediate started to flow out like an inverted waterfall of bees. The girls took off like a tornado across the meadow and moved around for 15 or 20 minutes until they formed up on a tree on the opposite side about 15 feet up. It was amazing and one heck of a sight to see. A huge swarm flying around in a clockwise rotation, thousands of bee. I then thought I'd hate to loose them so ask the boyfriend to keep and eye on them and to track them if they moved while I drove back to my place to get some boxes, tools and swarm traps just incase. The weather was fading as clouds were rolling in as the weather was predicted to close in and rain. I shot over to the house, got the stuff and when I came back, it appears that the swarm turned track, landed on their hive and went back in. Amazing.
 An hour later after I felt they had settled in, I did a quick inspection of the other hive and a slightly deeper inspection of the returned swarm. They had built out 2 additional frames since I had hived the original five frame nuc, lots of eggs and good stores with what look like a very strong late Spring flow starting. There were no queen cells on any of the frames, only a few drones but when I had opened the box, it looked like 9+ frames heavily covered with bees. I made the call and added a second deep, check boarding a couple of the base's partially built outer frames into the second deep and giving unbuilt frames to the base. There were a lot of nurse bees and the hive looks strong. Did I advert disaster or delay it? I'm almost convinced that the mower scared the bees out of the hive and they left without any organized manner only to return home and settle back in. Tumbleweed, you missed an interesting afternoon.


----------



## Litsinger

Litsinger said:


> He keeps threatening to do a webinar on the topic, but I have yet to see him do it yet.


Right on cue...


----------



## MajorJC

I got my hive stand and hives ready for my four packages that will be arriving next week.
My top feeders are for 8 frame boxes, so I placed a wooden shim next to the feeder to close the top of the brood box.
I made a video while setting this up and posted it to YouTube if anyone is interested.

While I was getting ready to set these up I got a phone call from Austin Smith that my three certified Russian nucs were ready for pickup. So after completing these hives, I drove to Petal, MS and picked them up.


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> I had one of my new hives swarm today. I have a secondary "out" yard on a friends farm in a 2 acre meadow that she over seeded with white clover. We had transfer 4 nuc's into 10 frame deeps and had temporarily placed them on an old ladder laying on the ground a week ago while prepping a smaller permanent area right behind the ladder. I had planned to do a quick inspection, cut the grass around where the hive stands would go with a push mower, place the stands, mount the hive (back a foot or two from the ladder) possibly some manipulations, check the frames for any early queen cells. I cut an area suitable for the apiary when my friend's boyfriend comes out of the barn with the is big a***ed zero radius mower, runs in front of the hives blowing grass and exhaust straight into the landing board openings. I quickly waived him off but the damage was done. The one hive which had exploded since the transfer into the 10 frames immediate started to flow out like an inverted waterfall of bees. The girls took off like a tornado across the meadow and moved around for 15 or 20 minutes until they formed up on a tree on the opposite side about 15 feet up. It was amazing and one heck of a sight to see. A huge swarm flying around in a clockwise rotation, thousands of bee. I then thought I'd hate to loose them so ask the boyfriend to keep and eye on them and to track them if they moved while I drove back to my place to get some boxes, tools and swarm traps just incase. The weather was fading as clouds were rolling in as the weather was predicted to close in and rain. I shot over to the house, got the stuff and when I came back, it appears that the swarm turned track, landed on their hive and went back in. Amazing.
> An hour later after I felt they had settled in, I did a quick inspection of the other hive and a slightly deeper inspection of the returned swarm. They had built out 2 additional frames since I had hived the original five frame nuc, lots of eggs and good stores with what look like a very strong late Spring flow starting. There were no queen cells on any of the frames, only a few drones but when I had opened the box, it looked like 9+ frames heavily covered with bees. I made the call and added a second deep, check boarding a couple of the base's partially built outer frames into the second deep and giving unbuilt frames to the base. There were a lot of nurse bees and the hive looks strong. Did I advert disaster or delay it? I'm almost convinced that the mower scared the bees out of the hive and they left without any organized manner only to return home and settle back in. Tumbleweed, you missed an interesting afternoon.


Wow, what a sight that must have been. They’re back, I think you did the right thing. Amazing story!


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> Right on cue...


Thanks Russ!


----------



## elmer_fud

I can now join the 2 queens in one hive club. I have a hive that has been struggling, and inspecting it today I found 2 queens. The last 2 inspections I found the unmarked queen, but I thought I had marked her, and today I found both in the same hive. I think there may have been 2 there all last summer since this hive was a package last summer and i have not find any queen cells in it. I think I am going to split the queens apart next week.


----------



## AHudd

I have been through all of the door changes on the hives with Snelgrove Boards. Some of them now have laying Queens in the top and bottom brood boxes. The ones I have been through the bottom box are beginning to charge Queen cells. Time to split out the old Queen below and the new Queen above and leave only one QC in the bottom.
The colonies run by the R. Weaver Queens are showing much less tendency to swarm compared to my bees even though I am running them in single brood box. I split out one frame with some almost capped QCs and one frame of emerging brood from one of the four. So far that is the only one preparing to swarm.

Our best part of the flow will probably begin in about two weeks with the Blackberry bloom.

Alex


----------



## Cloverdale

Litsinger said:


> Right on cue...


Hi Russ, I just finished watching this, truly intriguing. I do hope someone will research this. I am going to try this, hopefully I can keep my attention focused. Did you ask a question during the live video?


----------



## LarryBud

I was doing inspections on my hives this morning at a 3 hive mini yard, checking for swarm cells and judging colony growth to see if a second deep was needed yet and got a call from my friend where I have six hives (on 7 acres of field/meadow) that there was a swarm in the tree right near my hives. This is the same field that we had the "false swarm"(?) in last week and so I finished up what I was doing, grabbed some boxes and headed over there. When I got there it was a massive swarm about 20 feet up, too high up for my old fat a** so I set up a makeshift swarm box with a deep, solid base and new plastic foundation. I had some old burr comb and crumbs from clean ups so I threw some in on the bottom board, sprayed a shot of swarm commander, said a Hail Mary and strapped the box up on a limb of a nearby tree. The farm owner is a friend and she wants to learn more about bee so we donned out vails and went through the 6 hives to see which had swarmed. Surprisingly, i don't think that the swarm up in the tree came from my hives. These 6 hives are new, just hived in 10 frame deeps from 5 frame nucs about ten days ago. We did a frame by frame (it was 70F and clear here today) inspection and it appeared that the 6 hives were well populated, had no swarm cells and were actually quite docile to the point that while we lit a smoker, we really didn't use it. There's a big Spring flow on here, trees (the farm had the remains of an old apple and cherry orchard) in bloom, dandelions all over the places and flowers everywhere. By the time we finished going through all 6 hives, it appeared that some of the swarm's scouts had found the "trap" and were going in and out. It was late afternoon by then and I had to head home so I'm not sure if they'll settle but I guess we'll know in a day or two. I am pretty sure that these bees are feral, possibly from a hive that my friend had that absconded late last year (pretty much from lack of management) and are darker than the 6 colonies I parked there. They're also a little more aggressive because when I walked up to the bait hive, they were very defensive. Guess we'll know in a few day-maybe I'll put a couple more boxes up there.


----------



## Cloverdale

LarryBud said:


> I was doing inspections on my hives this morning at a 3 hive mini yard, checking for swarm cells and judging colony growth to see if a second deep was needed yet and got a call from my friend where I have six hives (on 7 acres of field/meadow) that there was a swarm in the tree right near my hives. This is the same field that we had the "false swarm"(?) in last week and so I finished up what I was doing, grabbed some boxes and headed over there. When I got there it was a massive swarm about 20 feet up, too high up for my old fat a** so I set up a makeshift swarm box with a deep, solid base and new plastic foundation. I had some old burr comb and crumbs from clean ups so I threw some in on the bottom board, sprayed a shot of swarm commander, said a Hail Mary and strapped the box up on a limb of a nearby tree. The farm owner is a friend and she wants to learn more about bee so we donned out vails and went through the 6 hives to see which had swarmed. Surprisingly, i don't think that the swarm up in the tree came from my hives. These 6 hives are new, just hived in 10 frame deeps from 5 frame nucs about ten days ago. We did a frame by frame (it was 70F and clear here today) inspection and it appeared that the 6 hives were well populated, had no swarm cells and were actually quite docile to the point that while we lit a smoker, we really didn't use it. There's a big Spring flow on here, trees (the farm had the remains of an old apple and cherry orchard) in bloom, dandelions all over the places and flowers everywhere. By the time we finished going through all 6 hives, it appeared that some of the swarm's scouts had found the "trap" and were going in and out. It was late afternoon by then and I had to head home so I'm not sure if they'll settle but I guess we'll know in a day or two. I am pretty sure that these bees are feral, possibly from a hive that my friend had that absconded late last year (pretty much from lack of management) and are darker than the 6 colonies I parked there. They're also a little more aggressive because when I walked up to the bait hive, they were very defensive. Guess we'll know in a few day-maybe I'll put a couple more boxes up there.


Hope you get that swarm Larry.


----------



## Gray Goose

Cloverdale said:


> That’s because he will be ridiculed on Bee-l, if those beekeepers that post there have the nerve to do it to Roger P. Now that there is a new moderator since Aaron Morris passed away no one gets away with talk like that anymore. I found it interesting that two intelligent men agree on those Ley lines and swarms. Something to ponder.


your ability to understand an idea does not make it false.
the first person to say the earth was round was ridiculed as well.
electricity was "to dangerous" to be in homes, was a common thought as well.

GG


----------



## Litsinger

Cloverdale said:


> Hi Russ, I just finished watching this, truly intriguing. I do hope someone will research this. I am going to try this, hopefully I can keep my attention focused. Did you ask a question during the live video?


Deb:

Sorry for my delay in reply- I have been swamped at work. I agree with you that this is intriguing stuff. I was especially perplexed about him talking about finding one of their association member's lost wedding ring through 'witching'. 

Do let us know if you are able to get the knack for it. We have a dousing class every year at our first association meeting- it always attracts considerable interest.

I have only been fortunate enough to be available for one of Roger's live presentations- so I was not the 'Russ' that asked a question during the Q+A time.

Good luck to you with your beekeeping this year- keep us posted if you find any energy lines.

Russ


----------



## LAlldredge

Took the afternoon off to be in the beeyard. Reversed last time. Queens are moving into the deep. Equilized strength. Honey frames out, foundation in. There is no woe in their go. Flow just starting. Crazy Sherry hive filling medium already. Took a couple of stings in the wrist. Ouch. Working bare handed. Bee work mellows me out.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Took the afternoon off to be in the beeyard. Reversed last time. Queens are moving into the deep. Equilized strength. Honey frames out, foundation in. There is no woe in their go. Flow just starting. Crazy Sherry hive filling medium already. Took a couple of stings in the wrist. Ouch. Working bare handed. Bee work mellows me out.


Are you then extracting the honey frames?
I have 4-6 in several of my hives, not sure if I freeze more for winter or extract for splits at this point.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Not there just yet but I'm keeping an eagle eye on backfilling so I swap frames out aggressively this time of year. 

I have 5 large plastic totes that hold my inventory of deep/medium frames. Inventory includes foundation, honey, pollen and comb of each size. First priority is emergency and laying space, second is winter and lastly harvest. Doing lots of moving around of frames in my quiet box. Pulled honey/brood from strong hives and boosted 2 smaller ones. Wish I had a freezer though. I have limited space but that helps me to keep the right size apiary for my time.


----------



## LarryBud

We didn't catch that swarm up on the farm the other day, it took off and maybe it was a good thing. Those bees were hot! Had a bunch of scouts checking out the bait hive and they were ornery. After going through the six hives just below them to verify if they came from them, all of the hives were well populated, still had building room and a frame by frame showed no swarm cells. Our girls were really chill, showed no aggression or even interest as we went through the box. When we finished up on that inspection, we saw that a bunch of scouts were checking out the bait box so we walked over to check them out and they chased us-we both had taken off the vails already and they stung us. They actually chased us and when we walked away, they followed us and we both got stung. Yesterday, the swarm had left but a few scouts were still around and when I went up to look at the bait box, they chased me again and I got stung on the neck. That one I killed and when i picked it up, it was a black bee, very dark, maybe a feral Russian? I'm kind of glad we didn't get them, my Italian mutts are much nicer and easy to work with. I'm definitely not going to move any of my breeder nucs and where near this yard!


----------



## elmer_fud

Today I checked all of my hives. I split the queens in my 2 queen hive, we will see how they do since there was also one supersede cell in that hive today. 

I found and marked my 2 unmarked queens that I know of/could find. 

I still have one hive that I am not sure if it is queen right or not yet, I found some eggs in it today, but I could not find the queen. Since it is a single egg in each cell on the bottom I don't think it is laying worker and may just be a runny queen.


----------



## username00101

Weather's getting dry now. I was a bit perplexed how little nectar was being stored. I was expecting to miss a swarm...yet I do not have any new wax.


----------



## username00101

Looks like a couple of weeks of cold, cold weather. Very bizarre spring. 

Looks like splits and queen mating will wait until June.


----------



## LarryBud

Same down here and I have 10 walk away splits sitting in the yard. Timing is everything and I jumped the gun-wish I had waited another couple weeks but was to nervous. Rookie error.

The 15 new nucs have boomed, I spent the day equalizing/manipulating frames. They've made into the second deep with 30%+ built out. Kind of an arc of comb on the inner 5 frames so far and covered with brood. I'm figuring out this farmers life-everything is weather. My great grandfather would be proud.

I had gone up to Mann lake in Wilkes Barre, Pa yesterday in the rain and picked up some supers. Was amazing how different 100 miles as the bee flies and 1100 feet in elevation is weather-wise. Seems at the higher elevations the trees were just budding and the valleys were green. Beautiful area but I like my 85 feet above sea level on the edge of the coastal plain. Heck, if global warming is a real thing I'll be living on the beach soon.


----------



## username00101

Sounds good over at @LarryBud 

The honey supers remain on the sidelines for me.

Hoping for some opportunity to use the honey supers.


----------



## username00101

Going on about a week now without any nectar, or flying weather. Wouldn't surprise me if the queens were shutting down, going to be down near freezing at night.

Normally, this is swarm season.

Bizarre spring.


----------



## Cloverdale

username00101 said:


> Going on about a week now without any nectar, or flying weather. Wouldn't surprise me if the queens were shutting down, going to be down near freezing at night.
> 
> Normally, this is swarm season.
> 
> Bizarre spring.


Yes it is. I put the shims back on and am feeding crystalized honey to them. Plus rewarming syrup jars...


----------



## LarryBud

I'm hoping we're getting through this ;last week of wet and cold. Tomorrow and the next few days are forecasted to be in the mid-upper 60's and then up into the lower 70's towards weeks end with some rain on Friday. Plan for tomorrow, once it warms up is hive assessment, swarm inspection and developing a plan for supers. If the weather hold true to forecast (which it hasn't so far) we should be supering the overwintered hives and some of the stronger new ones (this years nucs). Our flow should resume with the warmth and the ground is wet. You guys will get there soon too.


----------



## LAlldredge

Lovely day- late afternoon in the bee yard. Inspected 3, took Apivar strips out and added supers with last years drawn comb to add space for larger population. No swarm intent, cool spring and getting warmer. The resource hive side had been given a boost of 2 frames of brood. They look much healthier now and moving forward. Will keep watching that one. Joined the silver stacking movement and taking delivery for the last 3 months.


----------



## AR1

username00101 said:


> Going on about a week now without any nectar, or flying weather. Wouldn't surprise me if the queens were shutting down, going to be down near freezing at night.
> 
> Normally, this is swarm season.
> 
> Bizarre spring.


According to my records of flowering, this year is right on track with normal for us in N Illinois. But it sure feels cold, days up to 60 and frost at night. Drones spotted for the first time just recently, so swarm season if nearing.


----------



## username00101

I went to one apiary today and finally made some splits, looks like the bees are doing OK, but are well behind normal.

My best queen, of course she swarmed, I guess I underestimated her willingness to swarm in 50 degree weather. 

She wasn't phased by my fancy swarm traps, sucks to lose her, so I divided up the queen cells into several splits and hopefully in a month there'll be some more local survivor stock genetics.


----------



## username00101

The extreme cold of the last couple of weeks has closed the bees inside, and this is the FIRST TIME I've ever found capped queen cells before a swarm!

So I was able to divvy them up among several splits, problem is that I couldn't find the queen.

So what happens will the queen tear them down, or send off a secondary swarm???

Crazy, I've NEVER seen that before.


----------



## clyderoad

username00101 said:


> The extreme cold of the last couple of weeks has closed the bees inside, and this is the FIRST TIME I've ever found capped queen cells before a swarm!
> 
> So I was able to divvy them up among several splits, problem is that I couldn't find the queen.
> 
> So what happens will the queen tear them down, or send off a secondary swarm???
> 
> Crazy, I've NEVER seen that before.


It's too bad those local survivor northern cold climate queens are so swarmy. Can't do much with such swarmy bees.

Maybe they are not being managed properly. 
Would a mentor or a more experienced beekeeper help keep them them in the boxes? 
Or maybe some genetic work on the line is in order. 
Or maybe both.


----------



## username00101

Not really sure how to respond to the above poster, so I'll just click the ignore button 

Anyways, I've finished making over 10 splits with the local survivor stock northern queens.


----------



## LarryBud

username00101 said:


> Not really sure how to respond to the above poster, so I'll just click the ignore button
> 
> Anyways, I've finished making over 10 splits with the local survivor stock northern queens.


I'm pretty much convinced that all bees, north, south, east and west swarm. And they swarm for newbees and experts. I think that's how bees work. Clyder-do you have some magical non swarming bees?


----------



## clyderoad

username00101 said:


> Not really sure how to respond to the above poster, so I'll just click the ignore button
> 
> Anyways, I've finished making over 10 splits with the local survivor stock northern queens.





username00101 said:


> Weather's getting dry now. I was a bit perplexed how little nectar was being stored. I was expecting to miss a swarm...yet I do not have any new wax.





username00101 said:


> Looks like a couple of weeks of cold, cold weather. Very bizarre spring.
> 
> Looks like splits and queen mating will wait until June.





username00101 said:


> The honey supers remain on the sidelines for me.
> 
> Hoping for some opportunity to use the honey supers.





username00101 said:


> Going on about a week now without any nectar, or flying weather. Wouldn't surprise me if the queens were shutting down, going to be down near freezing at night.
> 
> Normally, this is swarm season.
> 
> Bizarre spring.


How can the bees swarm under such dire conditions? cold, dry, no nectar, behind normal and they swarm?
Those queens shutting down enabled them to hit the trees! 
Either you are reading the weather incorrectly, the bees incorrectly or both.


----------



## username00101

It's not quite that simple in the _colder_ climates. In the south, or zone 6 or 7+ (e.g., the climate of the coastal East coast). In those climates, one can get away with quite a bit of room for error with mating queens.

Things are different in the north, with long periods of time without cleansing flights etc etc.

This should really all just be common knowledge.


----------



## clyderoad

LarryBud said:


> I'm pretty much convinced that all bees, north, south, east and west swarm. And they swarm for newbees and experts. I think that's how bees work. Clyder-do you have some magical non swarming bees?


Have to agree there- all bees will swarm, the caveat is that some swarm more easily than others. Good swarm control goes a long way in keeping them home but it's a skill that may take a while to develop, for some a longer while than for others.
I have good bees, not magic bees. 
If you'd like I can sprinkle some magic on them for you. Of course they would be expensive but for a magic bee 
like no other it might be worth it.


----------



## LarryBud

So, I though I'd catch up on the last two days fun, fun events! I had planned out a whole day of going through my hives on Tuesday, deep inspections, swarm cells, frame manipulation checking to see if supers were needed, you know, Yankee hive management! The plan was to start with the hives in my backyard, hit all of the mini-yards (2-3 hives each), end up on the Farm and then circle back to the house to do a late day (as the day warmed) inspection on my splits back home. So I waited for the morning temps to recover from the low 40's to the upper 50's and a round 11 am, put on my beekeeper's costume, got all of my hive tools together and lit the smoker-then a text from a property owner with one of the mini yards-one of the 3 hives there were swarming! (These bees were obviously NOT magical non-swarming bees) Ok, thinking this deserved my attention, took off the beekeeper costume, packed up the hive tools, grabbed a spare deep box, base and top, then drove over to the mini-yard. Sure enough, a nice swarm about 20 feet up the trunk of a nice, tall straight tree. Not much I could do, I'm only 6 feet tall so I figured lets figure out which hive swarmed and proceeded to do full inspection on the three hives there. Opened them up, check frames and didn't see any swarm cells and the populations (all three hives were started in early April from the same group) seemed pretty balanced. Of course by now, my sequence for the planned day's inspections was shot. I decided to further complicate the day by getting a ladder and trying to catch the swarm and hive them. Ok up the tree, sweep them into the box and transferred them into the spare hive-no good, missed the queen and they were flying everywhere. I let them go as I had to get through my inspection, after all, I am very important and to be very exacting in my time management (this does not impress bees under any circumstance). I then proceeded to hit the rest of the mini yards and by 4 pm, got to the Farm where by an executive vote, I said screw this and went home for dinner, putting of the inspection until today.
Around 6;30, my property owner with the swarm called me to let me know that the swarm had reformed on the same tree, same location. I decide to have desert, some ice cream with momma but then momma pushed me out and I drove back up to the swarm location. By then it was getting dark and cold, the cluster was large 3-4 lbs. and had tightened up to a smaller (area) but thicker ball of bees. They also had formed about a foot from the top of the ladder I had left up earlier in the day. (Yes I didn't pick up all of my toys earlier). I through on my veil, climbed the ladder and swept the whole mess into a box-hived them (top and bottom QE's) right away just as night and cold set in. Funny part is I found the queen, marked blue-looks like an over wintered queen. And I don't mark my queens, never did-I got my first swarm of non-magical bees ever!!! Plus my bees speak French-I don't so I'm really not sure what they're saying.


----------



## LarryBud

clyderoad said:


> Have to agree there- all bees will swarm, the caveat is that some swarm more easily than others. Good swarm control goes a long way in keeping them home but it's a skill that may take a while to develop, for some a longer while than for others.
> I have good bees, not magic bees.
> If you'd like I can sprinkle some magic on them for you. Of course they would be expensive but for a magic bee
> like no other it might be worth it.


What you have to understand is that where Username is, they've had some serious weather swings over the past few weeks-we have had some too, just not as extreme. If you had read some of his posts over the last few weeks, they went hot to cold in a 100 feet and then back. You and I have similar climates with ocean warms tempering our extremes, but up north 40 or 50 degrees can happen. An early warmth can trigger hive growth and then drops to freezing can happen where you can't get in to the hive for weeks. The bees don't stop once they trigger-even magical bees. Has nothing to do with hive management.


----------



## username00101

Pretty much exactly, it's been about 10 or so days since the last halfway decent split weather.


----------



## clyderoad

username00101 said:


> It's not quite that simple in the _colder_ climates. In the south, or zone 6 or 7+ (e.g., the climate of the coastal East coast), there's quite a bit more room for error with selecting queens to breed. They don't necessarily need to survive 3-4+ months without a cleansing flight.
> 
> This is why southern queens are inferior in the colder (zone 4 or 5) climates.
> 
> The other factors are noted, e.g., honey production, _but by far the most important is brood health._
> 
> Did I mis-represent myself by implying that unusually swarmy queens were the ones I selected, just randomly without any thought, like a total novice?
> 
> lol. Anyways, the queen rearing of the local queens has commenced, and at least I'm excited.


No redirects  This ain't about my bees or management practices.
My comments are based on reports of the conditions both inside and outside of your hives. Your reports. 
Comments are encouraged on the forum. Keeps the wheels turning.

People read the posts, some respond. Like me. 
When the posts seem at odds with basic bee behavior it's even more important for others to comment, and to question. To point out the exaggerations that mislead others and make a mockery out of beekeeping.

Walking the walk is not so easy.


----------



## clyderoad

LarryBud said:


> What you have to understand is that where Username is, they've had some serious weather swings over the past few weeks-we have had some too, just not as extreme. If you had read some of his posts over the last few weeks, they went hot to cold in a 100 feet and then back. You and I have similar climates with ocean warms tempering our extremes, but up north 40 or 50 degrees can happen. An early warmth can trigger hive growth and then drops to freezing can happen where you can't get in to the hive for weeks. The bees don't stop once they trigger-even magical bees. Has nothing to do with hive management.


It has nearly everything to do with management or the lack thereof.


----------



## username00101

I'm not going to waste any more of my time trying to sort through these bizarre comments. Glad the ignore button exists.


----------



## clyderoad

"
@clyderoad has yet to make a legitimate point, and is a very negative person.

Not really sure I understand that mentality, but thanks for offering nothing useful to this conversation. "


The POINT from post #3261 was made over an hour ago.

"How can the bees swarm under such dire conditions? cold, dry, no nectar, behind normal and they swarm?
Those queens shutting down enabled them to hit the trees! 
Either you are reading the weather incorrectly, the bees incorrectly or both."


----------



## username00101

@LarryBud did that beekeeper bring in the 50 colonies to your neck of the woods?

If so, it might be worthwhile to set up a number of swarm traps in the area. 

Question is, are you going to be able to come up with the equipment to house all those swarms


----------



## LarryBud

username00101 said:


> @LarryBud did that beekeeper bring in the 50 colonies to your neck of the woods?
> 
> If so, it might be worthwhile to set up a number of swarm traps in the area.
> 
> Question is, are you going to be able to come up with the equipment to house all those swarms


I've been staying away from that guy (geographically) with the 50+ hives, not even sure if he did it. As far as wooden ware, yeah, I'm good. My effort this year was primarily to keep an agricultural tax exemption on 14 acres we nearby so I had order 15 new nucs this year to get a jump start on my apiary. When I did the math, 15 nucs x 2 each deeps=30 deeps and then 2+ each mediums = another 30 boxes and then figuring in some spares, it became obvious that it was cheaper to buy a pallet of each from Mann Lake through their commercial sales picked up in Wilkes Barre. Believe it or not it was slightly cheaper than the discounted retail prices of buying 30 deeps and 30 supers. As you know, you can never have enough wooden ware so I've got enough for another 15 hives sitting in the barn ready to go. Then once you're on their commercial list, the bases, tops and are priced at the commercial level. It has been a pleasure to deal with them. It's only about 130 miles away, nice drive in the country for me and the people in Wilkes Barre are just the nicest to deal with. The only problem is my F250 is parked up at the house in Maine so the old Rover and a U-Haul had to do the work. I have no intentions of ever getting beyond much further than where I'm at. I did commercial fishing in Maine years ago which is a ton of unending work as an owner of a off shore boat-commercial beekeeping looks much harder and I'm too old for that now.


----------



## username00101

Might be worthwhile trying to figure out if that person set up the apiary, it's basically certain it's going to be a swarm party near a 50 hive commercial drop like that.

That, and it's going to be PRIME queen mating location. 

Even if they're not magical bees, that's a lot of drones....


----------



## LarryBud

After the swarm chase earlier in the week on Tuesday I decide to do inspection again tomorrow morning on all of the hives for manipulation and swarm cells. After an earlier than normal dinner tonight I figured I get a jump on it tonight so threw on the beekeeping costume, lit the smoker and went to pop some tops. I had started tonight with the overwintered hives, that were triple deeps and were split on May 3rd as fly-away's, leaving 15 frames in the "mother" hives checkerboarded with 5 frames of bare foundation and two 10 frames with 7-8 frames of brood/food and bees. They (the 'mothers") appeared to have full recovered from the splits on Tuesday inspections-and so I had added a medium super on each-probably more as swarm control-checkerboarded with 4 frames of last years extracted comb frames. Tonight's inspection showed they are building comb on the bare frames and filling them with nectar with some capping of honey on the center frames about an inch up. I then checked a triple set of this years nucs, near by, which are now in double deeps (Impresses the c**p out of the neighbors when I'm walking around with the neighborhood in a veil and carrying a lit smoker). This group is just down the street and appear to getting close to 6-7 frames of comb, capped honey and pollen in a pretty arc with eggs below the upper deep. I shifted frames 3 and 7 to 2 and 8 to get some more room but think these ladies are going to get a medium with some comb tomorrow. Weather is forecasted to be mid 70's and overnight in the 50's for the next week and further out, it probably won't change. I'm thinking good things are starting.

On a cautionary note, I did see a supersedure cell on the face of one frame in one of the new colonies in the upper deep. There was an empty cell and what appeared to be a capped cell-should I be concerned? I couple of the splits of last years hive look like they are not going to make it, maybe swap out that frame? Or pull the current queen?


----------



## mtnmyke

Our dearth hit today.

I culled out an ugly frame of drone brood from a colony that was halfway filled with nectar. I set it aside and filled in a replacement.

It wasn't 5 minutes before it was COVERED in bees. I took it about 100 feet from any colonies and the bees that were robbing it out started attacking the nearby colonies. It was all out chaos! It wasn't 15 minutes before the entire frame was cleaned out but due to the frenzy the colonies went on full defense and I took a couple stings to the face, where I had been working on them earlier with light smoke and no veil just fine.

I had terrible fears for this as we're about a month early on the dearth. The nectar won't return until November so if I don't go broke from heavy feeding over the next 6 months, I may expect heavy losses.


----------



## elmer_fud

I checked my hives today, I lost one, I think it was to small and the cold/moisture got it. It was one of the queens from my 2 queen hive. 

I chased down and isolated a queen in a single box hive that did not seem to be doing well. I think she was an early season supersede and did not get well mated. I moved her to a new box and added a frame with some eggs/larve from one of my strong hives so hopefully they raise a new queen. I did find a queen cell in this hive, so I think they knew she was not doing well.

I also think I found a virgin queen. One of my hives had a single supersede cell 2 weeks ago, and then I found the marked queen, and this one that also looks like a queen. I will see what this hive does and go from there. This was the 2 queen hive that was struggling, and I pulled one of the queens out, so maybe it will end up with 2 queens again, time will tell









I have 2 other hives that are going well, they are starting to fill supers and are nice and strong. They don't show any signs of wanting to swarm yet, so I hope to keep them that way. I think running really large hives (5+ mediums) seems to help with the swarm inpulse since they never feel crowded.


----------



## LAlldredge

Bee yard/ plants in the ground. Inspected 3. Wednesday (named after the day they swarmed) got a super. Mrs. Pitts (named after my fav grade school teacher) got a look. Population doing better after 2 frames of brood put in. Gabrielle is crushing it in 1/2 resource hive. Solid laying pattern and beautiful large queen. No changes but may move some brood to take down strength. No stings. Bare handed. Had started over 300 plants in my indoor system. Sweet peas planted out on 2 arbors. Large plantings of ammi magus, eryngium, , lisianthus, rudbeckia, yarrow, echinacea, dahlia and figwort. Can't forget their favorite- phacelia direct seeded in fall. Amending soil and direct seeding tithonus, zinnia, sunflower and cosmos. I have no discipline. Must grow everything.


----------



## username00101

mtnmyke said:


> Our dearth hit today.
> 
> I culled out an ugly frame of drone brood from a colony that was halfway filled with nectar. I set it aside and filled in a replacement.
> 
> It wasn't 5 minutes before it was COVERED in bees. I took it about 100 feet from any colonies and the bees that were robbing it out started attacking the nearby colonies. It was all out chaos! It wasn't 15 minutes before the entire frame was cleaned out but due to the frenzy the colonies went on full defense and I took a couple stings to the face, where I had been working on them earlier with light smoke and no veil just fine.
> 
> I had terrible fears for this as we're about a month early on the dearth. The nectar won't return until November so if I don't go broke from heavy feeding over the next 6 months, I may expect heavy losses.


That sounds ominous.

How many hives are we talking ?


----------



## Gray Goose

mtnmyke said:


> Our dearth hit today.
> 
> I culled out an ugly frame of drone brood from a colony that was halfway filled with nectar. I set it aside and filled in a replacement.
> 
> It wasn't 5 minutes before it was COVERED in bees. I took it about 100 feet from any colonies and the bees that were robbing it out started attacking the nearby colonies. It was all out chaos! It wasn't 15 minutes before the entire frame was cleaned out but due to the frenzy the colonies went on full defense and I took a couple stings to the face, where I had been working on them earlier with light smoke and no veil just fine.
> 
> I had terrible fears for this as we're about a month early on the dearth. The nectar won't return until November so if I don't go broke from heavy feeding over the next 6 months, I may expect heavy losses.


mtnmyke
that is a bummer, from now till nov, i cannot even fathom the impact.
the dandy are finishing here the mustard is coming, the apple trees are in bloom, 2 or 3 other yellow things in the low areas are in bloom and the autumn olive is getting ready.
wild how the locale differs

GG


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Bee yard/ plants in the ground. Inspected 3. Wednesday (named after the day they swarmed) got a super. Mrs. Pitts (named after my fav grade school teacher) got a look. Population doing better after 2 frames of brood put in. Gabrielle is crushing it in 1/2 resource hive. Solid laying pattern and beautiful large queen. No changes but may move some brood to take down strength. No stings. Bare handed. Had started over 300 plants in my indoor system. Sweet peas planted out on 2 arbors. Large plantings of ammi magus, eryngium, , lisianthus, rudbeckia, yarrow, echinacea, dahlia and figwort. Can't forget their favorite- phacelia direct seeded in fall. Amending soil and direct seeding tithonus, zinnia, sunflower and cosmos. I have no discipline. Must grow everything.


LAlldredge,
Hi,
nice to be finally in the "spring" even though the list grows faster than the time allows.
sounds like your planting plans are brisk, mine mostly food plots.

I Did get 18 swarm control split done so far this spring, the first queens are hatched, I peaked, on the first 2, even though I do not "recommend" peeking. One has a totally black abdomen, I'm hopping she works out.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Gray Goose said:


> LAlldredge,
> Hi,
> nice to be finally in the "spring" even though the list grows faster than the time allows.
> sounds like your planting plans are brisk, mine mostly food plots.
> 
> I Did get 18 swarm control split done so far this spring, the first queens are hatched, I peaked, on the first 2, even though I do not "recommend" peeking. One has a totally black abdomen, I'm hopping she works out.
> 
> GG


Hey G- Holy smokes (18 splits) that would kill me. Well done. I'm just not that fast yet. Plus I have to slow down and relax to find my queens. Love the dark bodied ones. Our cool season has delayed swarm prep. Have some highly recommended short season veggie seeds to start too. Deema Zucchini looks especially interesting - 35 days to maturity. Inserting a picture of my seed storage cases. These are CD cases purchased from Staples. One for flowers, one for veggies and herbs. Really need to start basil. What are you planting in your food plots?


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Hey G- Holy smokes (18 splits) that would kill me. Well done. I'm just not that fast yet. Plus I have to slow down and relax to find my queens. Love the dark bodied ones. Our cool season has delayed swarm prep. Have some highly recommended short season veggie seeds to start too. Deema Zucchini looks especially interesting - 35 days to maturity. Inserting a picture of my seed storage cases. These are CD cases purchased from Staples. One for flowers, one for veggies and herbs. Really need to start basil. What are you planting in your food plots?
> View attachment 63435


seems each hive I opened had queen cells so make hay when the sun shines....
do need 10 to replace losses, so hope to get back to 25 or so then maybe get some additional ones in the summer.

I like Whitetail Institute products, Fusion or just the Whitetail clover.

GG


----------



## username00101

@Gray Goose 

Sorry to hear that you don't have magical queens that do not swarm.


----------



## username00101

.


----------



## Gray Goose

username00101 said:


> @Gray Goose
> 
> Sorry to hear that you don't have magical queens that do not swarm.


00101,
I pushed them that way, so it is on me. Basically the reverse of Open The Brood Nest.
Added the honey from dead outs to the ones I want to propagate, and a pollen patty early, 10 days before the willow pollen. My eyes are not the best for grafting so I use the swarm impulse. The honey dome and not adding open space generally has swarming by Dandelion time. the first 4 queens should be laying this week and the next will follow shortly after that. its a game i play, see if I can catch them with cells and do a 4 to 6 way split.

GG


----------



## username00101

Wow, that's great 6 way split!

Was just playing about "magical queens",

Good luck with those splits, GG. Thanks for sharing.


----------



## clyderoad

Gray Goose said:


> 00101,
> I pushed them that way, so it is on me. Basically the reverse of Open The Brood Nest.
> Added the honey from dead outs to the ones I want to propagate, and a pollen patty early, 10 days before the willow pollen. My eyes are not the best for grafting so I use the swarm impulse. The honey dome and not adding open space generally has swarming by Dandelion time. the first 4 queens should be laying this week and the next will follow shortly after that. its a game i play, see if I can catch them with cells and do a 4 to 6 way split.
> 
> GG


Refreshing to finally hear about managing the bees (proactively) in such a way as to achieve goals. Of course, it goes without saying that one needs to first understand bee behavior and secondly, know of or create a management technique in order to get the job done. 
Proactive bee management beats Willy Nilly beekeeping that's so popular recently, all day, everyday.

Nice work.


----------



## LarryBud

While we are having magnificent weather here in Central New Jersey, its been a while since our last rain and the 7 day NOAA forecast shows nothing but warm and sunny going forward. Even though the streams are still at seasonal highs, I am worried as the clover starts to bloom that we head into, what is unusual here, a drought. Looks like the 10 splits I did off of the triple deeps are going to make it, well, 9 out of 10-16 days out today! I'm going to add to that thread on what I think I did right and what I think I did wrong. To paraphrase JW, my bees are doing well despite my best efforts...


----------



## username00101

Unfortunately, my bees are not magical drought resistant bees. I hope yours are @LarryBud


----------



## AHudd

Rain, rain, go away, come again, some other day. 
We have had 4 days of rain, although not as heavy and continuous as last year, this is the prime time of our flow. 
The good news is that it is supposed to start clearing out of here today, setting us up for a good finish to our season.

Alex


----------



## LarryBud

username00101 said:


> Unfortunately, my bees are not magical drought resistant bees. I hope yours are @LarryBud


My magical flying bees are of the drought resistant variety how ever the flowers they forage on are not, putting out salted water in trays in the bee yards just in case-50% chance of rain on Tuesday


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> While we are having magnificent weather here in Central New Jersey, its been a while since our last rain and the 7 day NOAA forecast shows nothing but warm and sunny going forward. Even though the streams are still at seasonal highs, I am worried as the clover starts to bloom that we head into, what is unusual here, a drought. Looks like the 10 splits I did off of the triple deeps are going to make it, well, 9 out of 10-16 days out today! I'm going to add to that thread on what I think I did right and what I think I did wrong. To paraphrase JW, my bees are doing well despite my best efforts...


You're wise to note the drought. We went without rain for 3 months last year and it caused a nutrition imbalance. I went from 1 10 pound box of pollen patties to a 40 pound box by comparison. I personally believe that's why the losses were so high last year. Nutritional stress on top of mites not getting washed off plants from rain. The new test this year is the cool spring.


----------



## LarryBud

If anyone's interested, I guess before we start whining here on the east coast, look what's in store for our western cousins!

Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor (unl.edu)


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> If anyone's interested, I guess before we start whining here on the east coast, look what's in store for our western cousins!
> 
> Current Map | U.S. Drought Monitor (unl.edu)


Looks like last year. Flying kids get ProSweet in September to prep for fat winter bees, pollen patties throughout summer and honey frames set aside for emergencies. If we only get two things right- let them be mite management and nutrition.


----------



## Gray Goose

clyderoad said:


> Refreshing to finally hear about managing the bees (proactively) in such a way as to achieve goals. Of course, it goes without saying that one needs to first understand bee behavior and secondly, know of or create a management technique in order to get the job done.
> Proactive bee management beats Willy Nilly beekeeping that's so popular recently, all day, everyday.
> 
> Nice work.


Thanks clyderoad,

I actually start the spring split in August, by adding a 3rd deep to the queens I "like" and take the honey they have a bit early. they get the 3rd deep almost full, buy end of the season. In spring I add a medium of honey from a dead out fairly early, late feb. I rotate the frames from 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 to 5,4,3,2,1,10,9,8,7,6 wanting the full frames in the center so if the bees need them they are not having a 4 to 5 inch gap to hop over in late winter. Ideally the center 4 are full but at times you have what you have. then about 10 days pre willow bloom I add a pollen patty (from Use Dadant) over the nest, may need to go down a box to get there. They start to brood up on the patty, then the natural pollen comes in and you get about a 10 day head start on brood rearing. Caution, every hive I added the patty to, this year Had Swarm cells, so you are playing the music be sure not to be late to the dance. I start to check for cells in the biggest one or 2 when I see the first dandelion, (south side of the house next to the wall) by the time the white fuzz blows they all have started cells. I bought some 5 frame NUC boxes, made tops and bottoms, a couple years ago. Best decision I made.
the 3 deep nicely splits into 6- 5 frame nucs, I also have 10 medium nuc boxes so I can use those medium frames as well, if that is where the cell is, or for a stores frames. I like to find the old queen leave her with mostly foundation on the old site. If I cannot then I still proceed and find her later. of the 5 splits with cells 4 of 5 generally work out to have laying queens by today 5-21. the queen less ones get newspaper combined, to a weak split or the parent. Can again split in mid to late june,, the parent if needed. will get 2 supers from each split, this year (using drawn comb). the best of the 4 gets the 3rd deep in Aug, play the same song next year. seems to work, I get increase, most of the rest are in production. I really like paying with the 5 frame boxes, was a big leap for me with how I do increase, over the 2 or 3 way splits of more hives prior.
I just encourage in a couple time slots the natural way and then collect some of the result's. Not going to lie I do loose some swarms. they are good genetics for those who catch them, so I do not feel bad for long. I am propagating from strong spring, overwintered survivors. Not worried about the few that die out as I need the wooden ware and comb for the splits, going from 5 to 10 then to 20 takes some frames. 

Seems to work for me.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

Finally, some thunderstorms hit us overnight and dumps some rain moistening the ground-hopefully that will start a stronger flow and the weekend look like more heavier rains. I guess you know your a beekeeper when you're happy its going to rain on Memorial Day! Cover is blooming, but the girls don't seem to have any interest in it-not sure what they're chasing but they are bringing back lots of big yellow and white balls of pollen. Maybe it'll be like last year when they didn't take the clover until late June-but we got wet!!!


----------



## Gray Goose

All my new queens are finally laying, time to evaluate, and cull a few and upsize the new little hives from 5 frame to 8 frame. Built 10 more supers this week, somehow I still feel behind.

the cool weather has a break in bee work, well almost, weed wacked around the hives tonight, cuz they were not flying, moved 2 this morning, same reason. Have one to move tomorrow in the rain, then a break for a few days.

GG


----------



## username00101

Good for you @Gray Goose for rearing local queens.

Now if only we can convince the rest of the bee community to do the same.


----------



## Gray Goose

username00101 said:


> Good for you @Gray Goose for rearing local queens.
> 
> Now if only we can convince the rest of the bee community to do the same.


somewhat too poor to buy them. was let go due to Covid.
And of the last 40 I have purchased in the last 10 years 3 have made it thru the first winter, so I am at least that good doing my own.
Last year 6 of 8 made it so trying to do 16-20 this summer.
it is actually more rewarding than I thought.

GG


----------



## username00101

3/40 commercial queens survived?

Wow we all know that commercial queens are no good, but that's startling.

Good for you, making free local queens, that overwinter better.


----------



## Gray Goose

username00101 said:


> 3/40 commercial queens survived?
> 
> Wow we all know that commercial queens are no good, but that's startling.
> 
> Good for you, making free local queens, that overwinter better.


I'll lean toward "not acclimated" rather than no good. 2 miles from where they hatched they would likely make the winter. Mine at your place may not...
there is something to moving them 3-5 hundred miles, that has an impact.

I "try" some new genetics every year 4-6 queens, under the guise of needing the genetic diversity.
going to try my own for a while and see what happens.

Have 4 from NUCs raised in South Carolina this year. My Buddy has 6, 2 of his superseded already and one swarmed, so he is down 50% in 5 weeks. I am hoping to raise a batch of cells in late June and put cells in the supers of all 4 just to see if/how it works.

Not trying to offer a plug, but 2 of the 3 were from Better Bee , the "northern Queen" if some one wishes to get a couple and try,, mine did well (2 for 2) and one of my mentees got one, when he had is package go queenless in a month, his did real well, hence my trying them.

Most supersede in june or july and if not marked one would not really know.

GG


----------



## Litsinger

Gray Goose said:


> the cool weather has a break in bee work


GG:

How's the 'bee wall' coming along? I thought of your project as I read about African honey bee 'cages' in the latest ABJ.


----------



## LAlldredge

Requeen reluctance
It's been cold- 2 Hives were on watch and 1 has a queen that over wintered but did not start laying. Most beekeepers would have replaced her already. I had a boomer resource hive at risk of swarming so I gave 2 frames of brood from them to the problem hive to keep a population. I'm also sourcing a frame of eggs/young larvae to see if maybe they will supersede her. I just hate the idea of killing a queen but I understand the necessity. Since it's still early summer I'm going to give it a bit more time. Heaven knows my other hives are heavy in population and gearing up so they may give me a queen swarm cell to let me off the hook. I'm sure you remember the first time you had to kill a queen. You know what you need to do- you just don't want to do it.


----------



## username00101

Very very cold cold cold.

Arctic blast in May, temps down in the 30s during the daytime today.


----------



## AR1

username00101 said:


> Very very cold cold cold.
> 
> Arctic blast in May, temps down in the 30s during the daytime today.


30s and frost here in Illinois overnight.


----------



## elmer_fud

LAlldredge said:


> Requeen reluctance
> It's been cold- 2 Hives were on watch and 1 has a queen that over wintered but did not start laying. Most beekeepers would have replaced her already. I had a boomer resource hive at risk of swarming so I gave 2 frames of brood from them to the problem hive to keep a population. I'm also sourcing a frame of eggs/young larvae to see if maybe they will supersede her. I just hate the idea of killing a queen but I understand the necessity. Since it's still early summer I'm going to give it a bit more time. Heaven knows my other hives are heavy in population and gearing up so they may give me a queen swarm cell to let me off the hook. I'm sure you remember the first time you had to kill a queen. You know what you need to do- you just don't want to do it.


Have you considered moving the queen into a nuc to encourage the hive to raise a new one? I have done this with problematic queens before to make sure the hive requeened right.


----------



## LAlldredge

elmer_fud said:


> Have you considered moving the queen into a nuc to encourage the hive to raise a new one? I have done this with problematic queens before to make sure the hive requeened right.
> [/QUOT
> Great idea. Was considering moving her to 1/2 of a resource hive. Found a frame of eggs/larvae today and moved over. The other watch queen is off probation. Just needed population.


----------



## Gray Goose

Litsinger said:


> GG:
> 
> How's the 'bee wall' coming along? I thought of your project as I read about African honey bee 'cages' in the latest ABJ.


was somewhat buried in the spring activities Russ.
Actually been thinking of it the last weekend.
I have the splits made so when the wall hive is ready I will just move them in.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

I had half a dozen splits, now in 10 frame single deeps, on a stack of fiberglass ladders covered by a heavy duty tarp but over the last week, they were all relocated to other yards. We just went through a cold, rainy week here, temps bouncing off 40 and highs just hitting 50. One group of two hives was sent over to a gardener about a mile away but I had closed them in one the day they were moved and then the weather kept them clustered inside for a few more days. Today was the first warm day and I was out in the yard painting some supers when I noticed some bees flying around the tarp which i thought that maybe some foragers had found their way back. On closer examination, it appears that these bees were all drone-all dressed up with no where to go. They were clustering, even though it was sunny and around 70F and didn't seem to know what to do. There weren't any workers, just about a 100 drones-anyone seen this beehavior? What's up with that?


----------



## AR1

LarryBud said:


> I had half a dozen splits, now in 10 frame single deeps, on a stack of fiberglass ladders covered by a heavy duty tarp but over the last week, they were all relocated to other yards. We just went through a cold, rainy week here, temps bouncing off 40 and highs just hitting 50. One group of two hives was sent over to a gardener about a mile away but I had closed them in one the day they were moved and then the weather kept them clustered inside for a few more days. Today was the first warm day and I was out in the yard painting some supers when I noticed some bees flying around the tarp which i thought that maybe some foragers had found their way back. On closer examination, it appears that these bees were all drone-all dressed up with no where to go. They were clustering, even though it was sunny and around 70F and didn't seem to know what to do. There weren't any workers, just about a 100 drones-anyone seen this beehavior? What's up with that?
> 
> View attachment 63755
> View attachment 63756
> View attachment 63757


Just guessing. Drones fly out and fly into any colony around. These were probably out visiting the neighbors and when they got home it wasn't there.


----------



## elmer_fud

My hives agree with me that it was hot today


----------



## username00101

Elmer, is it time to add another super in your apiary?

Holy crap. The highest I've ever gotten is like 4 supers.


----------



## elmer_fud

username00101 said:


> Elmer, is it time to add another super in your apiary?
> 
> Holy crap. The highest I've ever gotten is like 4 supers.


That hive went into/thru winter with 5 boxes, and the brood nest is now spanning part of the bottom 6 boxes. The top 3 boxes are supers, and about 2 of the 3 are filled. I have found that the really big hives do not seem to swarm. 

I have a feeling our flow is probably going to drop off soon due to the temperature getting hot early in the year.


----------



## LarryBud

It appears that I have resumed my morning coffee with the bees, sitting on a bench 5 feet away from the closest hive, just off to the side a couple feet watching the comings and goings. These are my two oldest hives, overwintered twice without any problems. They are now double deeps plus three honey supers and I can see the girls lining up at one end of the landing board fanning while the other side is shooting out foragers at an incredible rate. Seems like they are finding the clover but are still more interested in something else I can identify but with recent rains and more forecasted midweek, a strong flow has developed. The smell of honey curing is evident and my last inspection 10 days ago had the first super almost filled on old extracted comb, second super being built up with nice white comb so they got that third one ;-). I did inspections on the out yards over the weekend and the 15 new nucs, now double deeps with a single super are also building out, albeit at different stages. I did jump the gun on the supers on these but I'm not seeing any of consequence on beetles or moths so far, weathers been warm and I was hoping to avoid any swarming by adding a little room. We got 8 swarms this year, a few from my own hives and a few from someone else's. One of those swarms had a market queen from last year. Of the swarms, the ones from my hive look pretty good and a few are on a second deep. The others, with exception of the one with the marked queen are pretty sluggish, barely half way on the new ten frame they were transferred in. I'm wondering if they were swarms with virgin queens, maybe just mated as a few are just starting to lay. I'm also thinking that maybe that's why there's a few days lag time from swarm to egg laying-giving the rest of the colony time to build stores and comb? Would make sense if you consider the time lines of virgin to laying queen in terms of days. .

I'm also finally catching up on maintenance on equipment and wooden ware. I've got all of the remaining new deeps painted and stowed, have about 20 more supers to do and hope to get them done over the next few days. Finally broke down, with 34 hive now and bought a Provap 110 along with a 400w inverter-now I've got 34 quarter inch holes to drill in occupied hives. Not looking forward to that but that's due to 90F high humidity weather, even this morning was 78F at sunrise, not fun to be wearing the beekeeper costume and working on hot days. The last few washes showed little or nothing but the overwintered hives were OAV'd in March and the nucs had Apivar strips when I received them. I pulled them in those last inspections and added the supers his past weekend. While we are now allowed to OAV with supers, I'm hesitant, maybe for no good reason. Will the OAV impart any taste to the honey? The swarm hive haven't been tested but I'm worried about taking out 300 bees from the smaller hives at this stage. I'm not seeing any issues on visual inspections but I'd rather not rely on my eyes for Varroa. I don't like doing sugar rolls, not exactly the "Gold Standard" of testing so maybe I'll either just treat them blindly or wait-probably treating blindly makes more sense.


----------



## LAlldredge

How quickly things can turn....
Cold wet spring, delays, super hot days, then cool again. You get the picture. Took the burlap insulation off when it was high 90's to give them extra attic ventilation. In a string of little to no fly cool days noticed one of my big hives moving very slow. I know torpor and bees moving slow in cool weather but this worried me. Fed them a little sugar slurry last night and put burlap back on the hives. Tonight I got curious about what could have been early starvation. Sure enough, pulled the BeeSmart robbing screen off and cleared an almost totally clogged bottom. I know bee drop, but this was a very heavy drop. Starvation this time of year I'm guessing is very rare but not unheard of. We are just starting our flow but it's been cold and populations are large. Checked the other hives, pulled BeeSmart screens and they are fine (normal drop cleaned out). Poured more sugar slurry on, spritzed with water and they are moving normally. May have caught them in the nick of time. I suppose it could have been pesticides but cold/starvation seems like the culprit. They had an upper entrance, but I'm sure the clogging kept them from getting in, offloading and clustering. As much as I fuss I almost missed it. But my curiosity prevailed. I'll see how they are tomorrow.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> How quickly things can turn....
> Cold wet spring, delays, super hot days, then cool again. You get the picture. Took the burlap insulation off when it was high 90's to give them extra attic ventilation. In a string of little to no fly cool days noticed one of my big hives moving very slow. I know torpor and bees moving slow in cool weather but this worried me. Fed them a little sugar slurry last night and put burlap back on the hives. Tonight I got curious about what could have been early starvation. Sure enough, pulled the BeeSmart robbing screen off and cleared an almost totally clogged bottom. I know bee drop, but this was a very heavy drop. Starvation this time of year I'm guessing is very rare but not unheard of. We are just starting our flow but it's been cold and populations are large. Checked the other hives, pulled BeeSmart screens and they are fine (normal drop cleaned out). Poured more sugar slurry on, spritzed with water and they are moving normally. May have caught them in the nick of time. I suppose it could have been pesticides but cold/starvation seems like the culprit. They had an upper entrance, but I'm sure the clogging kept them from getting in, offloading and clustering. As much as I fuss I almost missed it. But my curiosity prevailed. I'll see how they are tomorrow.


what size hives do you normally run with? this one?

I at times may have "oversized" hives but they almost always have some extra honey for the just in case weeks.

I had a couple that were IMO honey bound in early spring, later inspection showed over 1/2 of it gone, so I did see a larger than normal drop in stores this spring.
IMO early warm = brood up,, late cool then= lots of stores consumed to keep brood warm, if they have it, no worries if not they could drive through stores faster than they can change course.

hope they make it.

here, it is now a week of high 80's, so some bearding....

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Gray Goose said:


> what size hives do you normally run with? this one?
> 
> I at times may have "oversized" hives but they almost always have some extra honey for the just in case weeks.
> 
> I had a couple that were IMO honey bound in early spring, later inspection showed over 1/2 of it gone, so I did see a larger than normal drop in stores this spring.
> IMO early warm = brood up,, late cool then= lots of stores consumed to keep brood warm, if they have it, no worries if not they could drive through stores faster than they can change course.
> 
> hope they make it.
> 
> here, it is now a week of high 80's, so some bearding....
> 
> GG


Hey Grey- years ago a local pro advised large hives so I do that. I'd say 50-60k for production hives in the height of summer. This one in particular is known for having a large population that eats like crazy compared to the Russian hive who is just as large, more productive and eats less. But I'm terribly fond of all of them. As of this am there was no more drop when I pulled the robbing screen (great news). They are under the burlap eating their sugar slurry. It's cold and cloudy the next two days so I think I got lucky because I'm sure they would have perished with this weather. I have inventories of deep and mediums to resupply them as well as pollen patties but I don't want to stress them out by opening things up just yet. I will continue to pour ample sugar and spritz water within their feeder frame as an emergency measure. They look to be stabilizing but I will be a mother hen until they get healthy again.


----------



## alexhaji

Today in the apiary started in the garden. I wanted to get my new strawberry patch put in before starting my Seagrove board manipulations. After I finished as I was washing the sand out of the bed of my pick-up one of my hives issued a swarm. I thought it was going to be a large one because there was a huge cloud of bees, but they circled the hive for a long time, then about half of them went back in and the other half finally landed in a Pine tree.


----------



## Gray Goose

alexhaji said:


> Today in the apiary started in the garden. I wanted to get my new strawberry patch put in before starting my Seagrove board manipulations. After I finished as I was washing the sand out of the bed of my pick-up one of my hives issued a swarm. I thought it was going to be a large one because there was a huge cloud of bees, but they circled the hive for a long time, then about half of them went back in and the other half finally landed in a Pine tree.


hmmm the Snell grove was I presume to get some queen cells.
seems now you should have a few.
May as well use them unless they are from a hive you do not wish to propagate.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

Looks like the girls are starting to find the clover now which has been blooming for a month. They're still bring in a gold pollen, not sure from what, activity look real strong on something.


----------



## LAlldredge

There no place like home. 
Yes, the Anne hive that almost starved made it. After days of rain and cold I got in there today and sure enough, dry comb and large population. The emergency sugar slurry saved them. Added 2 deep frames of honey from my inventory and pollen patties. Other good news- the Mrs. Pitts hive with the queen on watch has straightened out with the donated brood frames. I've done this a few times with a marginal queen. Meanwhile, I came home to this- Crazy Sherrie felt good enough to swarm, but then returned to home sweet home. Ate a burger while I thought about what to do and they all went back in. There was also a cluster down below if you look carefully. Not hot today so this isn't bearding. They went for a stroll.


----------



## elmer_fud

yesterday I was not planning on going on a queen hunt in one of my big hives, but I found 3 swarms cells when I started inspecting it. I was able to find the queen so I moved her and some bees to a 3 frame nuc box.

I think catching 2 hives trying to swarm in 5 seasons with 1-4 hives per year is still a pretty good ratio.


----------



## LarryBud

That's really cool Ms. LA, you live in a beautiful place! 

i did a visual inspection of all of my hives this morning after church-seems like they are finding their grove, all of the established hives are looking very strong and the girls are flying in and out from dawn to dusk. We've been luck with rain as we settle into that two or three days of sunny and warm 70's and then a day of rain. My visual inspection at this time of year is just watch the traffic in and out, looking to see if they're bring in pollen still (brood food), checking any stains on the landing board, landing board behavior and any obvious maladies (DWS, K wing, etc.) that are visible without opening the box. I find it very relaxing to just watch them do their thing!


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> That's really cool Ms. LA, you live in a beautiful place!
> 
> i did a visual inspection of all of my hives this morning after church-seems like they are finding their grove, all of the established hives are looking very strong and the girls are flying in and out from dawn to dusk. We've been luck with rain as we settle into that two or three days of sunny and warm 70's and then a day of rain. My visual inspection at this time of year is just watch the traffic in and out, looking to see if they're bring in pollen still (brood food), checking any stains on the landing board, landing board behavior and any obvious maladies (DWS, K wing, etc.) that are visible without opening the box. I find it very relaxing to just watch them do their thing!


Hey Larry, you had a great start so glad you have time to enjoy it all. Today I split the Sherrie hive into 2 more colonies fitting into my additional resource hive. Sure enough there were beautiful capped queen cells that fit neatly into both sides. I hope the returning swarm stays put now that they have more space.

Sisters Oregon is pretty special. I live in the middle of Deschutes National Forest at the base of Thee Sisters Mountains. My cedar cabin is on an acre and has a corral, chicken coup, beehives and garden. My office is about two miles away.


----------



## Randar

Inspected my 4 hives today... All was good until I got to a Saskatraz queen hive. Found her laying and with copious brood but also found a **** near capped swarm cell. Removed queen excluder to give her access to the second deep but left swarm cell. Should I split it at this point or just remove the swarm cell?


----------



## Gray Goose

Randar said:


> Inspected my 4 hives today... All was good until I got to a Saskatraz queen hive. Found her laying and with copious brood but also found a **** near capped swarm cell. Removed queen excluder to give her access to the second deep but left swarm cell. Should I split it at this point or just remove the swarm cell?


A cell,, normally 3 or lees is a supercedure, 4 or more is a swarm attempt.
Really Randar it is up to you do you want more hives, do you want a daughter from this hive?

if yes and yes pull the cell and make a split. if no increase, let it ride.
Do look in a few days for more cells , but 1 IMO is not a swarm, it is a replacement/supercedure.

GG


----------



## Randar

Gray Goose said:


> A cell,, normally 3 or lees is a supercedure, 4 or more is a swarm attempt.
> Really Randar it is up to you do you want more hives, do you want a daughter from this hive?
> 
> if yes and yes pull the cell and make a split. if no increase, let it ride.
> Do look in a few days for more cells , but 1 IMO is not a swarm, it is a replacement/supercedure.
> 
> GG


Thanks. I inspected a couple days later and they seemed to have abandoned that cell and the few SS or swarm cells they'd started had not progressed. Not sure if it was a backup all along or if I stopped them by shuffling some want frames in for them to work on. 

I will say, these Saskatraz queens are either very squirrelly or they have great survival instincts. They are very good at hiding and scurrying into corners and edge frames when disturbed/smoked.


----------



## AR1

Randar said:


> Thanks. I inspected a couple days later and they seemed to have abandoned that cell and the few SS or swarm cells they'd started had not progressed. Not sure if it was a backup all along or if I stopped them by shuffling some want frames in for them to work on.
> 
> I will say, these Saskatraz queens are either very squirrelly or they have great survival instincts. They are very good at hiding and scurrying into corners and edge frames when disturbed/smoked.


You should put your location in your profile. It can make a big difference who gives you feedback and if the feedback is worth beans.


----------



## elmer_fud

We got a bunch of rain and hail this evening. I think we got about 1.25" of liquid. 

My bees apparently didn't evolve to shelter inside when it is hailing and raining hard. They were still bearding in the storm and I think some got washed off in the rain.


----------



## LAlldredge

elmer_fud said:


> We got a bunch of rain and hail this evening. I think we got about 1.25" of liquid.
> 
> My bees apparently didn't evolve to shelter inside when it is hailing and raining hard. They were still bearding in the storm and I think some got washed off in the rain.
> 
> View attachment 64263
> 
> 
> View attachment 64264


FWIW- Coroplast (Home Depot- large sheet) makes a great awning to make sure they don't get washed away. Mine is cut to offer an additional 4 inches all sides and can be weighted by a rock, concrete or ratchet strap.


----------



## Randar

LAlldredge said:


> FWIW- Coroplast (Home Depot- large sheet) makes a great awning to make sure they don't get washed away. Mine is cut to offer an additional 4 inches all sides and can be weighted by a rock, concrete or ratchet strap.


I like the PVC lightweight panels... they are a little more rigid and can overhang a bit more. That said, with a hive as tall as the one elmer_fud posted, I am not sure any amount of overhang would have helped. Rain rarely falls straight down. If there is that much bearding, maybe more ventilation and/or larger opening is needed?


----------



## elmer_fud

The rain was blowing at a 30-45+ degree angle at one point during the storm yesterday, I dont think any reasonable sized overhang would have helped. I have a sun porch with about 6 ft tall screened windows on the side, and the rain was blown 6-8 feet into the sunporch thru the screens. 

That hive is sitting at 7 boxes high (deep + 6 medium) so it is big. The entrance is about half open right now, and about 2 of the 7 boxes (bottom, one super) are mostly empty right now. There is also a quilt box sitting on top to help with ventilation, but I think the bees have mostly propolized it closed. 

At this point I should clean the propolis out of the quilt box, and beyond that I don't think it is worth the time/effort to do much more for a once a year storm.


----------



## AR1

Today in my basement...I was rooting around looking for my book on home plumbing and came across a 1925 print of ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture from A.I. Root, and also a 1946 print of The Hive and the Honeybee by Dadant. 

I remember these books very fondly, they belonged to my great uncle and were passed on to my family at his death in 1964. I read them cover to cover as a kid, dreaming of keeping bees. It was 45 years before I actually had bees of my own. As far as I know, my uncle never had bees. I'll have to ask my dad.


----------



## Gray Goose

good books AR
the hive and the honey bee was the only 1 I had for the first 15 years.
has a lot of info in it.

I did the 2 Queen method outlined it it in the late 80's.

fond memories

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

I am going to regret that I added another super to this hive today next time I need to check it. They already have about 5 boxes mostly filled with capped honey. I suspect the 1.5" of rain in the last 4ish days is going to result in a nectar boom in the local plants.


----------



## Gray Goose

elmer_fud said:


> I am going to regret that I added another super to this hive today next time I need to check it. They already have about 5 boxes mostly filled with capped honey. I suspect the 1.5" of rain in the last 4ish days is going to result in a nectar boom in the local plants.
> 
> View attachment 64303


So when that happens to me, I take a full one off and put it on the smallest Hive, then add the next super.
"Equalize" can be done with brood and supers.
the one in the foreground of the pic with 5 less is a good candidate. 

then no regrets.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Gray Goose said:


> So when that happens to me, I take a full one off and put it on the smallest Hive, then add the next super.
> "Equalize" can be done with brood and supers.
> the one in the foreground of the pic with 5 less is a good candidate.
> 
> then no regrets.
> 
> GG


Never thought about equalizing with supers but love the idea. Just gotta ask a dumb question though- do you just move the whole box with bees in it or shake the bees off the frame first? Would love to move it part and parcel...to give the small hive the extra population to boot.


----------



## elmer_fud

Gray Goose said:


> So when that happens to me, I take a full one off and put it on the smallest Hive, then add the next super.
> "Equalize" can be done with brood and supers.
> the one in the foreground of the pic with 5 less is a good candidate.
> 
> then no regrets.
> 
> GG


I thought about that, but decided not to. I have kept the honey from different hives separate in the past and it was interesting that the flavor and color was different between hives a few feet apart. I think it was seasonal more than different forging, but it was still interesting. I did mix the empty frames into the existing boxes (and the new one) so each box is now lighter (for now atleast) 

I do move filled frames around in the fall if I have hives that are very heavy and others that re light.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Never thought about equalizing with supers but love the idea. Just gotta ask a dumb question though- do you just move the whole box with bees in it or shake the bees off the frame first? Would love to move it part and parcel...to give the small hive the extra population to boot.


either way
if part and parcel, put a news paper in-between, and think "combine"

yes I use this to "boost" the small and steel a bit from the large a lot.

can do several, in this example. if you have 3 new laying queens in single deeps, you could newspaper each , and get 3 supers from the very tall hive give 1 each the the 3 single deeps. the feild bees go back , just like a split the nurse bees and the super stay. here I would add 2 emptys to the tall stack as some bees come back and it is full already.

OR an option as I use 9 frames, is shake the bees off the frames of top super, putting 3 in each of 3 new supers for the 3 single deeps. Add an empty to the tall hive. giving each of the 3 single deeps a 3 frame head start at the expense of the tall hive. or 6 or 9 etc.

any combination you can conceive, to reduce the tall hive.
as well if you use an excluder these are Queen free frames.......

GG


----------



## Gray Goose

elmer_fud said:


> I thought about that, but decided not to. I have kept the honey from different hives separate in the past and it was interesting that the flavor and color was different between hives a few feet apart. I think it was seasonal more than different forging, but it was still interesting. I did mix the empty frames into the existing boxes (and the new one) so each box is now lighter (for now atleast)
> 
> I do move filled frames around in the fall if I have hives that are very heavy and others that re light.


most of the time my hives have the same "flavor layers" just some have 4 frames of one kind while others have 2 or 6.

if you extract it all gets mixed in, which I do.

something else you can try if you like certain "flavors, is put 1 Fouldationless frame (or starter strip) in several different supers, (i do Cut Comb 21) with a sharpe on the top bar. then you have different flavors as apposed to all the comb frames in one box.
in your stack if you had 1 comb in each they would all have a different flavor. then keep track and if you love the 4rd and 6th box combs, just do 2 in that one next year. Keep in mind the rain fall and what got planted can also affect the flavors so it is not a thing you can always repeat.


GG


----------



## crofter

I am waiting for the UPS delivery man to drop off three buckfast queens from Ferguson Apiaries. Beautiful sunny now but rain showers and possibility of thunder storm forecast. I would like to install them today because two of the colonies had capped cells which I destroyed yesterday. They could conceivably have larvae young enough to start more cells so I will leave the cork in those queen cages. Bees can be stubborn about getting their own way unless they are hopelessly queenless. I have had the experience of them starting cells on the first eggs a new queen laid too. In the third colony I caged the existing queen yesterday evening so I dont have to hunt for her while my wife holds the umbrella! Old queen out, new queen in. The cork will stay in that one too for a couple of days before I let the hive bees get at the candy plug.

There is an interesting thread started by Beemandan on getting queens accepted. Getting mated queens accepted
I have had failures on some occasions when the bees were less than hopelessly queenless. These queens will cost 80$ Can. a piece with courier delivery so I hope to get them all accepted.


----------



## username00101

What is so special about the buckfast queens?


----------



## Randar

crofter said:


> These queens will cost 80$ Can. a piece with courier delivery so I hope to get them all accepted.


I know Loonies are play money , but even then, that seems like a crazy price.


----------



## Gray Goose

Randar said:


> I know Loonies are play money , but even then, that seems like a crazy price.


well the exchange is there (appx 1.25 can to 1.0 US) and the Canada Buckfast is really close to brother Adams line still, the ones here not so much. so 80 is 64 US

Also price and Quantity come to play , lots more Queen breeders' in the US than Canada, mostly due the zone and weather. 3 good months there almost 9 here.

be a good place to go raise queens..........

GG


----------



## crofter

Only $50 each for the queens plus 79$ and 13% tax for the courier. That portion would be the same for one or 50 or more queens. The order seems misplaced somewhere so will definitely not be overnight delivery. The Canada Day holiday may be contributing issue too.

University of Guelph, Ferguson apiaries and perhaps Munroe are the only breeders in Canada following the BF Abbey protocol. In a way I am glad the delivery is delayed. I have gone back three times to destroy started cells in the colonies they were to be introduced into. Amazing how long they can seem to find larvae they think could make a queen. Somewhere in writing is said to require the passing of 8 or 9 days since queen removal to guarantee no semblance of even a caste queen can happen that can knacker an introduced queen.


----------



## username00101

Crofter, that's a good strategy.


----------



## Gray Goose

crofter said:


> Only $50 each for the queens plus 79$ and 13% tax for the courier. That portion would be the same for one or 50 or more queens. The order seems misplaced somewhere so will definitely not be overnight delivery. The Canada Day holiday may be contributing issue too.
> 
> University of Guelph, Ferguson apiaries and perhaps Munroe are the only breeders in Canada following the BF Abbey protocol. In a way I am glad the delivery is delayed. I have gone back three times to destroy started cells in the colonies they were to be introduced into. Amazing how long they can seem to find larvae they think could make a queen. Somewhere in writing is said to require the passing of 8 or 9 days since queen removal to guarantee no semblance of even a caste queen can happen that can knacker an introduced queen.


hope they arrive healthy for you Frank.

here the heat and trucks seem to cause issues once and a while.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

Appears we are in a very nice flow of white clover to finish off the supers, all of the hives are on 2-4 supers and building. We've been getting late day/overnight thunderstorms that have been soaking the ground and it looks like our flow continues! (Fingers crossed). We're expecting the reminates of Hurricane Elsa to skirt to the south but 2-3 inches from here are predicted over night here. Treated one yard with Formic Pro last week after seeing some DWS in one of the overwintered hives over the weekend-appears that they all recovered and are bring in pollen already. Really didn't have a choice not to treat after seeing DWS and was hoping to delay the Formic until next month. Not really seeing any problems on the other yards so I'm hoping to wait until after harvest but I'm armed (with formic) and ready.


----------



## username00101

Did you do any mite washes to determine the mite levels in your colonies?

Keep in mind that formic acid contaminates honey.


----------



## LarryBud

I do one mite wash per yard per month, as I've been told, it's the gold standard. I usually use a well rounded cup of nurse bees and have been at or near zero all season. The only explanation I have is hive must have been hit hard with drones bringing back mites-the other hives in the yard didn't show any issues but had to be treated anyway. Also, this hive had the same issue last year but is still my best performing hive. Over wintered well, boomed right away, 4 supers over 2 deeps after two splits right now.

Formic Pro is approved for organic farming and use with honey supers-it printed on the label. I was hoping to wait until after harvest but after discussions with 2 EAS master beeks from my State Association and a large commercial guy whos a friend, they all recommended FP treatment immediately. All three recommended FP over OAV, even though OAV is also approved now. I did ask about any contamination or taste variances and all three said it wouldn't effect the honey, chemically or taste wise. I would note it was a rare event with 3 beeks agreeing on something. Since my nearest other hives are a mile or more away, I'm waiting unless I see something that triggers an immediate treatment but have more than enough doses for double on all my equipment. Either way, they all get hit in August and then OAV in the fall. And I'll continue to test with washes every month or as needed


----------



## LAlldredge

Bees in the hummingbird feeders = dearth = light feed = robbing screens on all. Very light flow this year. Late frost and high heat. Keeping everyone in queens and resources. Watering like mad. The wildflower meadow looks especially nice. White clover lawn has taken over by design.


----------



## LAlldredge

The 9. 5 production hives, 2 resource hives. 6a High Desert.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> The 9. 5 production hives, 2 resource hives. 6a High Desert.
> View attachment 64521
> View attachment 64522


nice hives.
I see a 3 story double NUC, I am trying some of those this year as well.
Like the concept and they seem to pop from 5 to 15 really fast.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Gray Goose said:


> nice hives.
> I see a 3 story double NUC, I am trying some of those this year as well.
> Like the concept and they seem to pop from 5 to 15 really fast.
> 
> GG


Yes that is what you see. I have 2. This is the Michael Palmer type with the extra nuc box above (total 12 deep frames each side 4 X 4 X 4) in addition to a homemade quilt box on the very top for venting. They say that you can use a QE and super these to share honey production but unless you are very careful about keeping the queens separate they can kill the opposite side queen. So I keep the extra nuc on top to keep them separate and give them space. I really like this config for over wintering young queens or swarms. Dadant makes a nice one they call a support hive.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Yes that is what you see. I have 2. This is the Michael Palmer type with the extra nuc box above (total 12 deep frames each side 4 X 4 X 4) in addition to a homemade quilt box on the very top for venting. They say that you can use a QE and super these to share honey production but unless you are very careful about keeping the queens separate they can kill the opposite side queen. So I keep the extra nuc on top to keep them separate and give them space. I really like this config for over wintering young queens or swarms. Dadant makes a nice one they call a support hive.


I have the medium NUC boxes and can super them separate.
Also works if the QC is on a medium frame, or I want a bigger split. I oftne have a medium in 1 or 2 of the bottom 3 boxes .. Like 4 deep frames of bees and brood with a 1/2 super over it that is being worked and full of bees. If one side gets full and the other does not you can equalize or just shake and put in a super, also add feed for winter this way. As I use mediums for supering so medium NUC boxes are a good option.











GG


----------



## Randar

Today, I did a quick inspection with my nephews who've been staying with us from SoCal. All fun and fine, but I found a bee with a varroa mite despite already having 2 OAV treatments over the past week... went back an hour later to photograph it and got kamikazee'd in the forehead and chased by a second. Should I still be seeing adult active mites like this if I've made a couple OAV applications?


----------



## AR1

Randar said:


> Today, I did a quick inspection with my nephews who've been staying with us from SoCal. All fun and fine, but I found a bee with a varroa mite despite already having 2 OAV treatments over the past week... went back an hour later to photograph it and got kamikazee'd in the forehead and chased by a second. Should I still be seeing adult active mites like this if I've made a couple OAV applications?
> 
> View attachment 64688


Nothing kills them all. OAV doesn't kill mites in capped cells, so there will always be some hatching out as the bees hatch. Two treatments in one week will get most of the adults that are free in the hive. That's all.


----------



## elmer_fud

Randar said:


> but I found a bee with a varroa mite despite already having 2 OAV treatments over the past week...


Keep in mind that OAV only gets the mites that are exposed. It does not get the ones under the cappings, and it is possible that that mite came out after the last OAV treatment or it survived the treatment. OAV is not 100% effective, I beleive it is somewhere in the 90's for effectiveness


----------



## LarryBud

If you have the weather, formic pro is the best way to go at this time in this part of the world. If you can catch a few days in the 80's F a two pad dose over 2 weeks will clean up the hive and get you through until late August/early September-you need to be in the 80's F for at least the first 3 days. Then test and do OAV to your comfort level. I had a hive last year and another again this year with pretty bad DWS and treated them (the entire bee yard) with formic pro-the hives recovered nicely and are back in production. Last years came through the winter booming. Mite drops were unbelievable. Probably do a wash this weekend on the hopefully formerly infected hive and see an actual number-if it's high, we'll AOV a few cycles.


----------



## LarryBud

Looks like the White Dutch clover flow here in west central NJ is coming to an end but the girls are flying pretty strong. Lots of white pollen in the mornings and then shooting out like rockets the rest of the day but not sure what would be in a nectar flow right now. It appears I lost 2 hives over the last few weeks, one swarm that I think the queen was poorly mated and one from my triple splits that also had a weak queen. The comb looks good and there's a lot of honey in the lower deeps on both and as I'm expecting to harvest in the next couple of weeks, I'm thinking that I might grab some brood frames from a recently harvested strong hive, shake in some nurse bees and re-queen with a strong mated queen-feed as needed. Just wondering if the beginning of August is too late here to build up for winter. We tend to have strong Fall flows with goldenrod and aster all around us.


----------



## username00101

OAV twice will do nothing to help with your mite population.

Formic acid and oxalic acid are two of the best treatments available, and the issue with formic is that it kills queens, and brood

Also OAV costs next to nothing, and formic acid is extremely expensive if one has more than a handful of colonies.


----------



## LarryBud

username00101 said:


> Also OAV costs next to nothing, and formic acid is extremely expensive if one has more than a handful of colonies.


You can say that again-I just bought a 30 dose box-$150 !!! I still like it better at this time of year because it does get under the caps-one and done! This should get me through to mid-September and I'll resume with some OAV if and when needed. Word of caution-just don't throw this any any other treatment on the hives with out testing first. I'm pretty much at a point where I think sugar rolls are a waste of time and risky. Alcohol washes are the gold standard and when done properly, give the best results. We start harvest next week here and I'm figuring while I have the hives open, I'll test and anything over 3/100 will get formic

We did hit a cool spell here on the east coast, high around 80 and nights just touching upper 50's, seems like thunderstorms over night giving a pretty good drenching to the ground a few nights a week. With the clover coming to an end here (and my wife forced me to cut the lawn!) they seem to be on something else but I can figure out what. Been driving around looking at the trees and field, lots of back eyes, other yellow flowers and daisies but I don't think that they are big nectar suppliers. I put a feeder with 2:1 on one of the smaller and last swarm hive that I caught in mid June. They've been at 5 frames (deep) for a months or so, the queen is laying and the girls are very active but they're just not building comb at any break neck speed. The five frames are loaded with bees and brood. Even with the flow right now, my thoughts are getting ready for fall and I guess we'll see if she makes it.


----------



## elmer_fud

LarryBud said:


> Been driving around looking at the trees and field, lots of back eyes, other yellow flowers and daisies but I don't think that they are big nectar suppliers.


I think the black eye susans are actually a decent supply. I have been seeing bees on mine, and I have an alkali bee colony that established itself under my black eye susans. I have also seen my bees in squash flowers recently.


----------



## elmer_fud

well, the hive that I caught swarming earlier this year decided they wanted to supercede the queen this week. I was not planning on having hives raise new queens this time of year, but I assume that they know what they are doing


----------



## LAlldredge

OAV series started on 8/4. The bee year 2022 starts now. Goal is mites to near 0. 3 days apart. At first DDC I'm below 1 percent infestation all colonies. New fan girl for Figwort. In addition to my beloved phacelia I'm loving how Figwort draws a wide body of pollinators including the tiny ones. Foliage is a "meh" but geez it's popular. Another honorable mention is Honeywort. 

September is all about lunatic feeding. I get so schizophrenic in September. Have I fed enough? Could I feed more? Take feed off, now put it back on. Not strong enough to put it on a scale.


----------



## elmer_fud

I started extracting today, 1 supper down, 5ish to go


----------



## LarryBud

Did some inspections today, 3 bee yards, 15 hives and I'm going to guess we're in a dearth. It seems like most of the established hives had not expanded much into the second super since my last look a couple, few weeks ago. The "in-town" ones seem to be doing much better than the ones hosted at a friend's farm but are not up to what we saw this time over the last two years where all were at a third super being half capped. This year, the "in-town" are still in the second super, maybe 70% but the farm's are looking just finishing the first and starting the second with white comb on the bottom of a couple frames. At the farm, after opening 7 of the 9 hives there, number 8 went full mad-dog psycho attack-20 bees on each glove going wild stinging! After finishing the inspection on 8, I passed on 9 and they chased me for 100 feet over 10 minutes-full mad dog! Definitely a dearth here and this hive had 80% comb on the first super, half capped and these girls weren't giving up nothin'. Out of the nine hives there, two are late splits doing well and one was a late swarm doing well but there was no expectation of a harvest on them this year. The intown hives on the other hand, around 80% comb, 60% capped on the second super and a third super in place. I'm guessing the ornamental gardens with non-native flowers and constant watering is keeping theses going for now. I'm finding it interesting of the performance between an agriculture/forested area verses the artificial i-town environment. I'm going to smoke my jacket later (due to all the sting phenomes now in it) and then check my farm and up on the ridge this afternoon.


----------



## Gray Goose

LarryBud said:


> Did some inspections today, 3 bee yards, 15 hives and I'm going to guess we're in a dearth. It seems like most of the established hives had not expanded much into the second super since my last look a couple, few weeks ago. The "in-town" ones seem to be doing much better than the ones hosted at a friend's farm but are not up to what we saw this time over the last two years where all were at a third super being half capped. This year, the "in-town" are still in the second super, maybe 70% but the farm's are looking just finishing the first and starting the second with white comb on the bottom of a couple frames. At the farm, after opening 7 of the 9 hives there, number 8 went full mad-dog psycho attack-20 bees on each glove going wild stinging! After finishing the inspection on 8, I passed on 9 and they chased me for 100 feet over 10 minutes-full mad dog! Definitely a dearth here and this hive had 80% comb on the first super, half capped and these girls weren't giving up nothin'. Out of the nine hives there, two are late splits doing well and one was a late swarm doing well but there was no expectation of a harvest on them this year. The intown hives on the other hand, around 80% comb, 60% capped on the second super and a third super in place. I'm guessing the ornamental gardens with non-native flowers and constant watering is keeping theses going for now. I'm finding it interesting of the performance between an agriculture/forested area verses the artificial i-town environment. I'm going to smoke my jacket later (due to all the sting phenomes now in it) and then check my farm and up on the ridge this afternoon.


LB

sometime the differences in yards are striking.
I suggest keeping notes.
I have one I an leaving this year, too many issues.

add yards where the going id good, cull where they do poorly.

All places are not created equal. glad to see someone else notice.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

GG-
I always appreciate your advice and have been keeping a spread sheet along with a field notebook on all of the hives and yards. I've been adding data to each file on the locations and hive including the terrain (wooded/meadow/ornamental gardens) elevation (they have an app for that) and a weather tracking conformed by local NOAA weather stations (we have more than one would think necessary-University folk) After doing another round of inspections on the ones I missed last week I will confirm that the "in-town" yards are at least a super ahead of the country cousins from the same batch of Spring nucs. Seems like the "in-town" non-native plants along with the watering has created an artificial flow that the Farms outside of town aren't seeing. Rain has definitely affected the flows but NOAA says we're ahead on average rain but this July, it's 2-3 storms of an 1-1/2 to 3+ inches rather than 1/2" overnight every 2-3 days that's more common. It's also been very hot here-low-mid 90's (Texas guys may laugh) but cooling into around 80 next week. Both Farms have year round water sources, a small stream at mine and a spring fed bog (pppprobably an old farm pond silted in)at my friend's but are not utilized for irrigation . While elevation differences are only approximately 80' MSL to around 400' MSL at the friend's farm , it appears to have little impact. I think it all comes down to rain that creates flow. 

Harvest next week. 
LB


----------



## elmer_fud

I think the planted flowers in residential areas do help a lot. I suspect you get annuals that typically dont make it on farms, plants that need more attention (Water) so they don't grow wild, and more flowering trees.


----------



## Gray Goose

LarryBud said:


> GG-
> I always appreciate your advice and have been keeping a spread sheet along with a field notebook on all of the hives and yards. I've been adding data to each file on the locations and hive including the terrain (wooded/meadow/ornamental gardens) elevation (they have an app for that) and a weather tracking conformed by local NOAA weather stations (we have more than one would think necessary-University folk) After doing another round of inspections on the ones I missed last week I will confirm that the "in-town" yards are at least a super ahead of the country cousins from the same batch of Spring nucs. Seems like the "in-town" non-native plants along with the watering has created an artificial flow that the Farms outside of town aren't seeing. Rain has definitely affected the flows but NOAA says we're ahead on average rain but this July, it's 2-3 storms of an 1-1/2 to 3+ inches rather than 1/2" overnight every 2-3 days that's more common. It's also been very hot here-low-mid 90's (Texas guys may laugh) but cooling into around 80 next week. Both Farms have year round water sources, a small stream at mine and a spring fed bog (pppprobably an old farm pond silted in)at my friend's but are not utilized for irrigation . While elevation differences are only approximately 80' MSL to around 400' MSL at the friend's farm , it appears to have little impact. I think it all comes down to rain that creates flow.
> 
> Harvest next week.
> LB


agree rain/ "sprinklers" is a big differentiator.
In out town they planted decretive pears on the streets, so there is bloom there. and the yards do have an abundance of plantings which add diversity so I would tend to agree the burbs may be a better place for the bees.
Glad to hear you are keeping notes. track queen mating sucess as well.
I have a yard that is really bad for mating and good for flow?? not sure the issue there.
some places can be abandoned and some have hives added, all to help the bees health, and need less feed.

glad you have some good places proving up.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

Kind of found this interesting this morning. Weather had cooled down so I popped open (bad term) about 10 hives in 3 different yards as a pre-harvest assessment on quantity. A few over wintered hives looked good, 2-1/2 boxes capped and they each got another super to give some ventilation (along with a continued dream of a massive flow in the next week or two) but the first year hives are very much less impressive. What I found unusual is that one "mini-yard" of three hives, one hive was building out a third box nicely and then the other two barely had anything going in the first box-all three sitting on a six foot long bench so they're pretty close together. All were sourced a set up together and all three had similar large population on double deeps. The two less productive had serious bearding over the past week but were vented up top, the productive one had little and kept flying like there is no tomorrow. With the cool down, all 10 hives were pretty chill, no aggressive beehaviour. I'm thinking 75-100 pounds on all of the over wintered hives this summer and maybe 30-75 pounds out of the established nuc hives. We usually have a good fall flow with knapweed, aster and goldenrod so maybe another 25-50 pounds each leaving the broods at 100 pounds. I'm leaving the splits and swarms alone but most of them are in double deeps, pretty well filled out. It appeared that hives given frames with built our extracted comb did much better, beyond the old frames than any of the hives with just wax coated foundations. Just think it's a little strange that there's that much difference between three hives next to each other. I guess bees will be bees. At least I'm starting to formulate which hives will be requeened and which will be split next spring. The more I do this beekeeping this the more i realize I know very little.


----------



## Gray Goose

LarryBud said:


> Kind of found this interesting this morning. Weather had cooled down so I popped open (bad term) about 10 hives in 3 different yards as a pre-harvest assessment on quantity. A few over wintered hives looked good, 2-1/2 boxes capped and they each got another super to give some ventilation (along with a continued dream of a massive flow in the next week or two) but the first year hives are very much less impressive. What I found unusual is that one "mini-yard" of three hives, one hive was building out a third box nicely and then the other two barely had anything going in the first box-all three sitting on a six foot long bench so they're pretty close together. All were sourced a set up together and all three had similar large population on double deeps. The two less productive had serious bearding over the past week but were vented up top, the productive one had little and kept flying like there is no tomorrow. With the cool down, all 10 hives were pretty chill, no aggressive beehaviour. I'm thinking 75-100 pounds on all of the over wintered hives this summer and maybe 30-75 pounds out of the established nuc hives. We usually have a good fall flow with knapweed, aster and goldenrod so maybe another 25-50 pounds each leaving the broods at 100 pounds. I'm leaving the splits and swarms alone but most of them are in double deeps, pretty well filled out. It appeared that hives given frames with built our extracted comb did much better, beyond the old frames than any of the hives with just wax coated foundations. Just think it's a little strange that there's that much difference between three hives next to each other. I guess bees will be bees. At least I'm starting to formulate which hives will be requeened and which will be split next spring. The more I do this beekeeping this the more i realize I know very little.


some may have swarmed, or superceded.
or even had a poorer queen.

of 4 NUCs i bought 2 have 1 super and 2 have 4 in the same yard.
each is unique, odd but typical.

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

These are not very good pictures, but one of my hives mixed wet and dry cappings on the same frames. These were empty foundation less frames this spring, and the bees drew them out and filled them. The wet part was capped later and is thicker, but it was all drawn out and filled in a few months. I figured it was interesting to share since this sounds semi uncommon.


----------



## Gray Goose

interesting,
wet to dry did that mean a queen change?
some say the wet or dry is race related.

GG


----------



## username00101

My complacency got the best of me - a massive swarm was hanging on a low branch at an out apiary.

A few others are getting ready to swarm right now.


----------



## clyderoad

username00101 said:


> My complacency got the best of me - a massive swarm was hanging on a low branch at an out apiary.
> 
> A few others are getting ready to swarm right now.


Perhaps some beekeeping instruction would help you avoid late season swarms so close to northern freeze up.
Fortunately many commercial operators who overwinter in the cold states stock queens into September to make winter nucs with or replace 3 year old production queens with so some should be available.
Those northern cold country survivor queens in the tag line don't seem to be worth a hoot, they're acting like southern honey making Italians.


----------



## elmer_fud

Gray Goose said:


> interesting,
> wet to dry did that mean a queen change?
> some say the wet or dry is race related.
> 
> GG



nope, this was a single queen and a single hive all season. I think it may have to due with when they decided to cap it. 

The history of this hive was I added 2 supers with 9x drawn plastic foundation frames (per box) in april/may time frame. In june I added 8 empty foundationless frames. I checkerboard the foundation less frames in between the mostly capped frames in the supers. In July (I think) I added 9 more framed with plastic foundation that were not drawn out. I think the top/dry part of these mixed capping frames were drawn out and capped earlier in the season, then I put them next to undrawn/less drawn out frames, and the bees kept drawing out and wet capping the bottom. The wet cappings are about 1/4" thicker than the dry cappings. I had several (3-5) of the foundationless frames have mix of wet and dry cappings on atleast one side.


----------



## username00101

Mites are bad in the apiary near the dwindling/dead outs from neighbors this year.

Would be great if they'd start treating - I guess they just like purchasing bees.

Every so often neighbors do this - I can always tell there's something amiss when I see spikes in mite counts.

Sure enough the neighbors hives are pretty well all dead at this point - no entrance reducers on them - he probably thinks that my bees robbing out his are still living colonies.


----------



## username00101

I checked the bottom boards again - wow the mite levels are worse than I've seen them in years. 

Glad I've been treating because these would be dead hives come fall.


----------



## username00101

The mite import in the location with other beekeepers is still high.

I suspect one of the local farms may have brought a load of treatment free hives again - last time they tried this, they had 100% losses over the winter.

I wonder if they'll have better luck this year.......


----------



## LAlldredge

username00101 said:


> The mite import in the location with other beekeepers is still high.
> 
> I suspect one of the local farms may have brought a load of treatment free hives again - last time they tried this, they had 100% losses over the winter.
> 
> I wonder if they'll have better luck this year.......


If that's true they will be failing in fall if not already. I'm just finishing my August OAV series and always do another in fall (mid Sept - Oct) after I feed because the flying kids will be robbing the infested hives out. You can go from 0 to major infestation when they bring mites back home. So in other words all counts are meaningless in fall when colonies are collapsing around you.


----------



## LarryBud

It's been hot here (90's) so I've held off on Formic and due to an on going dearth, which may be ending with the passing of hurricane remnants getting some water in the ground, we haven't harvested yet. We have had some rain from Fred and Henri along with what appears a return to normal afternoon thunderstorms, looks like there's a better late summer flow. The goldenrod, aster and other fall plants are coming up but only the very earliest are in bloom. I just look at the home hives and a nearby yard and it appears the front that came through along with cloudy weather have the hive cooled down, bearding is reduced to a more normal amount on the landing boards. I'm also seeing a strong fight with 20% returning with big baskets of white pollen (early aster?) I'm not seeing anything of concern on the board and hopefully we'll get this harvest done next week. Plan is to do yard by yard, replace the wet frames for a hopeful fall flow and then a double pad formic pro treatment. I'm hoping to get a few washes done during the harvest with the hive open and formic going in. I'll start a fall OAV in late September or early October after the Fall harvest (if any). Populations look good on all of the hives. First Frost here is usually mid-November and killing frost in late November-early September but I need to watch the hives up at the Farms due to elevation.


----------



## elmer_fud

I think I confused/upset one of my nucs. They need to build up stores for the winter so I scraped about a quart of (very solid) crystalized honey onto the sides of a box of empty frames on top of the hive yesterday. I think the honey warmed up and started running down because it was all in the bottom today when I checked this hive to figure out what is was doing. This hive has been bearding for the last 36ish hours since I added the honey, when none of the other have are bearding much. I think it is time to switch to a frame feeder in this nuc. Live and learn. 










(I need to go build an oversized lid that will span both nucs, but for now the insulation of top of one nuc, and the blocked inner cover on top of the other works)


----------



## Gray Goose

I made some over size lids. they work well.

consider what you wrap with and add some extra for it.
me I add 1.5 inch foam so I added 4 inches to not allow rain on the top of the foam.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

Well we finally did our first round of harvesting yesterday or rather a partial harvest involving 10 of our now 33 hives (lost one split earlier this summer) and the results so far were less than impressive. I had made a decision in August to hold off for a couple of weeks because my inspections indicated the hives were not showing much capped comb so we were two weeks later than last year. With 5 overwintered hives (split 1 for 3 in May), 9 spring splits, 15 new (spring nucs) and 4 swarms we got the first 10 from 3 different yards done. There was an unusual (for here) long summer dearth, most of July and August and while our total rainfall was slightly above normal, it was primarily from larger storms/hurricane reminates that dropped several inches of rain in single storm events separated by 10 days to 2 weeks of dry hot weather. The clover flow ended a month earlier than normal and the even the irrigated ornamental summer flowers just didn't have much in the way of nectar with spotty blooms and inconsistencies. Now I realize others here had a tough year too and my heart goes out to them, a least we have something so far and if the late summer rains keep coming, well maybe we'll get some recovery. 
From the 11, 10 frame boxes we pull from, it looks like were around 300 to 350 pounds of recoverable honey-we'll spin those today. We pulled this first group two weeks later that we did last year and last year we averaged over 30 frames per hive then. These hives all had strong populations with 2 or 3 supers over double broods and I probably left 6-8 frames of comb and nectar that wasn't capped (less than 70%) figuring I'll get through the rest of the hives and circle back to them later in the month and maybe pick up some more honey. We're starting to see the asters and knapweed starting and a lot of strong looking goldenrod just starting to bud up and now that the rain is returning, maybe we'll see a good fall flow. 
Kind of interesting thing between two of my mini yards (2 established hives 3 supers plus a building double nuc swarm -no super and 3 Spring nucs in double brood with 2 supers) a 100 yards apart was the difference of the honey colors. The established hives had almost a white honey and the other hive had a dark amber. A positive is also that the hive had plenty of capped honey, pollen and populations. Once the harvest is in I'll hit all the hives with full doses of formic pro, see what happen in September and start planning winter prep.


----------



## elmer_fud

LarryBud said:


> Kind of interesting thing between two of my mini yards (2 established hives 3 supers plus a building double nuc swarm -no super and 3 Spring nucs in double brood with 2 supers) a 100 yards apart was the difference of the honey colors. The established hives had almost a white honey and the other hive had a dark amber. A positive is also that the hive had plenty of capped honey, pollen and populations. Once the harvest is in I'll hit all the hives with full doses of formic pro, see what happen in September and start planning winter prep.


I have seen the honey color differnt in hives that were 3 feet apart. I think it was largely seasonal variations (one collected more all season, one was more collecting later in the season) but it was still interesting


----------



## LAlldredge

Reduced my hives down to winter config (slatted rack, med, deep, med) and put ProSweet on. Stored emergency frames of feed for spring or to use for late fall prep. One resource hive colony on watch. Ordered a mated queen to arrive on the 15th. Will keep it going with borrowed brood until then. Just don't want to combine yet. Hive creep added an additional resource hive (2) for a total of 9 colonies. Not an enjoyable summer. The bees seemed to have a good year but I was largely absent in July because of the heat and being distracted by all the geo political nonsense. Bouncing out of it into a very nice fall and my love and confidence in my small town. I haven't let them down on mite treatments (Aug 8x OAV) or feeding. Really glad my list is short. They compensate well. Totally botched swarm prevention and harvesting properly. September is feed feed feed.


----------



## clyderoad

LarryBud said:


> Well we finally did our first round of harvesting yesterday or rather a partial harvest involving 10 of our now 33 hives (lost one split earlier this summer) and the results so far were less than impressive. I had made a decision in August to hold off for a couple of weeks because my inspections indicated the hives were not showing much capped comb so we were two weeks later than last year. With 5 overwintered hives (split 1 for 3 in May), 9 spring splits, 15 new (spring nucs) and 4 swarms we got the first 10 from 3 different yards done. There was an unusual (for here) long summer dearth, most of July and August and while our total rainfall was slightly above normal, it was primarily from larger storms/hurricane reminates that dropped several inches of rain in single storm events separated by 10 days to 2 weeks of dry hot weather. The clover flow ended a month earlier than normal and the even the irrigated ornamental summer flowers just didn't have much in the way of nectar with spotty blooms and inconsistencies. Now I realize others here had a tough year too and my heart goes out to them, a least we have something so far and if the late summer rains keep coming, well maybe we'll get some recovery.
> From the 11, 10 frame boxes we pull from, it looks like were around 300 to 350 pounds of recoverable honey-we'll spin those today. We pulled this first group two weeks later that we did last year and last year we averaged over 30 frames per hive then. These hives all had strong populations with 2 or 3 supers over double broods and I probably left 6-8 frames of comb and nectar that wasn't capped (less than 70%) figuring I'll get through the rest of the hives and circle back to them later in the month and maybe pick up some more honey. We're starting to see the asters and knapweed starting and a lot of strong looking goldenrod just starting to bud up and now that the rain is returning, maybe we'll see a good fall flow.
> Kind of interesting thing between two of my mini yards (2 established hives 3 supers plus a building double nuc swarm -no super and 3 Spring nucs in double brood with 2 supers) a 100 yards apart was the difference of the honey colors. The established hives had almost a white honey and the other hive had a dark amber. A positive is also that the hive had plenty of capped honey, pollen and populations. Once the harvest is in I'll hit all the hives with full doses of formic pro, see what happen in September and start planning winter prep.


Were the colonies strong enough to make a honey crop? Only strong colonies make a crop.


----------



## LarryBud

clyderoad said:


> Were the colonies strong enough to make a honey crop? Only strong colonies make a crop.


The populations were/are very strong, good laying patterns, lots of capped brood, eggs and stores, just very little up top. I'm hearing from other locals the same kind of numbers. I think if theirs no nectar, there's no honey, even for strong colonies. We'll see in a few weeks if the fall flow fills the comb I left behind.


----------



## clyderoad

LarryBud said:


> The populations were/are very strong, good laying patterns, lots of capped brood, eggs and stores, just very little up top. I'm hearing from other locals the same kind of numbers. I think if theirs no nectar, there's no honey, even for strong colonies. We'll see in a few weeks if the fall flow fills the comb I left behind.


"With 5 overwintered hives (split 1 for 3 in May), 9 spring splits, 15 new (spring nucs) and 4 swarms"

Sounds like a lot of splitting and startup colonies from reading your description.
When do the colonies need to be at peak population to collect your flow?


----------



## LarryBud

I'm doing this from memory-the 5 over wintered hives had a third deep box added in late February and by the end of April, were 30 solid frames of stores, brood and comb. All 5 hives had brood all winter. On May1st, I used 7 or 8 frames on each split into 10 frame boxes, all had developed queen cell and the "mother" hives still had 14-16 frames. The "mother" hive recovered quickly, full 20 frames during the dandelion flow, by the third week in May, supered by June. Gray Goose had given me advice and I should have listened, could have gone further with the splits on 4 or 5 frame nucs but I work with what I had on hand and a stubborn Irish mindset-hopefully lesson learned. The 5 "Mother" colonies produced 2 mediums each with the exception of one which swarmed, then recovered and produced 1 super so far. About 6 of the splits, all now double deeps, produced 1 super and 3 have a 6 or 7 frames 60% capped and was left in place to see if the fall flow would round them off, #10 died off, my first loss. The nucs were from a friend, very strong 5 frames, loaded with overwintered queens, lots of nurse bees, eggs and larvae-hived late March, double deeps by early May, supered late May. The swarms, double deeps, have single supers and a few frames of comb/nectar 25% capped. Usually, our flow is strong Springs, trees, fruits, dandelions into a strong summer clover, ornamental gardens through mid August-this year it died off mid July into my first real dearth. Rain fall on the gauged was normal but really two or three heavy storms separated by 10 days of dry rather than 2 or 3 light night rain every week. I'm see asters but the goldenrod is everywhere but just budding up-see if that goes anywhere. Finishing the summer harvest this weekend with odds and ends-fall harvest is mid-October.


----------



## Gray Goose

I also made spring splits. (18)
none got more than 1 super of honey. they are 3 box now D+D+M so they drew comb and made them selves winter ready.
however the 3 early swarms did make 2 or 3 each.

GG


----------



## Robert Holcombe

LAlldredge said:


> Reduced my hives down to winter config (slatted rack, med, deep, med) and put ProSweet on. Stored emergency frames of feed for spring or to use for late fall prep. One resource hive colony on watch. Ordered a mated queen to arrive on the 15th. Will keep it going with borrowed brood until then. Just don't want to combine yet. Hive creep added an additional resource hive (2) for a total of 9 colonies. Not an enjoyable summer. The bees seemed to have a good year but I was largely absent in July because of the heat and being distracted by all the geo political nonsense. Bouncing out of it into a very nice fall and my love and confidence in my small town. I haven't let them down on mite treatments (Aug 8x OAV) or feeding. Really glad my list is short. They compensate well. Totally botched swarm prevention and harvesting properly. September is feed feed feed.


Been awhile but to update I have standardized the med+deep+med as a brood chamber all year. Supers on top of QE. I also heavily insulate all year - different behavior but like it. It has been a tough year here - constant rain, fog, overcast - very wet and humid. But internal hive conditions have been well managed by the bees, capped honey provided. OAV Dead Drop COunts should be interesting - bit behind due to Henri + Ida = falling trees + building a High Tunnel. Got nine colonies and a double nuc for winter. Euthanized by best Varroa resistant colony this Spring - full of DWV. VSH bees eating pupa may not be such a good idea.


----------



## username00101

Get on those mite washes. I washed a 30/300, and a 20/300 

Been treating for a week now, vertical mite spikes.


----------



## LarryBud

Robert-good to see you back here! Was thinking about you and miss your insight!


----------



## LAlldredge

Robert Holcombe said:


> Been awhile but to update I have standardized the med+deep+med as a brood chamber all year. Supers on top of QE. I also heavily insulate all year - different behavior but like it. It has been a tough year here - constant rain, fog, overcast - very wet and humid. But internal hive conditions have been well managed by the bees, capped honey provided. OAV Dead Drop COunts should be interesting - bit behind due to Henri + Ida = falling trees + building a High Tunnel. Got nine colonies and a double nuc for winter. Euthanized by best Varroa resistant colony this Spring - full of DWV. VSH bees eating pupa may not be such a good idea.


Welcome back Robert. Just in time to start our over wintering humidity/water/insulation discussion. Interesting that you're running med,deep,med config. Last I heard that's what Gray Goose uses too. I removed QE's 2 years ago because we had back to back drought and I didn't want to make their job any harder. Would love to see pics of the high tunnel. What a treat.


----------



## elmer_fud

username00101 said:


> Get on those mite washes. I washed a 30/300, and a 20/300
> 
> Been treating for a week now, vertical mite spikes.


one of my hives was that way about 2 weeks ago, I am starting to suspect OAV may not disperse as well in tall dense hives since the 31 count I had was after several rounds. I had done OAV 3 times 7 days apart at that point and I think it was to far apart, but I was busy with work and could not get out on a weekday. 

I have formic pro to put in my hives now that the temperature has finally cooled down.


----------



## username00101

Another issue I'm seeing are unusually light colonies this time of season.

Plenty of pollen but where the heck is the nectar? 

Plenty of bees, healthy brood, but I'll be feeding all October it looks like.


----------



## crofter

username00101 said:


> Another issue I'm seeing are unusually light colonies this time of season.
> 
> Plenty of pollen but where the heck is the nectar?
> 
> Plenty of bees, healthy brood, but I'll be feeding all October it looks like.


Similar here; most I have ever fed. Just about finished, frost last night. Had to put insulation foam over hive top feeders as some quit taking it. Too cold I guess. Probably turn really warm and the bees will fly around all over and burn a lot of it up! Darn bugs!


----------



## username00101

Yes, the time for hive top feeder is close to being over.

I checked some today at least it looks like they're backfilling more than brooding finally.


----------



## Cloverdale

A question; when combining hives by newspaper does it matter if you add the queen right colony to the queenless one Or should it be the reverse?Thanks.


----------



## elmer_fud

Cloverdale said:


> A question; when combining hives by newspaper does it matter if you add the queen right colony to the queenless one Or should it be the reverse?Thanks.


Which one is stronger? That may be a better determination for which one gets moved.


----------



## Cloverdale

elmer_fud said:


> Which one is stronger? That may be a better determination for which one gets moved.


My idea was to use the dbl nuc, make a 2 deeps from it and put that on the 2 big queenless ones, 2 are smaller. This year I have 4 so far out of 24 that are queenless. One was good before I put the ApiVar strips in; would the queen stop laying with them? This is the first time I’ve used them.


----------



## username00101

I used apivar once last summer (and in a couple of colonies this fall with mite bomb counts 10%). Last year, it noticeably decrease new queen mating success, but I didn't see any issues with existing queens.

It's somewhat effective against mites.


----------



## Cloverdale

username00101 said:


> I used apivar once last summer (and in a couple of colonies this fall with mite bomb counts 10%). Last year, it noticeably decrease new queen mating success, but I didn't see any issues with existing queens.
> 
> It's somewhat effective against mites.


Using the Provap during the season helped a lot with mites; I used the ApiVar as a late treatment, and I was somewhat hesitant because now I have to open the hives to remove the strips. I am thinking it would not hurt to leave them in. The label said it would increase the chance of the bees forming a resistance to ApiVar, but the winter bees will all of died by next Spring. I haven’t bought bees since 2016, just queens so I am not sure if I will use again. Thanks for your input.


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale said:


> Using the Provap during the season helped a lot with mites; I used the ApiVar as a late treatment, and I was somewhat hesitant because now I have to open the hives to remove the strips. I am thinking it would not hurt to leave them in. The label said it would increase the chance of the bees forming a resistance to ApiVar, but the winter bees will all of died by next Spring. I haven’t bought bees since 2016, just queens so I am not sure if I will use again. Thanks for your input.


Clover, do you mean the reason stated to remove the strips is avoid the increased chance of the mites forming a resistance to apivar?


----------



## Cloverdale

clyderoad said:


> Clover, do you mean the reason stated to remove the strips is avoid the increased chance of the mites forming a resistance to apivar?


Ugh, senior moment Clyde!


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale said:


> Ugh, senior moment Clyde!


----------



## elmer_fud

my mite numbers are down, but this hive is still to high 

Just a few mites on the formic strip, another one went in when this one came out


----------



## Cloverdale

elmer_fud said:


> my mite numbers are down, but this hive is still to high
> 
> Just a few mites on the formic strip, another one went in when this one came out
> 
> 
> View attachment 65766


In all my years of using MAQS and Formic Pro I have never seen dead mites on the strips themselves.


----------



## username00101

@elmer_fud 

Have you done a mite wash to determine the mite level?


----------



## elmer_fud

username00101 said:


> @elmer_fud
> 
> Have you done a mite wash to determine the mite level?


it was bad, but it is going down finally. I have checked several times

june 27 - 3 mites in 1/3ish cup
8 aug - 13 mites in about 1/3 ish cup, I started OAV about this time
11 sep - 31 mites after several (4 I think, about every 7 days) OAV rounds. I should have done it every 5 days, but I was busy during the week
1 oct - 24 mites. formic went in
10 oct - 6 mites, but I dont think I did as good of a sugar roll this time. Pic was from this day

I think the fact that this hive was big (1 deep+4 mediums) meant the OAV was not getting thru the hive as well. I also am wondering if they were picking up mites from somewhere. My other hives have been under 6-8 mites every time I checked them, this one seemed to be determined to become a mite bomb though.


----------



## LAlldredge

Did a late fall single OAV today as a test after the full series in August (8 total every 3 days). Ever since I read that story about drift and picking up mites from mite bombs I do a check in October. Put in their screened in feeding shim so I can supplement feed through winter by just opening the top of the stack. Covered with burlap and quilted inner cover. Haven't put on their Bee Cozy's or put mouse guards on. Not quite cold enough for that. Also planted hardy annuals and bulbs for spring. It's weird planting starts right now but I read this book called "Cool Flowers" and the author convinced me to try it. Soon I'll start direct sowing Bells of Ireland, Larkspur, Nigella, Bachelors Buttons and Poppies.


----------



## LAlldredge

Weather turning cold. Bee Cozy’s on, mouseguards on. I would swear to you they enjoy their cozy.


----------



## elmer_fud

Success, my mite bomb is not longer a mite bomb and still has a laying queen. I found 1 mite in it today. 

Everything except for my nuc that I did not treat looked good and was at 0 or 1 mites today. I have a nuc that I have not treated that had 5 mites today so it is getting moved to a box with a normal entrance and getting a MAQS tomorrow.


----------



## username00101

At long last, the mites are no more. Mite levels are 0-0.5%.

Was an eventful season, and now it's over.

Last year, some shrews killed one of my colonies - resolved .............shrews shrews ....

Shrews.


----------



## LAlldredge

In my winter routine- opening up the top of the stack- pour sugar through the screen and spritz water to moisten- replace burlap and insulation. Rinse and repeat. No losses again this year but I have one small colony in 1/2 a resource hive that may not make it. Next door is a very strong colony they will share heat with. I'm supplement feeding both sides with a rectangle feeding shim I made (cursing the whole time- I'm not a carpenter). They are getting a regular sugar slurry at least once a week.


----------



## ursa_minor

username00101 said:


> Last year, some shrews killed one of my colonies - resolved .............shrews shrews ....


Me as well, although I am not sure the shrews killed it but they were definitely in the hive. Last week I saw two dead shrews that my cat killed, they were pretty tiny so I was glad my 1/4" mesh was on over the entrances, little buggers are not getting in this winter.


----------



## username00101

Going to be warm the next couple of days, so my shrew guards are all going on. Not messing around with those ****ers this year. They only killed one colony but damaged others.

1/4th wasn't necessary, 3/8 was plenty thankfully we don't have the Pygmy shrews....

I understand that only 1/4th will stop the pygmies' in Canada.


----------



## ursa_minor

username00101 said:


> I understand that only 1/4th will stop the pygmies' in Canada.


 From what I have read, that is right. Thankfully the bees don't have a problem with the 1/4 inch. I put it on early to test their ability to move thru the holes. I noticed that even those bees with pollen seemed to get thru they just needed to learn to go at an angle. I even watched some drones move thru.


Today at +4C they were out and flying in the sun looking for water. I filled a tray and they sure spent time filling up.


----------



## username00101

Hmmm, I've read that the 1/4th inch wears away at the bees wings, and the pollen thing too much - but with pygmy shrews what choice does one have?

If it were me - I'd remove the 1/4th inch in Spring.


----------



## ursa_minor

username00101 said:


> If it were me - I'd remove the 1/4th inch in Spring.


It does not stay on after the winter, but those shrews are out and about the hives now and I don't want them disturbing the cluster especially when it gets cold at night. During the day the bees are moving enough that I don't think it would be a problem as the shrews take advantage of clustering bees and bees that are active can defend themselves.


----------



## username00101

Yes, they are out right now - today I'm putting on all the shrew guards.

Warm enough so I don't cause them to break cluster and fly around in 30F weather.


----------



## LarryBud

Well, I'm just about cleaned up and ready for the winter-maybee. Looks like we hit 70 F today, last warm day, possible until spring-high 20's to mid 40's for the next ten days or so. I OAV'd 29 hives today in 5 yards and have 3 more to do before night. Figured I'd take a lunch break, clean the ProVap and re-organize the truck. All of the hives were flying as the day went on and it warmed up got very active so I'll get the last three hives (yard 6) later on as it cools down. Going to finish cutting the pink foam insulation board, get the hives insulated and swap out top feeders for quilt boxes if weather permits. After all, it's Jersey and even with colder weather predicted, it could change to 65 F + before the end of next week-maybe 1 more round of OAV could be instore!


----------



## LAlldredge

Update on the 9- opened the top of the stack and refreshed their sugar slurry. Winter config working well. No losses. Warmish day so they will be flying. Heard they are frequenting Dutch Brothers in Sisters. They had to put up a screen. So apparently they are taking a coffee break through the day.


----------



## LarryBud

Well, maybe this isn't actually IN the Apiary but I guess it's part of the job. Drove up to Mann Lake in Wilkes Barre, Pa, about a 100 miles, beautiful late Autum day, considering it was the day before Thanksgiving, light traffic through the Pocono Mountains. Leaves are pretty much gone now, the mountains looked cold and gray with splotches of green from patches of fir trees. Winter can't be far away. I wanted to make up some more quilt boxes and looked at the prices of 1 x 5, along with the time to get the wood, cut and miter, square, glue, nail....nope, drove up there and bought 20 knock down shallows. All good, even fit in a country breakfast at an old school roadside diner. It's deer season in Pennsylvania and the boys were drifting in, some coming, some going. Didn't see any deer in the pickups, it's not like the meadows at my farm in New Jersey, up there you gotta earn your deer. Got home before noon, threw the knockdowns on the jig, used the nailer, got a coat of primer and a top coat of paint on them. I'm ready for dinner, a shower and bed. Just a simple good day with a start and (shortly) an end.


----------



## elmer_fud

I wrapped my hives with 1" styrafoam insulation tonight. We have a cold snap coming so it was time to get it on. A few of my hives made noise at me, so they seem to be doing fine.


----------



## A Novice

Stopped out to look at the hives. It is about 25F, but the bees are crowding the top entrance. Pushed back my top insulation to get a better look. I like it when I can see them.


----------



## LarryBud

It's been a warm Christmas week here in western NJ-today looks like 52F and the girls have been flying. I made sure they have a water source, but it been raining with fresh rainfall last night and they're flying around the two yards I checked. watching the landing boards, it seems like a mix of cleansing flights, orientation of young bees and a bit of foraging around some top feeders left out that must have some dried residual syrup that washed down to a small puddle in the tanks. Not a mad rush or frenzy but they're interested. Watching each hive from what I'm seeing on the landing boards they look good, strong, the few dead don't show any signs of DWS or mites. If the weathers hold's out (looks like a week ahead is warm) I may get some OAV done.

Well, we are past the winter solstice so it's all downhill from here. in NJ, our first pollen sources start producing in late February with the trees starting in early March. I'm wondering with nothing to really forage at this point if I should keep the idea of some winter feeding if the activity levels keep up. Not really sure which is a bigger drain, clustering in the cold or flying in warm winter weather.

I'm guess the rest of the day is Christmas dinner leftovers and to start tightening up my plans for Spring!

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to all!


----------



## username00101

I picked up a couple of the colonies, the weight seems OK.

No shrews this year so far.

I saw a skunk by one of my apiaries, the hives are up like 18 inches, so IDK what that little creatre has been up to - but I can see it's scratch holes around the apiary - Is it eating the dead bees?


----------



## LAlldredge

Winter storm- 12 inches. Dug around the colonies and refreshed the sugar slurry in the resource hives. All still eating and appreciated the spritzes of water since no one is flying. Put the clear greenhouse plastic on the chicken coop to keep out the wind. It really works. I lost my head hen Skipper on Christmas Eve. Hand tamed and loads of personality. I miss her.


----------



## username00101

Sorry for your loss. I haven't lost any of mine yet, they stopped laying eggs for the past month. I have a strategic reserve, but I'm going to be in trouble in 4 weeks if they don't resume egg laying soon.


----------



## ursa_minor

-30C for a week and still counting, it is not supposed to warm till Jan 12/22. My hives are buried in snow, The Langstroth is two 6x6deeps then a deep full of insulation. On top of that there is 2 feet of snow on the insulated roof. The snow is half way up the very top deep, the covering I propped over the upper entrance is buried in snow but I see this morning a very tiny hole in the snow where the frost has built and moisture is seeping out of the igloo. 

The two Ukrainian hives are covered in the same way, two feet of snow on top and only about 6 inches of the top 14" of upper insulation is to be seen. The upper entrances also have a piece of scrap propped so they don't get blocked but all is covered up with snow and no moisture is escaping anywhere. Either they are dead, or like Pederson apiaries showed when they covered their hives, they have melted an inner pocket. One of the hives seems to be venting a little moisture out an upper crack in the quilt box. Still, I am tempted to peak under the board and look at the entrance but in all my previous attempts everything was fine so I wonder how helpful it would be anyway, maybe I should just let them alone.


----------



## username00101

The snow would keep them at 32F, which is the best metabolic rate.

But I've read colonies suffocating to death from snow.

My colonies are up 2 feet, if we ever got more than 2 feet of snow to last around here it'd be interesting.

I've never seen 6 feet of snowpack before.

If you start digging around the snow to find the entrance it'll scare them, and the metabolism will skyrocket - but they could also be in desperate need of air.

Do they have upper vents?


----------



## ursa_minor

username00101 said:


> My colonies are up 2 feet, if we ever got more than 2 feet of snow to last around here it'd be interesting.
> 
> I've never seen 6 feet of snowpack before.
> 
> If you start digging around the snow to find the entrance it'll scare them, and the metabolism will skyrocket - but they could also be in desperate need of air.


To be clear the snow is not 6 feet deep, I have piled the snow up around the hives, per instructions, but the subsequent snow has buried them even further. I have a bottom vent with a board propped to keep it clear under the snow and an upper entrance that is now protected with a piece of hard plastic leaned against the hive to keep the upper entrance from freezing over, as it has been doing simply because the shrew screens provide a place for the condensation to gather into ice, which then backs up over the round entrance holes. The plastic creates an air pocket that is warmer than the outside air that keeps the entrance ice free. 



username00101 said:


> But I've read colonies suffocating to death from snow.



From the experiences of commercial Sask. beekeepers who bury their entire hives in snow, the information is that they do not suffocate in the snow but when ice builds up over the entrances. Snow at -20C is dry and fluffy thru which air does move, snow at warm temps is heavy and wet and compacts into an icy mess, not all snow is equal. To add, we don't usually get a melt until March/April so the chances of that snow melting and creating ice is also very small and if it does, I have an upper entrance that will not be affected and is easy to clear.


----------



## LarryBud

What a difference a day makes! Sunday was 59F and the girls were flying! They were quite interested in stacked equipment and a few 5-gallon jugs that might have had some residual syrup in them. I took one of the jugs and shook out a few ounces of liquid on a 5-gallon pail top and when they found it, they sucked it all down in 5 minutes! Then today, 17F and not a sign, maybe a few dead bees pushed out on the landing boards. Well maybe winter has settled in-time to inventory all of the toys and figure out my equipment orders-like to get all of that committed early so there's no supply issues (Let's go Brandon!)


----------



## Litsinger

LarryBud said:


> ... like to get all of that committed early so there's no supply issues ...


Ordered a couple pallet loads of woodenware in October. Still waiting for a shipment date....


----------



## Gray Goose

Litsinger said:


> Ordered a couple pallet loads of woodenware in October. Still waiting for a shipment date....


Pallet loads?
expanding next year?
of Lang or Warre?

GG


----------



## A Novice

Went out today, it was warmed up from about 2F yesterday to 29Ftoday.

Still getting a few bees (maybe 20 to 50 per day) coming out of one hive, mostly dead on the snow. They seem small (but dead bees do) and are very fuzzy. Saw a couple come out, they flew around like bees doing orientation flights, or "play flights" as AI Root refers to them. When they hit the snow, it kinda messed them up, though. I caught one and returned it to the entrance. It went back in like nothing happened.

Found a drone on top of the hive. It looked dead, but I warmed it in my hand, and after about 5 minutes, it started moving. I got it fully warmed, so it could walk, and then I gave it to my son to feed Slick the salamander. In the summer, Slick gets a steady diet of drones, but in the winter he mostly gets crickets. Such is the life of a drone.

BTW, I pretty much always have drones in my hives all winter. Not a full complement, but enough so you can count to 20 pretty easily on one frame.


----------



## Litsinger

Gray Goose said:


> Pallet loads?
> expanding next year?
> of Lang or Warre?


It's not as impressive as it sounds. It's about 90 boxes, a baker's dozen bottom boards and slatted racks, 800 frames and hardware.

While I enjoy my inherited Warre set-ups and have learned a lot from them (and I'm almost convinced the bees prefer them), I am neither patient enough nor careful enough to attempt trying to harvest from them in any scale. As it is, they largely function in 'set-it-and-forget-it' mode now.


----------



## Gray Goose

Litsinger said:


> It's not as impressive as it sounds. It's about 90 boxes, a baker's dozen bottom boards and slatted racks, 800 frames and hardware.
> 
> While I enjoy my inherited Warre set-ups and have learned a lot from them (and I'm almost convinced the bees prefer them), I am neither patient enough nor careful enough to attempt trying to harvest from them in any scale. As it is, they largely function in 'set-it-and-forget-it' mode now.


well good luck with getting them together and painted.
seems the trend toward 1 size has motivated you to take action.
I still think the Warre hives can be good swarm production units and then drone mothers.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

I can speak from experience of what kind of work, financial and time load expanding your operation can be. Last year I bought a pallet of Lang deeps and a pallet of mediums, un-painted (heck I could paint a few boxes) pre-made with frames. Now that just around 125 boxes between them-then think inner/outer covers, bases, excluders the list gets long and $$$$. Getting them painted was a chore I just didn't see coming-primer and then 2 topcoats-next time I use a spray gun. Then the fun of moving them, setting up bee yards and then the phone rings-pick up your 15 nucs tomorrow night-paintings not completed but I did focus on the deeps-but wait, I need 10 more bases and 15 more covers painted. Wait, swarm season is approaching, and I've got 10 splits to do. This whole thing is probably worth a thread on it own-part comedy, part adventure, part tragedy and a grossly under planned lesson in beekeeping for all of you potential Scooberts. 

Not sure who you're buying from but I'm not seeing any problems with this Winters order-get it done early-bees wait for no man. Oh-and insanity is repeating something and expecting a different result


----------



## Litsinger

Gray Goose said:


> I still think the Warre hives can be good swarm production units and then drone mothers.


For certain- I am glad to have them around, and there is a lot to be said for the simplicity of their construction and inherent benefits (i.e. better insulated).

I can definitely see why many folks decide it is a good fit for their approach to beekeeping.


----------



## Litsinger

LarryBud said:


> This whole thing is probably worth a thread on it own-part comedy, part adventure, part tragedy and a grossly under planned lesson in beekeeping for all of you potential Scooberts.


I can certainly identify with this sentiment- I take some solace in the immortal words of Keats:

_“Life is divine Chaos. It's messy, and it's supposed to be that way.”_


----------



## mtnmyke

I can finally stop being a grouchy beekeeper as the dearth seemed to end and we're just starting to see the start of the flow. Eucalyptus is in full bloom and the Acacia trees are really about to explode.

In preparation for this I started feeding pollen sub in November and fed 1:1 syrup on the hives light on stores. I'd say they are ready for the flow? Nearly all my hives look like this!


----------



## username00101

ready for the swarm.

Is that an 8 frame box?


----------



## mtnmyke

username00101 said:


> ready for the swarm.
> 
> Is that an 8 frame box?


Way too early for swarms, haven't even seen drones yet. It is an 8 frame deep and supers are going on this month with others going double deep in preparation for nucs.

Been running single deep 8 frame for a while. Not as good as single 10 but I've only had one unexpected swarm in the last few years.


----------



## username00101

You run an 8 frame deep with supers and don't have swarm issues?

That's pretty darn good management, I don't think I could do it. 

- that's when I decided stop ever trying to run a single deep with an excluder as a viable strategy for me. 

I run a big number of hives, so getting 100% no swarming is pretty tough.


----------



## mtnmyke

Good genetics and only having 20 hives seems to help. Swarmy queens usually get replaced from lines I know aren't swarmy.


----------



## A Novice

Beautiful.
It looks like your bee space is at the top of the box. Around here, it is usually at the bottom, which never made sense to me.

Jon


----------



## A Novice

mtnmyke said:


> Good genetics and only having 20 hives seems to help. Swarmy queens usually get replaced from lines I know aren't swarmy.


Read an article by a guy in Sweden, warning that selecting for bees that don't swarm could lead to the extinction of free (feral) colonies, as swarming is important to their survival.
Been thinking about it. 
It is an interesting question, with free colonies and captive colonies interbreeding throughout the range of AM.
Not criticizing, i wish my bees were less swarmy...


----------



## crofter

Bees that dont swarm could work if managed just like many of our hybrid egg layer chickens that will not go broody and sit a clutch of eggs! A "clucking" hen is no benefit to commercial egg production. The divide between natural and economic!

Re the crowded 8 frame single deep and swarming. I have only a couple of single deep Dadant colonies taken through the 4 seasons. I found that smothered in bees look of Mtmykes hive was scary and I chickened out and pulled a few frames of capped brood and replaced with foundation. Next summer I may push them a little closer. Probably depends a lot on your local flows.


----------



## clyderoad

mtnmyke said:


> I can finally stop being a grouchy beekeeper as the dearth seemed to end and we're just starting to see the start of the flow. Eucalyptus is in full bloom and the Acacia trees are really about to explode.
> 
> In preparation for this I started feeding pollen sub in November and fed 1:1 syrup on the hives light on stores. I'd say they are ready for the flow? Nearly all my hives look like this!
> 
> View attachment 66947


Good for you.
Looks like a nice strong colony ready to get to it and do some work for you. 
Stack them on!


----------



## mtnmyke

Oh, fear not, they would certainly swarm if not managed. I have to stack the supers early and keep giving them space to keep the threat at bay. I also take a lot of brood for nucs/queen castles which may also be key. I also make sure any honey frames are removed for maximum egg laying space.

Some still don't get the hint, by not making efficient use of their single box, even after manipulating them how I see fit. I'm often forced to double deep them after knocking down several rounds of swarm cells. I never make splits from swarm cells! I usually requeen these as i seem to really enjoy a colony that can have 6-7 frames of solid brood, with the outside frames being pollen.

We'll see how this year goes, however. Our flow hits hard and we've gotten more rain already than in the last 5 years. I could be eating my words in the next month... And stacking all my doubles on.


----------



## username00101

I only had 3 production colonies swarm last year. we got a bad cold snap and I couldn't inspect for a week, maybe it was more like 10 day. I think I remember I lost 2 full production swarms from that fiasco. The other production swarm I lost was just me making a mistake during an inspection. No other production queens really even got close to swarming last year. 

I did learn that it's much harder to manage swarms in nucs. I did lose some nuc swarms in the spring. 

I've learned to give them a bunch of space, and use multiple techniques to manage swarming simultaneously. No queen excluders, ever. Sure, I lose a super or two.


----------



## Litsinger

Litsinger said:


> Ordered a couple pallet loads of woodenware in October. Still waiting for a shipment date....


Order ships tomorrow- I placed it on October 15th so if I did my math right that looks like about 12 weeks from order to shipment. Add a week for shipping and it's a 13 week lead time. Hopefully you all are able to do better than this- just glad I didn't procrastinate as I was tempted to do...


----------



## username00101

Did they increase the price on you during the waiting period?


----------



## mtnmyke

username00101 said:


> I only had 3 production colonies swarm last year.


That's not terrible! What's your current setup?

If I could go back in time I would have stuck to all 10 frame equipment as that's much easier to run single deeps in. Those 2 frames make a big difference. In thinking this topic over, I may just go to double deeps due to the heavy flow I know we're going to get with the rains. I'll probably play it hive by hive, let them tell me what they want. Last year I was really stubborn about keeping them in single deeps - but my back still hurts from the extra management.


----------



## Litsinger

username00101 said:


> Did they increase the price on you during the waiting period?


Thankfully, no. But I did place an order last year for some honey house equipment that shipped this week and I was presented with a 10% price increase. To their credit, one of the company owners intervened and gave me a credit that offset the price increase.


----------



## mtnmyke

Litsinger said:


> Order ships tomorrow


Where did you order from? I'm not far from a Mann Lake warehouse and have noticed huge increases. Frames alone are up 50%. I may have to start "bargain" shopping other suppliers - if they are even any cheaper?


----------



## Litsinger

mtnmyke said:


> Where did you order from?


I ended up placing my woodenware order with Western Bee. They also offer volume discounts but it is not explicit- you have to call/e-mail to request pricing based on your order quantity.

I can't speak to the quality of their boxes, but I have bought frames from them and some telescoping covers and bottom boards through Dadant and they have been good.


----------



## LAlldredge

All are well. Opened them up and refreshed their slurry. They really liked the water spritz. Warmed up today to give them a chance to get out so bees were in my hair and coat. Pulled mouse guards and scraped entrances again. Pretty much the routine until I put out dry pollen in February.


----------



## greg155

Well we just ordered a carni nuc from blue ridge bees in princeton west virginia for 199$.we can pick them up the and of April.


----------



## mtnmyke

Well, well, well, look who it is.

Someone hold me back from getting all the grafting equipment out of storage.


----------



## crofter

That big fella is getting ready to go! you are at least 4 1/2 months ahead of us!


----------



## James Lee

Been organizing because that's all we can do with our temps in SE Michigan right now. Thankful for 3 major Woodware suppliers doing wholesale Amish and Mennonite made equipment within an hours drive in three directions. Looking good to go to at least 50 colonies next season with many for production... Had the Amish folks set me up some 5 frame candy boards, just in case. Picked those up yesterday.

















Been busy selling honey too. Spring isn't even here and I'm manic.


----------



## A Novice

James Lee said:


> View attachment 67049
> 
> Been organizing because that's all we can do with our temps in SE Michigan right now. Thankful for 3 major Woodware suppliers doing wholesale Amish and Mennonite made equipment within an hours drive in three directions. Looking good to go to at least 50 colonies next season with many for production... Had the Amish folks set me up some 5 frame candy boards, just in case. Picked those up yesterday.
> View attachment 67047
> 
> View attachment 67046
> 
> 
> Been busy selling honey too. Spring isn't even here and I'm manic.
> View attachment 67048


The neverending challenge of organizing your woodenware so that it doesn't look like a pile of junk.

The thing you need right away is always on the bottom.


----------



## A Novice

We had a warm day yesterday, and I learned a bit about small hive entrances.
I decided to restrict top entrances on most of my hives, (just playing Russian roulette with my hives, to see what happens). In order to see how they are doing I use a digital thermometer (meat thermometer) with a small metal probe which I stick through my top entrance to measure air temperature at the top of the hive. This way you can tell if the hive is alive in about 30 seconds. To close the entrances, I jammed a piece of closed-cell polyurethane foam in the entrance and stuck a plastic straw through the foam so I could insert my thermometer. I had a straw from McDonalds, which was about 0.2 inches diameter, I made two short pieces from that (the rest of it had been flattened), and made two from a Culvers straw, which measures .26 inches (6,5 mm) inside diameter. It was warm yesterday, and when I visited the hives, bees were coming out of my 6,5 mm entrance in significant numbers. I removed the foam block and let them out for a fly. Here is a pic that illustrates the concept. (the pic is fake, the bee is dead. I didn't have my camera at the time, so I set this up to illustrate the concept.) Any guesses how I got the bee into the straw?


----------



## Litsinger

A Novice said:


> Any guesses how I got the bee into the straw?


Put it in your mouth and blew it in?


----------



## LarryBud

We warmed up here in western NJ (48-40F) so I left the shop (restoring an old Land Rover) at lunch and took a ride to check out all of my yards and hives. I started at my farm and worked back, all good, strong, plenty of flying activity. The ones at my friend's farm had good activity on 8 out of 9 hives, the one hive, #2, had no activity at first but then a couple flew out looking weak when they hit the cooler air just seemed lethargic and flew off with no return. I then hit the ones up on the ridge, higher in elevation and all had light activity. A double hive yard in town looked strong, as did the 2 triples in town yards yards. I have one more hive, the final out of a two-yard hive of my splits that never really got going, one had died of in September, and it looks like I lost the second one there-no activity and in tilting the hive, it felt really light. So, for now, I have 2 hives of concern, I'm pretty sure the last described is gone. The one up at my friend's place was a late captured swarm that seem to have been growing, but I had concerned s about it in November-but there were some signs of life. The 2-hive yard that had already lost 1 hive and now probably a second, were splits that never really got strong but I did have some hope. I did check any dead bees on landing boards or tops of any hive that had some, most seemed to be older foragers and I didn't see any mites or DWS. All of the hives had a formic pro treatment in late August and a few OAV's over the fall and early winter. One thing I did notice about hives in winters, some will fly at 40F, and some won't fly at 50F and since we're right on the bubble today, not going to right anything off yet. I guess if I lose any hives, I can pull them out of the yards and bring them home for re-use with any early splits. 

Well, maybe I lost 3 this year but I wasn't ready to open top's today. I'm thinking of just popping the covers on the 2 of concern to see what's up and then doing a shot of OAV tomorrow with the forecast to be in the same upper 40'sF. I hate doing OAV without testing (or any treatment but I'm guessing they're either about to or have started brooding and it's too cool to open up for washes.


----------



## LAlldredge

Weekly routine- Opened up the top of the stack of all 9 and all 9 are still alive. One is the super small late queen colony that I'm cheering for. I couldn't help but talk baby talk to that one. The rest are very robust and occupying the feeder shim rectangle within their quilt box so I can see the top of the colony. Refreshed their sugar slurry, spritzed water at the edges and closed them up. Cleaned lower entrances again. I never really had a big winter drop on any of them so they may be quite large. Whatever. Just means I have to watch for late Feb/March starvation. I have spare emergency honey frames set aside for this reason and dry pollen sub that will start soon. Apivar will go on in mid March.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Weekly routine- Opened up the top of the stack of all 9 and all 9 are still alive. One is the super small late queen colony that I'm cheering for. I couldn't help but talk baby talk to that one. The rest are very robust and occupying the feeder shim rectangle within their quilt box so I can see the top of the colony. Refreshed their sugar slurry, spritzed water at the edges and closed them up. Cleaned lower entrances again. I never really had a big winter drop on any of them so they may be quite large. Whatever. Just means I have to watch for late Feb/March starvation. I have spare emergency honey frames set aside for this reason and dry pollen sub that will start soon. Apivar will go on in mid March.


hmm 9 at 3 supers each, 27 supers, nice

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Gray Goose said:


> hmm 9 at 3 supers each, 27 supers, nice
> 
> GG


Hey GG- 2 are resource hives and 5 are production hives. So not as much honey production but still good. The resource hives are a gas to use btw and handy for small colonies. I also use them heavily when I equalize in spring and fall.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Hey GG- 2 are resource hives and 5 are production hives. So not as much honey production but still good. The resource hives are a gas to use btw and handy for small colonies. I also use them heavily when I equalize in spring and fall.





LAlldredge said:


> Hey GG- 2 are resource hives and 5 are production hives. So not as much honey production but still good. The resource hives are a gas to use btw and handy for small colonies. I also use them heavily when I equalize in spring and fall.


Agree the little ones are fun
I have 5 side by side nucs out trying to make the winter now.
I got 1 of 1 to make it last year.
Hoping for 7 of 10 this year, Likely go to 16 for this coming year. 4 more bases to make before june. 

I have had more fun with the little ones and they are easier to work.
I may shift toward NUC selling, as the honey fun meter is close to pegged.
they can grow really fast, so they are less set and forget than the bigger hives.
But that forces me to look at them more often , which is ok.

I have 30 production hive going into winter, I am 40 ish supers short of the 90 I may need, so A little worried, but time will cure this I am sure. If they all make it, I can give a few to a couple mentees or sell a few NUCs.
really 20 is plenty and 60 supers is enough for me to putz with for honey.

hope yours do well.
enjoy your inputs to BS
Take care

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Warming up for a few days here so I'm putting out dry pollen sub (Ultra Bee). Any other time of year it's a door stop. But they love it when there's nothing else around. Praise is welcome for my pollen sub feeder. A paper grocery bag with a big cutout at the top. They aren't bothered and I don't care. Easy to pick up at night.

For newbies- this is the only thing I would dare bulk feed this close to hives. Bulk feeding is possible with sugar syrup but I leave that to the pros and more advanced folks. I do my syrup feeding within the hive.


----------



## elmer_fud

I checked all of my hives today (opened top only) to check on stores. All of them were still alive and seemed to have enough stores still available. 

One of the hives had some condensation on top of the frames on the edge, even with a quilt box. I am not used to seeing wet frames, but since it was at the edge only I think it is ok.


----------



## username00101

Looks like I lost a single hive. I checked all the others, all are alive - at least as nearly as I can tell. 

Not hard to figure out if colonies are alive.

No need to disturb them.


----------



## mtnmyke

I was lucky enough to be taken off the wait list and some "premium" Hawaii Queens became available for shipment. I went ahead and ordered 8 and they'll be here on the 9th of February.

Bees have been cranking and in the last month have gone from 5-8 frames of bees to most of my hives now having supers on them. Acacia just started blooming so things are full on here in Santa Cruz!

I even moved some nucs into full size hives. With a few more hives producing drones it won't be long until I start grafting again.


----------



## LarryBud

Nothing s**ks more than losing a hive. I lost my first 2 in late summer-both had been treated (formic/OAV) but a weak queen is a weak queen. I got tied up with a project in NYC and was leaving and getting home well after dark and missed any opportunities to build them up or even combine. I lost another one in late December, another weak hive but thought feeding would work without any other intervention-rookie mistake. Of the three lost this past season, two were small mid-summer swarms and one was a poorly mated split. On the split, I had added a frame of brood and a good shake of nurse bees a couple of times but as I said, a weak queen is a weak queen, the colony didn't supersede her, and winter was the final hurrah.

Fast froward to today, digging out from the coastal storm, we're inland enough and missed the brunt of it-only 9-10" of snow and temps in the single numbers, wonder how the girls are doing. I ran around to all of the yards a couple of days ago and without popping tops, saw the normal couple of dead bees on landing boards which I think is a good sign-winter activity in the hives. But one hive had 7-10 dead which concerns me a little-big die off with some spill out? Guess I'll know in a few weeks. Long range forecast had the end of this week in the low 50's and I was hoping to do some inspections and maybe some winter feed-looks like that ship sailed and the forecast in now mid 40's. I am hesitant on opening hive below 50F this late in the winter as I think my queens are probably gearing up for spring brood rearing. More waiting.


----------



## LarryBud

Warmed up today so I checked a few hives at lunch, snows melting off and is now about 3 or 4 inches away from the drifts and piles, it looks like were at 42F. Probably too cold to open them up so I'll back off on that idea for the moment. Few dead bees on the landing boards but after a few hands-on examinations of them they appear to be old foragers-"Baldies" There's a few flying, one just hitchhiked into the house and started buzzing on my back-made me jump and she headed for the kitchen-for a last meal, I guess. Still no sure on the hives' stores but pushing out dead old ones is a sign of life-fingers crossed, a few more weeks and we make it! I'm ready with winter patties if we get a little warmer this week and I may put out some pollen sub on the landing boards like LAlldredge does-good idea!


----------



## clyderoad

LarryBud said:


> Warmed up today so I checked a few hives at lunch, snows melting off and is now about 3 or 4 inches away from the drifts and piles, it looks like were at 42F. Probably too cold to open them up so I'll back off on that idea for the moment. Few dead bees on the landing boards but after a few hands-on examinations of them they appear to be old foragers-"Baldies" There's a few flying, one just hitchhiked into the house and started buzzing on my back-made me jump and she headed for the kitchen-for a last meal, I guess. Still no sure on the hives' stores but pushing out dead old ones is a sign of life-fingers crossed, a few more weeks and we make it! I'm ready with winter patties if we get a little warmer this week and I may put out some pollen sub on the landing boards like LAlldredge does-good idea!


It'll do you well to learn to how to judge the weight of the hive by hefting.


----------



## Cloverdale

Does this look like a mouse nest?


----------



## lemmje

Cloverdale said:


> Does this look like a mouse nest?


More so than it does a bee cluster. I used to have a stethoscope to listen for the buzzing in a hive. Is that flir? I've been wanting to get something for my phone to take heat pics.


----------



## Gray Goose

Cloverdale

can you get a side pic, more level?

from up where the camera was, it could be

most of the nests I find are in the bottom box toward the back.

take a coat hanger , open it so the hook is on the end, and reach in with a sweeping motion.
if you have a mouse you should get grass, leaves, fuzz from cloth and various mouse nest parts.

that would also confirm.
not removed, the hive will not likely make spring.

most of the time the mouse is in the bottom, could crack the hive above the bottom box, remove the bottom box , remove the nest, reassemble, screen to prevent reentry. on a warmish day.

since the rest of the hive is "same" color the bees may already be expired, unless this was thru some insulation of some sort.

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

I also agree with Grey Goose on checking the bottom. Another possibility is that you have a bit of a gap between the boxes and there is a bit of warm air coming out appearing warmer on the camera.


----------



## Cloverdale

lemmje said:


> More so than it does a bee cluster. I used to have a stethoscope to listen for the buzzing in a hive. Is that flir? I've been wanting to get something for my phone to take heat pics.


An old FLIR that fits on an old cell phone. Still works!


----------



## Cloverdale

Gray Goose said:


> Cloverdale
> 
> can you get a side pic, more level?
> 
> from up where the camera was, it could be
> 
> most of the nests I find are in the bottom box toward the back.
> 
> take a coat hanger , open it so the hook is on the end, and reach in with a sweeping motion.
> if you have a mouse you should get grass, leaves, fuzz from cloth and various mouse nest parts.
> 
> that would also confirm.
> not removed, the hive will not likely make spring.
> 
> most of the time the mouse is in the bottom, could crack the hive above the bottom box, remove the bottom box , remove the nest, reassemble, screen to prevent reentry. on a warmish day.
> 
> since the rest of the hive is "same" color the bees may already be expired, unless this was thru some insulation of some sort.
> 
> GG


That’s an observant way to tell! I stuck my hive tool in and only pulled out dead bees that looked like they were eaten by a shrew now that I think about it; separated bodies with the inside eaten out, looks like a shell…I believe the FLIR will not show an image through the insulation, but Iwill remove it and take another photo. Thank you.


----------



## Cloverdale

elmer_fud said:


> I also agree with Grey Goose on checking the bottom. Another possibility is that you have a bit of a gap between the boxes and there is a bit of warm air coming out appearing warmer on the camera.


I do wrap in tar paper and have foam on the sides, so no leaking of air from the hive.


----------



## Arnie

Earlier in the week it was 60 degrees, then dropped to -12 in a hurry.
So today it warmed up to 35 and I put an ear to the backyard hives. They were humming away as usual. 
I always worry about those wild temperature swings we get here, but the bees don't suffer too much.


----------



## LAlldredge

55 degrees 6a- kids enjoying pollen sub. Found a DRONE entering one of my production hives. Guess it's a leftover from winter? Never see drones this early.


----------



## clyderoad

Cloverdale said:


> I do wrap in tar paper and have foam on the sides, so no leaking of air from the hive.


Clover, hope you guys are well in the mountains!
So...what was it a heat image of the cluster or something else?
Best, clyde


----------



## mtnmyke

First shipment of queens arrived today. I went with some Latshaw Queens out of Hawaii and boy are they beautiful. The carniolans have beautiful dark markings with rust strips and the Italians are a beautiful yellow, as they should be.

Got them all installed under push in cages over double screen boards. I went in the hives yesterday and took 3 frames of brood and moved them over an excluder. This morning I swapped the excluders for the double screen boards a few hours before getting the queens in.

This is my first year trying this method but as nights are still in the 30s (although today's high was in the 80s), I think it's a genius solution to keeping small splits warm and building up nucs/replacements for the yard.


----------



## Gray Goose

mtnmyke said:


> First shipment of queens arrived today. I went with some Latshaw Queens out of Hawaii and boy are they beautiful. The carniolans have beautiful dark markings with rust strips and the Italians are a beautiful yellow, as they should be.
> 
> Got them all installed under push in cages over double screen boards. I went in the hives yesterday and took 3 frames of brood and moved them over an excluder. This morning I swapped the excluders for the double screen boards a few hours before getting the queens in.
> 
> This is my first year trying this method but as nights are still in the 30s (although today's high was in the 80s), I think it's a genius solution to keeping small splits warm and building up nucs/replacements for the yard.


let us know if they all get accepted

gg


----------



## LarryBud

We're getting a February thaw, so I put out some 5-gallon pail lids as plates with some winter patty and pollen subs in all of the bee yards. In my mind, it's been too cold and windy to open the hives yet and the weights have been pretty good, but I've been a little worried-maybe paranoid. With the warming trends, I'm hoping to get into all of the hives, put some feed inside and maybe an OAV over the next two days. Spring isn't here yet; Monday is forecasted to be in the 20'sF so the fat lady hasn't sung YET!. Upside of this is it looks like at this point by landing board activity is that we got all 31 through the winter-100% survival!!!! WHooHOOOO


----------



## mtnmyke

First time wearing my Garmin gps/smart watch in the apiary this week. The bees HATE that thing. I work all my hives without a veil/suit and might take an accidental sting from time to time. Usually my fault.

I've taken about a dozen stings around the watch the last couple days. I'm not sure if it's because it's black (even though I've worn a black shirt) or because it's emitting some kind of field they can detect.

Very strange.


----------



## LarryBud

To paraphrase the Great Mark Twain; "Reports of my 100% success in getting my hives through the winter are entirely unfounded." I was able to get into all of the hives today, backbreaking work, removing insulation, clean ups, opening hives, even removing some old formic pads from brood boxes and then feeding, closing up and re-installing insulation etc. From the inspections, it looks like I lost 3 hives to mites, (2 last spring nucs and one last spring split) so I'm down to 28 survivors. I'm thinking if the weather holds out (we hit 60F today) I may do some washes-the survivors were pretty well brooded up, had to hit the tops with smoke so I could get some winter patty on without crushing bees. I'm finding it interesting that we did have around a 90% success but puzzled why we had these few lost to the mites. 9 hives in a row, all treated identically and one in the middle is a die out? Perhaps I'm on the razors edge on treatment but the numbers, I guess are not that bad, but it brings a question. Increase treatments OR maintain current practices for another year, split genetics to repopulate losses? I'm leaning toward the latter-the third deep in mid March and do some splits with survivors-maintain my IPM plan? 

On the pail lid feeders-the girls had very little interest in winter patties but were quite excited about the pollen. Might be a hair early for new brood but 21 days from now is just a few days short of when I added the third deeps last year to support my May 1 splits


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> To paraphrase the Great Mark Twain; "Reports of my 100% success in getting my hives through the winter are entirely unfounded." I was able to get into all of the hives today, backbreaking work, removing insulation, clean ups, opening hives, even removing some old formic pads from brood boxes and then feeding, closing up and re-installing insulation etc. From the inspections, it looks like I lost 3 hives to mites, (2 last spring nucs and one last spring split) so I'm down to 28 survivors. I'm thinking if the weather holds out (we hit 60F today) I may do some washes-the survivors were pretty well brooded up, had to hit the tops with smoke so I could get some winter patty on without crushing bees. I'm finding it interesting that we did have around a 90% success but puzzled why we had these few lost to the mites. 9 hives in a row, all treated identically and one in the middle is a die out? Perhaps I'm on the razors edge on treatment but the numbers, I guess are not that bad, but it brings a question. Increase treatments OR maintain current practices for another year, split genetics to repopulate losses? I'm leaning toward the latter-the third deep in mid March and do some splits with survivors-maintain my IPM plan?
> 
> On the pail lid feeders-the girls had very little interest in winter patties but were quite excited about the pollen. Might be a hair early for new brood but 21 days from now is just a few days short of when I added the third deeps last year to support my May 1 splits


Boy I'm wondering too if you are a little thin on your treatments...wondering if it may be prudent to hit them all with an OAV pretty soon (?). The pollen sub continues to be super popular here. Bees love being bees. I'm also going to get in and put patties on. My weather is warmer much earlier. They are telling me it will be an early spring.


----------



## LAlldredge

mtnmyke said:


> First time wearing my Garmin gps/smart watch in the apiary this week. The bees HATE that thing. I work all my hives without a veil/suit and might take an accidental sting from time to time. Usually my fault.
> 
> I've taken about a dozen stings around the watch the last couple days. I'm not sure if it's because it's black (even though I've worn a black shirt) or because it's emitting some kind of field they can detect.
> 
> Very strange.


Wow that's fascinating. When you think about it your watch is receiving signals. Since bees act on vibration they are responding to that. There's a phenomenal beekeeper who talked a lot about ley lines and how bees congregate around them. I stopped wearing my iWatch months ago. It seemed a little too involved.


----------



## elmer_fud

mtnmyke said:


> First time wearing my Garmin gps/smart watch in the apiary this week. The bees HATE that thing. I work all my hives without a veil/suit and might take an accidental sting from time to time. Usually my fault.
> 
> I've taken about a dozen stings around the watch the last couple days. I'm not sure if it's because it's black (even though I've worn a black shirt) or because it's emitting some kind of field they can detect.
> 
> Very strange.


any chance it was just loose enough that they started to wiggle under it a bit, then you moved, they felt squished, and they decided to get you?


----------



## mtnmyke

elmer_fud said:


> any chance it was just loose enough that they started to wiggle under it a bit, then you moved, they felt squished, and they decided to get you?


No. Since it's a sport watch it has heart rate monitoring so it fits really tight. They are very fast stings. It's not like they are crawling on my hands.


----------



## Gray Goose

mtnmyke said:


> First time wearing my Garmin gps/smart watch in the apiary this week. The bees HATE that thing. I work all my hives without a veil/suit and might take an accidental sting from time to time. Usually my fault.
> 
> I've taken about a dozen stings around the watch the last couple days. I'm not sure if it's because it's black (even though I've worn a black shirt) or because it's emitting some kind of field they can detect.
> 
> Very strange.


interesting.
is it 4G or 5G?

GG


----------



## Gray Goose

mtnmyke said:


> No. Since it's a sport watch it has heart rate monitoring so it fits really tight. They are very fast stings. It's not like they are crawling on my hands.


so by the last sting how much did your heart rate go up?

GG


----------



## mtnmyke

It's only Bluetooth to my phone.

And probably no heart rate increase. After a while do we even feel the stings?

I just noticed my wrist was swollen lol


----------



## elmer_fud

mtnmyke said:


> No. Since it's a sport watch it has heart rate monitoring so it fits really tight. They are very fast stings. It's not like they are crawling on my hands.


I wonder if there is something in the heart rate monitor that they are picking up that is setting them off. I know pulse oxygen is an optical detector, but I dont know what they are using for heart rate.


----------



## mtnmyke

elmer_fud said:


> I wonder if there is something in the heart rate monitor that they are picking up that is setting them off. I know pulse oxygen is an optical detector, but I dont know what they are using for heart rate.


Very possible. It is sending off a lot of pulses, I believe both oxygen and heart rate are optical. But, the bees would never see that at it's right against the skin.

Whatever it is, I'm no longer wearing it during bee work!


----------



## JustBees

The bees will tell you, what is suitable attire in the apiary. 
Can I interest you in some cowhide gloves?


----------



## mtnmyke

Gray Goose said:


> let us know if they all get accepted
> 
> gg


Took the intro cages off on Sunday and all had eggs. Peeked in on a few of them and most of the brood I introduces has emerged and they are booming!

Time will tell how the queens do. But I'm definitely sold on double screened boards!


----------



## username00101

3 months until swarm season. I'm starting to get antsy now.

our season ended in mid October, so it's been 4 months since I've been in a hive


----------



## LarryBud

Got a text from a person hosting hives for me saying that her bees were flying this morning. Now I knew some of my hives would be flying but not that hive-one off two i placed on her property last spring (a small intown lot). Early last winter I had done a last round of OAV and the other hive there was completely dead, (small cluster from a split) and I pulled it to bring home to store it for use this spring, there was nothing inside but empty comb. The one in question was written off in a later inspection but I didn't open it. The huff test (lifting) was a failure, light as a feather so I left it there and as a matter of fact, was planning on recovering it for equipment and some frames with combs later this week. I drove over there and sure as heck, a bunch of bees doing cleansing flights, dancing and bobbing in front-I actually thought I had sealed it to keep mice out, but I didn't. Put down a pollen feeder and some winter patty out in front-they hit that stuff right away. So maybe I have one less loss than I thought-I'll have more time later this week, get some feed inside and maybe do an OAV hit. I had skipped that yard when I hit the rest last Thursday-I was that convinced it was gone.


----------



## clyderoad

LarryBud said:


> Got a text from a person hosting hives for me saying that her bees were flying this morning. Now I knew some of my hives would be flying but not that hive-one off two i placed on her property last spring (a small intown lot). Early last winter I had done a last round of OAV and the other hive there was completely dead, (small cluster from a split) and I pulled it to bring home to store it for use this spring, there was nothing inside but empty comb. The one in question was written off in a later inspection but I didn't open it. The huff test (lifting) was a failure, light as a feather so I left it there and as a matter of fact, was planning on recovering it for equipment and some frames with combs later this week. I drove over there and sure as heck, a bunch of bees doing cleansing flights, dancing and bobbing in front-I actually thought I had sealed it to keep mice out, but I didn't. Put down a pollen feeder and some winter patty out in front-they hit that stuff right away. So maybe I have one less loss than I thought-I'll have more time later this week, get some feed inside and maybe do an OAV hit. I had skipped that yard when I hit the rest last Thursday-I was that convinced it was gone.


Before you go through all that trouble and get your hopes up, make sure the hive actually has a colony inhabiting it and if so is queen right.


----------



## Outbackjak

LarryBud said:


> Got a text from a person hosting hives for me saying that her bees were flying this morning. Now I knew some of my hives would be flying but not that hive-one off two i placed on her property last spring (a small intown lot). Early last winter I had done a last round of OAV and the other hive there was completely dead, (small cluster from a split) and I pulled it to bring home to store it for use this spring, there was nothing inside but empty comb. The one in question was written off in a later inspection but I didn't open it. The huff test (lifting) was a failure, light as a feather so I left it there and as a matter of fact, was planning on recovering it for equipment and some frames with combs later this week. I drove over there and sure as heck, a bunch of bees doing cleansing flights, dancing and bobbing in front-I actually thought I had sealed it to keep mice out, but I didn't. Put down a pollen feeder and some winter patty out in front-they hit that stuff right away. So maybe I have one less loss than I thought-I'll have more time later this week, get some feed inside and maybe do an OAV hit. I had skipped that yard when I hit the rest last Thursday-I was that convinced it was gone.


Might be robbing out the hive.


----------



## elmer_fud

lets see if the sticky feed sludge I am making works to feed a hive. I took some jars of old crystalized honey and mixed it with lots of dry sugar. I am going to try putting it on waxpaper on top of the hive. I am trying to mix in enough dry sugar so that is does not run and is about solid


----------



## LAlldredge

1st crack under the Vivaldi Boards to apply Apivar and lay out pollen patties. Boxes of bees. Noteworthy that its weeks ahead. Large gorgeous drones flying in one of my strongest hives. Boy it felt good to spend an afternoon in the bee yard. 🐝


----------



## Gray Goose

well I remembered to charge the phone and take it out today so lots of pics.

It was time to open the big double deep hives I have mentioned.














they are under a tin roof, and also have tine on top of the hive.














weight removed, 2 x in back to tilt the tin to have water drain off, most snow and rain then runs off.
I only painted the lid so hence the tin.




















under the lid which is 1x6 boards as the rim fastened to 1/2 ply painted, and 3 inches of foam inside, is 1x6 and 1x8 and a few 1x5 cedar boards. the far end of the hive away from the bees had plenty of moisture, farthest board looked wet.



















left last board as is second to last showed 3 seems of bees 2 more under the last board, so 5 to 6 seams of bees slightly > 1 deep frame. so 6-7 ish pounds of bees.

ok more to follow......

GG


----------



## Gray Goose

so to finish,
the goal was to add a pollen Pattie, getting close to spring, was 45 degrees so it felt like the right time.








buttoned this on up and opened the next.



















it also had wet on the far end, have 7 seams of bees added a second patty.































pics in order 1-5
1 left drawer of blue hive some debris less that 1/2 inch
2 right drawer of tan hive , very little dead bees and crap mouse poop
3 left drawer of tan hive lookie here a mouse nest, first nest I have seen and the hive is still alive.
as I recall the back of the drarer is short a bit and the mice can get in.
4 however I have screen bottom in the hive the drawers are on the other side of the screem lucky me.
5 I added a frame of honey outside the divider. the bees come sround the ends, when 40 to 55 outside the hive IMO adds 15 degrees so in the to cold to fly temps the bees will forage on comb in the outer zone, In june ish I see nectar there, that is the clue to add more space, so it can be feed area and test comb waiting for nectar to indicate need for space.

All and all I am pleased with these hives, this year I am planning to put a colony on each end.
thinking of a 1 inch hole in the drawer face with screen to allow the moisture out.

GG


----------



## LAlldredge

Gray Goose said:


> so to finish,
> the goal was to add a pollen Pattie, getting close to spring, was 45 degrees so it felt like the right time.
> View attachment 68082
> 
> 
> buttoned this on up and opened the next.
> View attachment 68083
> View attachment 68084
> View attachment 68085
> 
> it also had wet on the far end, have 7 seams of bees added a second patty.
> View attachment 68086
> View attachment 68087
> View attachment 68088
> View attachment 68089
> View attachment 68090
> 
> pics in order 1-5
> 1 left drawer of blue hive some debris less that 1/2 inch
> 2 right drawer of tan hive , very little dead bees and crap mouse poop
> 3 left drawer of tan hive lookie here a mouse nest, first nest I have seen and the hive is still alive.
> as I recall the back of the drarer is short a bit and the mice can get in.
> 4 however I have screen bottom in the hive the drawers are on the other side of the screem lucky me.
> 5 I added a frame of honey outside the divider. the bees come sround the ends, when 40 to 55 outside the hive IMO adds 15 degrees so in the to cold to fly temps the bees will forage on comb in the outer zone, In june ish I see nectar there, that is the clue to add more space, so it can be feed area and test comb waiting for nectar to indicate need for space.
> 
> All and all I am pleased with these hives, this year I am planning to put a colony on each end.
> thinking of a 1 inch hole in the drawer face with screen to allow the moisture out.
> 
> GG


Hey GG are those long langs or Layens hives? My fave beekeeping podcaster Leah at Five Apple Farms loves her Layens hives. Your bee kids look spoiled in there. I'm in low 50's. Spring has an almost there feel to it.


----------



## Litsinger

Gray Goose said:


> All and all I am pleased with these hives, this year I am planning to put a colony on each end.
> thinking of a 1 inch hole in the drawer face with screen to allow the moisture out.


Very cool, GG. Those are awesome hives.

Did the moisture you found on top appear to have impacted the colonies negatively?

Based on the condition of the top of the frames I assume very little was actually dripping down?


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Hey GG are those long langs or Layens hives? My fave beekeeping podcaster Leah at Five Apple Farms loves her Layens hives. Your bee kids look spoiled in there. I'm in low 50's. Spring has an almost there feel to it.


it is a double deep lang frame long hive.
the plan initiated from the Dr Leo book, I used his plan as a start, but made in with 2x4 walls

was the first day at near 50 , I think we will be seeing maple and pussy willow in the next few weeks.
Hoping to split these 4 ways when the drones are ready.
GG


----------



## Gray Goose

Litsinger said:


> Very cool, GG. Those are awesome hives.
> 
> Did the moisture you found on top appear to have impacted the colonies negatively?
> 
> Based on the condition of the top of the frames I assume very little was actually dripping down?


first board from the divider was damp farthest was wet, the drips were on the non bee end of the hive.
bees and frames looked fine.

Only went in as far as needed to add the pollen supplement, it should last 3 weeks, then they have local pollen.
50's today , by tomorrow nite the snow is gone.

interesting fact all the hives with moisture are alive, so in some fashion the moisture helps.

I did notice on a dead out that the uncapped crystalized honey was laden with water, I am thinking they uncap, let the honey hydroscopic ally take on water then use the "nectar" for food. 

here the moisture went over the divider and cooled in the non bee end of the hive.
thinking of putting another colony in there for next winter.

GG


----------



## mtnmyke

First swarm yesterday. They must have been up in a tree for a few days and I didn't notice, as suddenly the tree tops exploded with bees and a massive swarm took off through the field and straight into the trees. Hopefully they found a nice place to live.

Found the hive they came from, they were nectar bound. Went through all the hives and added second deeps/supers where needed. I had plans to take brood from the hives for my cell builder this week so I'm bummed they couldn't wait a few more days, but it's a good reminder to keep on top of them regardless.


----------



## LarryBud

mtnmyke said:


> First swarm yesterday. They must have been up in a tree for a few days and I didn't notice, as suddenly the tree tops exploded with bees and a massive swarm took off through the field and straight into the trees. Hopefully they found a nice place to live.


I don't think a lot of people appreciate a swarm in flight if they haven't seen on first hand. While I've captured swarms hanging from a branch or hanging on the side of a building's overhang, to see a swarm in flight is breath taking and I've only seen it twice. The first one was weird, my friend's significant other decided to cut the grass around my hives while I was loading my gear into the truck. Being a total id**t, he made a close pass to the front of the hive blowing clippings right into the landing board opening and directly into the heavy double deep hive. My girls in that hive freaked and in one burst-took off in one large mass-it was like a bee tornado and they covered an entire 3 acre field flying in a circular pattern for 10 minutes and then landing in a big ball on a tree at the edge of the field. It was early in the season last year, just before our flow and it happened so fast, I'm not sure if the queen was with them but in about 5 minutes after they landed in the tree, they took off again, flew back to the hive boxes and settled down for the rest of last season. It was impressive as it had to be tens of thousands of bees, not just a random supersedure swarm.


----------



## LarryBud

Oh and the second one? I came home from a project i was doing in NYC late one hot and humid afternoon in mid-summer, I was wearing an expensive suit and as soon as I opened the car door, my wife was out yelling "one of your hives is swarming, it's up in the tree!" I was hot, tired, over dressed, just spent an entire day with union issues, NYC bureaucrats. 90 F degree day and an hour backup at the tunnel trying to escape the City. Got a glass of water, walked into my back yard to see about a 1/2 pound swarm, 15 feet off the ground on a branch. There was no way I was even going to attempt catching them and so I sat in the lawn chair and yelled "fly away, be free!!!" I took a drink and the suddenly, they exploded into flight and disappeared over my neighbors house. Good night Irene, good night!


----------



## mtnmyke

It is certainly a site!

For me in the moment all I could think about was the loss. I just got all my hive situated for the upcoming queen rearing season and making up nucs. I couldn't find a virgin in the hive that swarmed. Although I'm very good at finding them I'm giving them a little more time to sort it out, before I add another queen.

Quite a site, but still sad to lose them to the woods. Hope they survive.


----------



## ursa_minor

Sunny and +1C, had a quick peak in my 2 Ukrainian hives and my one Lang. All have plexiglass covers I can see thru so I don't have to actually open them up to the elements. 

So far so good, they are on the MC sugar, I will need to check periodically to make sure they have food until spring fully arrives. So much deep snow, the most I have seen in our 40 years here but it can go quickly once the melt starts.


----------



## ursa_minor

Went back out to recheck the hives to see if any were flying. It is now +2C and two hives have bees out and about. But this flight is different from the ones a few weeks ago even though the air temps are the same. 

The bees are not out cleansing and then dying in the snow, they are circling the hive and don't seem to be aimlessly flying off but are coming back to the entrance. Some have even landed on the snow, walked a bit and took flight again and headed back to the entrance. Some are up on the hive top gathering water and, unlike earlier, manage to get back 

I have a black boot tray that blocks the entrance but I placed it on the ground in front of the hive and the bees are taking advantage of the warm black surface and are gathering the melted snow.


----------



## crofter

First day warm enough for a cleansing flight since before Christmas. Opened a few hives. No poop on the frames and lots of bees. No sign of condensation damage on frames. Cleaned out the dead side of the side by side stacked 4 frame nucs. Looks like the queen did not lay the winter bees. Only a cluster smaller than hand sized between two frames. The queen was apparently not in it. She was suspect anyways as she got tied up in shipping on the July holiday. Cage candy melted and she was thoroughly soaked in it. First time I have given a sponge bath to a queen. Not a loss since she was replaced by the supplier, Fergusons Buckfast. I got 8 nicely drawn out frames.

Another colony on a single 10 frame box, Dadant depth, has a cluster on 5 frames and eggs. Since I have no top feed on anything I will have to keep an eye on them but it appears that they were not hard on stores in the insulated and no upper ventilation hives. I thought that on some of the double deep colonies with only a bottom entrance that there might have been some pooping on frame tops but seems not the case. The bees tell me they enjoyed the winter under the frames covered in vinyl film with no top entrance.

The homosote sheet above the film did transfer a small amount of moisture around its edges into the medium of shavings above but there was no screen or cloth covered access to the shavings; they seem to have served more as R value than moisture absorption. Happy with this experiment.

Just now reading Ursa_minor post. Agree no bees committing _hari kari_ in the snow. The die off of old foragers is done and gone! These bees have plans!


----------



## ursa_minor

Crofter, were these the hives with the plastic cover to keep in water? From your experience, and thanks for your willingness to experiment, I am surely going to try no upper entrance on some of my hives next season. 

I wonder if the reason that the upper entrance has been so entrenched in my area has to do with beekeepers recognizing that the moisture fell on the bees and the need to eliminate the moisture. They then did the obvious, made and upper vent not realizing that it was not the moisture per se that was the problem but where the moisture happened.


----------



## crofter

ursa_minor said:


> Crofter, were these the hives with the plastic cover to keep in water? From your experience, and thanks for your willingness to experiment, I am surely going to try no upper entrance on some of my hives next season.
> 
> I wonder if the reason that the upper entrance has been so entrenched in my area has to do with beekeepers recognizing that the moisture fell on the bees and the need to eliminate the moisture. They then did the obvious, made and upper vent not realizing that it was not the moisture per se that was the problem but where the moisture happened.


My reasoning to use the plastic film to cover the tops of the frames ( with the exception of a gap along the sides and rear) was to give the bees a smaller micro climate that they could actively regulate with their muscular heating or water evaporating. There is plenty of data to support that they benefit from high _relative _humidity but are done in by actual condensation that drips on them. That is cooling beyond what they can deal with. Insulation with sufficient R value to preclude the possibility of the dew point being reached in their inhabited area takes care of the dripping possibility. 

There has been considerable study done in the last 5 years indicating that overventilation sufficient to prevent condensation also draws off a lot of essential heat. Cold outside air actually is low in water content in absolute terms though it may show a high relative humidity. The catch is that when it warms up its capacity for water is increased which translates into it then having a low relative humidity. This is counter intuitive or shall we say is contrary to that good old "common sense". The bees now suffer dehydration and (figuratively speaking) giving each other shocks and getting cracked lips! They definitely cannot raise brood in low humidity conditions. 

If they cannot recover water from condensation spots within their reach, their alternative is to consume honey which releases some 60% plus water. This uses up stores and also fills up their gut with undigested solids. Not a good thing because they are house bound. The alternative to consuming honey may be partly responsible for the observed flying out forage for water; some of that of course is likely old bees that were tired of it all! The plastic film over them holds humidity close to them. The space around the edges is cooler and some fog and fine droplets occur underneath where they can lick it up. With the R value insulation this central area is plenty warm for their mobility and they can move out to access it as needed.

The widely accepted way of using ventilation did mostly prevent condensate dripping on the bees but it interfered with the humidity control needs and wasted honey. I think it worked much better in the south with much warmer weather, more cleansing flights, and a much, much shorter winter to get through. Our winter lengths approach the max survival times of even so called winter bees and brood replacement in small batches has to start up during the shut in time. (Humidity necessary for brood rearing).

I did not put any top feed on the bees yet food stores still appear very good. Wish I had means of measuring. I dont think think that the much lower honey consumption is all propaganda to sell insulated hives. Flying out into the snow seems much reduced compared to other winters and cluster size is larger but such observations could be suspect.
I think we will be hearing more about upper insulation, frame tops covered with plastic, and greatly reduced or zero upper ventilation. I would advise anyone to approach it gradually and be able to open upper ventilation quickly. Strictly bottom entrance makes the bees vulnerable in certain situations.


----------



## jtgoral

crofter said:


> My reasoning to use the plastic film to cover the tops of the frames ( with the exception of a gap along the sides and rear) was to give the bees a smaller micro climate that they could actively regulate with their muscular heating or water evaporating. There is plenty of data to support that they benefit from high _relative _humidity but are done in by actual condensation that drips on them. That is cooling beyond what they can deal with. Insulation with sufficient R value to preclude the possibility of the dew point being reached in their inhabited area takes care of the dripping possibility.
> 
> There has been considerable study done in the last 5 years indicating that overventilation sufficient to prevent condensation also draws off a lot of essential heat. Cold outside air actually is low in water content in absolute terms though it may show a high relative humidity. The catch is that when it warms up its capacity for water is increased which translates into it then having a low relative humidity. This is counter intuitive or shall we say is contrary to that good old "common sense". The bees now suffer dehydration and (figuratively speaking) giving each other shocks and getting cracked lips! They definitely cannot raise brood in low humidity conditions.
> 
> If they cannot recover water from condensation spots within their reach, their alternative is to consume honey which releases some 60% plus water. This uses up stores and also fills up their gut with undigested solids. Not a good thing because they are house bound. The alternative to consuming honey may be partly responsible for the observed flying out forage for water; some of that of course is likely old bees that were tired of it all! The plastic film over them holds humidity close to them. The space around the edges is cooler and some fog and fine droplets occur underneath where they can lick it up. With the R value insulation this central area is plenty warm for their mobility and they can move out to access it as needed.
> 
> The widely accepted way of using ventilation did mostly prevent condensate dripping on the bees but it interfered with the humidity control needs and wasted honey. I think it worked much better in the south with much warmer weather, more cleansing flights, and a much, much shorter winter to get through. Our winter lengths approach the max survival times of even so called winter bees and brood replacement in small batches has to start up during the shut in time. (Humidity necessary for brood rearing).
> 
> I did not put any top feed on the bees yet food stores still appear very good. Wish I had means of measuring. I dont think think that the much lower honey consumption is all propaganda to sell insulated hives. Flying out into the snow seems much reduced compared to other winters and cluster size is larger but such observations could be suspect.
> I think we will be hearing more about upper insulation, frame tops covered with plastic, and greatly reduced or zero upper ventilation. I would advise anyone to approach it gradually and be able to open upper ventilation quickly. Strictly bottom entrance makes the bees vulnerable in certain situations.


For me the best way to _prevent condensate dripping on the bees_ was to get rid of upper ventilation and insulate the roof 4x R-value of the walls. Just insulate like most of our modern houses


----------



## crofter

jtgoral said:


> For me the best way to _prevent condensate dripping on the bees_ was to get rid of upper ventilation and insulate the roof 4x R-value of the walls. Just insulate like most of our modern houses


Yes, I thought I made it clear that the plastic was not there to prevent water dripping on them. It is there to keep sufficiently high humidity and make free water available within reach. My sides and rear is 2" foamboard, front is 1" and top would be R 20 at least. Most of our modern houses are a bit on the dry side and many people run humidifiers. Bees require even higher humidity and their regulating ability is often defeated by our imposed conditions. Condensation is only an enemy when you dont control where it occurs.


----------



## mtnmyke

First grafts went into the cell builder today. By far my strongest builder to date, I even had to add a super to make sure they all fit. When I took the super off to add the cell bar it was completely full and still a lot of bees on the outside!


----------



## Litsinger

Litsinger said:


> I can't speak to the quality of their boxes, but I have bought frames from them and some telescoping covers and bottom boards through Dadant and they have been good.


So I feel compelled to brag on Western Bee. Long story short, I received 2/3ds too much material for the hive bodies I ordered. Not only that, but the quality was inconsistent, mainly around the handholds, and I received 50 more short sides than long sides.

I sorted them into A, B and C grades and I was able to fill my box count from the A and B grades.

When I contacted Western Bee to ask what I should do with the overage, they were very apologetic and immediately told me to keep the excess.

They also asked what else they could do to make it right, so I suggested they send me 50 long sides and they agreed.

They came in today, and the replacements are top quality. I thought it worth relating this story- they made the best of a bad situation and I am well pleased with their response.


----------



## Gray Goose

glad it worked out for you.
Since I make my own, when I yell at the wood sides creation person, it would appear I am talking to my self.

now the frames to go and a bit of painting. you will get it done in time after all.

GG


----------



## LarryBud

Nice job


----------



## AHudd

I saw a few drones today as well as drone brood and some is capped.

Alex


----------



## username00101

Record/near cold coming in now. Windy and 10F (TEN DEGREES) expected tomorrow.


----------



## LarryBud

While many may be panicking over a three-day cold snap (it is March people) predicted for the next few days, I for one, will work with nature and utilized a short-term freeze to clean up some built-up frames of comb from last winter's dead outs and around 300 "stickies" I have store in the basement. With over-night temps looking at mid 20's, clear, somewhat windy and dry-I plan on bringing everything outside to get another freeze cycle to kill of any (if any) surviving wax moth larvae or eggs, air them out and then on Wednesday, spray everything down with BT, as the weather warms mid-week to more normal temperatures and the girls nearby are clustered up. Some days, I even I can't believe what a genius I am...wow!.


----------



## AHudd

One thing beekeeping and weather has taught me is to keep what I'm gonna' do to myself. 

Edit: Or, more accurately, keeps trying to teach me.

Alex


----------



## LAlldredge

Took off wraps & cleaned entrances. Also raked all around the hives. Will be finding a nice day to reverse this week. Put away pollen sub.


----------



## JustBees

Don't reverse unless the bottom box has no brood.
Any brood in the lower box will often be isolated if reversed.

The bees will move down as they fill up the boxes. This way their housekeeping is not disrupted.


----------



## mtnmyke

First cells went in the queen castles today.

I always seem to forget just how much work it is to get all the castles stocked with bees. Luckily this year I have a could outyards and was able to harvest frames from those to reduce drift... But still took half of yesterday so I could get the cells in today.


----------



## Wil-7

LarryBud said:


> I don't think a lot of people appreciate a swarm in flight if they haven't seen on first hand. While I've captured swarms hanging from a branch or hanging on the side of a building's overhang, to see a swarm in flight is breath taking and I've only seen it twice. The first one was weird, my friend's significant other decided to cut the grass around my hives while I was loading my gear into the truck. Being a total id**t, he made a close pass to the front of the hive blowing clippings right into the landing board opening and directly into the heavy double deep hive. My girls in that hive freaked and in one burst-took off in one large mass-it was like a bee tornado and they covered an entire 3 acre field flying in a circular pattern for 10 minutes and then landing in a big ball on a tree at the edge of the field. It was early in the season last year, just before our flow and it happened so fast, I'm not sure if the queen was with them but in about 5 minutes after they landed in the tree, they took off again, flew back to the hive boxes and settled down for the rest of last season. It was impressive as it had to be tens of thousands of bees, not just a random supersedure swarm.


I can surely appreciate a swarm in flight now but when the wife and I first seen it,was back in the day,years ago before I started this hobby and it was during the time when all the news was about killer bees coming into our country. We were standing outside and seen this big black cloud coming towards us and watched in amazement as it passed by us 10 feet in the air over our heads. The sky was black. Never see anything like that since.


----------



## AHudd

I marked all of my Queens yesterday while searching for Q-cell, found none. It will soon be time to begin installing Snelgrove Boards.

Alex


----------



## username00101

Hives look good, most were out foraging for pollen today.

The shrews have been desperaely trying to get inside. Without mouse guard's it'd be a slaughter.

Shrews are bad. 

Sometime in May eventually it gets warm enough for me to take off the guards.


----------



## elmer_fud

I checked all of my hives today. 

I had one that was light on stores, so I moved a box over from a hive with 2+ boxes of stores left. This hive is growing fast and definitely did not have enough to make it thru the spring. 

I also have one that is struggling. I think they had humidity and condensation issues all winter because they propolised their quilt box solid so there was no air flow and there was a lot of mold in the hive. At this point I think the best thing to do is to just leave them alone (with a bit more ventilation) since they are raising some brood and are down to 2-3 frames of brood.


----------



## LarryBud

I got my 4th round of OAV done this week 3-5 days apart due to weather issues and am planning 1 or 2 more. Triple deep hives (5) seem to be building well and am feeding heavy with ML syrup plus. Figure they should be ready to split (1:3 or 4 or 5) for the Polyline queens (16) on order for the end of the month. I'm going to add wet/sticky super on 3 hive at 1 nearby yard and see if I can catch an early flow as the maples, dandelions and other stuff has started blooming here. These 3 are last years nucs now in double deeps with (purposely) empty top feeder on them and have strong populations with F1 VSH queens. They did ok for first year hives last fall, each hitting around 2 supers of capped honey. After I get the early splits done and hived (hopefully mid/late May) I plan on doing another round of splits with that yard and a few others showing good genetics. Other than the triples, no more feed on any of the overwintered doubles and hope re-purposing feeders to support splits.


----------



## LAlldredge

Entered a cold spell- not reversing yet. Revived two hives yesterday that looked dead. Just poured sugar and sprayed water in the vivaldi board space and one revived quickly and the other revived over a few hours. Torpor is working me this year. I had started to back off a bit on my sugar slurry feeding because we're so close to a spring flow. Back full on until they are comfortably foraging. I always kind of wondered about whether my supplement feeding was excessive. I am in the forest and easily a mile away from okay forage. There is a large farm two miles away but that can be way too far when it's cold.


----------



## Surviving Our Bees

MariahK said:


> I really am not proud of this but as your the only people who will hopefully laugh with me here it goes... I was out by the hives in the evening watering my plants, my dog was wondering around A
> and somehow tripped me causing me to bang into a hive hard, of coarse it had to be the the pissy hive. **** things shot out like angry rockets which caused me to run for cover. I could feel a sting on my arm during my retreat. And hear them on the back of my shirt, which half way across the back yard I ditched, and ran into the house topless much to my daughters enjoyment, they watched the whole scene, and were on the floor laughing. I only got one sting and so did the dog, on his nose. But after I suited up to make sure I didn't topple anything and retrieve my shirt. I found the hive was ok, my shirt had at least 6 angry bees in it. I don't think a single member of my family will let me live it down and my husband just laughed and said "you wanted bees"


This isn't too bad to be honest. Every year I have to eliminate a very angry colony and if I'm not careful I can get ALOT of stings in one sitting trying to deal with that mess.


----------



## Outbackjak

username00101 said:


> Hives look good, most were out foraging for pollen today.
> 
> The shrews have been desperaely trying to get inside. Without mouse guard's it'd be a slaughter.
> 
> Shrews are bad.
> 
> Sometime in May eventually it gets warm enough for me to take off the guards.


You need an outside cat....mine kills all shrews,mice, birds,snakes, ect...


----------



## dorothy_fletcher

I started to get nervous today because my bees have shown almost no activity since yesterday. Any ideas?


----------



## Wil-7

dorothy_fletcher said:


> I started to get nervous today because my bees have shown almost no activity since yesterday. Any ideas?


Where are you located and what is your weather like?


----------



## LarryBud

Today was throwing more "feed on the fire" so to say (Syrup). The triple deeps are looking good, booming population and we've started painting new deeps, covers and bases. I've been seeing some nice big drones from the lower elevation hives. I pulled a bunch of top feeders and am going to replace the screens-seem on more than a few, they find a way around (or under) the screen when the syrup gets low-never works out well for them! Looks like we're on target to add 15 new queens in a couple weeks. 



dorothy_fletcher said:


> I started to get nervous today because my bees have shown almost no activity since yesterday. Any ideas?


Dorothy, if your north of the Mason Dixon line it's been too cold for them and they're cluster inside. I have some hives that fly at 38 F and others that are barely peaking out the mouse excluders at 50F. If you're new to this, add your location-town/state and I'm sure there's some one in a similar climate that can give you advice!


----------



## mtnmyke

Enter the season of the death, three months sooner than usual, leaving me with a 2.5 month bee season this year.

Many of the queen castles with feed on them have already been robbed out and I've gotten zero honey with this drought.

I've been looking for bee yards on the edge of the city, only a few minutes away, and have been lucky enough to find a couple already. The hives there are packing on the nectar and looking 10x better than those in the mountains. This may just be the future of beekeeping for me at it's been so dry, many of the trees didn't even bother to bloom this year - which makes up 80% of my nectar sources.


----------



## LAlldredge

mtnmyke said:


> Enter the season of the death, three months sooner than usual, leaving me with a 2.5 month bee season this year.
> 
> Many of the queen castles with feed on them have already been robbed out and I've gotten zero honey with this drought.
> 
> I've been looking for bee yards on the edge of the city, only a few minutes away, and have been lucky enough to find a couple already. The hives there are packing on the nectar and looking 10x better than those in the mountains. This may just be the future of beekeeping for me at it's been so dry, many of the trees didn't even bother to bloom this year - which makes up 80% of my nectar sources.


My year is starting out super weird too. They took pollen sub 2 weeks early, looked like it was going to be an early spring and then light snow the last two days. Nearly had two starve out but I caught them in time. I'm just grateful to have a Vivaldi Board type setup so I can look from the top of the stack to see if I have live bees or bees in torpor on their way to death. Piling on sugar slurry until they can take liquid feed reliably. This may be one of those- just keep them alive years. I can do that. Our blooming trees are two weeks behind the ones in Bend Oregon (that are already blooming). That may be a saving grace.


----------



## mtnmyke

I'm hoping others are having a better time, or are able to get them through the remainder of winter to a healthy spring.

I've had years here where I can't put the supers on fast enough from January - June. This year the ones I've put on are just being ignored. I've been on "just keep them alive" mode since June of last year and I'm not ready to back to it in hopes things will get better - which wouldn't be until next January when things bloom again.

Hoping for a few more good properties in the city. The irrigated ornamentals seem to be doing the bees well.


----------



## Gray Goose

mtnmyke said:


> I'm hoping others are having a better time, or are able to get them through the remainder of winter to a healthy spring.
> 
> I've had years here where I can't put the supers on fast enough from January - June. This year the ones I've put on are just being ignored. I've been on "just keep them alive" mode since June of last year and I'm not ready to back to it in hopes things will get better - which wouldn't be until next January when things bloom again.
> 
> Hoping for a few more good properties in the city. The irrigated ornamentals seem to be doing the bees well.


sorry to hear of a dry spring there.
may be time to look for a wetter spot.

Mine had a good day of pollen gather the first over 60 day of the year.

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

the weather here has also been a mess. It has been dry and we have had some wild fires this spring. We should be getting rain, not wildfires and wind sorms in the spring


----------



## ursa_minor

Battoned down the hatches we are in for a rough few days. Snow, wicked winds, and another week of sub zero weather. I checked all three of my hives, just popped the top and looked thru the clear plexiglass. I am thankful I did because one was very short on feed. I sure hope it warms soon last year by April 17 we had our cows out on pasture, this year we still have tons of snow. 

I watched Ian Stepplar and they are predicting 30 to 40 cm of snow for his area, blowing and minus temps. for the next week. He has many of his hives out and is pail feeding syrup, I sure hope all goes well. There seems to be massive losses being reported for Canadian beekeepers this winter, I wonder what is causing that?


----------



## crofter

My wife heard something like 50% Canadian losses. No details on whether that includes commercials or not. My son has a friend that went in with 90 and came out with 7. No details.
Perhaps unusually extended warm autumn; We had a long 2 months without a cleansing flight but a low of Minus 35. Not too far from typical. I have 90% survival.
I am curious too about causes.


----------



## ursa_minor

Innisfil Creek Honey,


----------



## Surviving Our Bees

The spring is officially here. 

My double nuc loss rate was 3/12, which is 25%!!

My full sized colony loss rate was just 5%!


----------



## LAlldredge

ursa_minor said:


> Innisfil Creek Honey,


Profoundly sad. At least he has 7 left. Ian moved his nucs and some singles back indoors for a bit. Our Canadian neighbors will be in our thoughts over the coming months.


----------



## LAlldredge

Snowed last night. Checked the top of the stacks. Refreshed sugar slurry. Sprayed water on top of sugar around the edges. (dry- high desert) If you can keep them fed (and watered) they can keep themselves warm. The two revived hives are looking stable. I will be hyper vigilant until spring is firmly in place.


----------



## Beeman$

I have a question I’m very new to beekeeping and will b getting my first nuc here in may not too long from now and what I wanted to know is how long does it take after getting the nuc and getting it installed can I spilt it and put a second colony in my 2nd beehive? that’s what I would love to do instead of spending the money on a 2nd nuc later on I’m only starting out with one because of money reasons I live in Texas if that’s helpful info because of where u live I know that sometimes plays a factor into the time it takes before u can split your colonies


----------



## Surviving Our Bees

Can someone explain to me what happened up in Canada that has everyone so hysterical?


----------



## ursa_minor

Surviving Our Bees said:


> Can someone explain to me what happened up in Canada that has everyone so hysterical?


LOL, not hysterical, concerned and interested. The weather is pretty vial in Ian's neck of the woods I was interested to see if the cold weather would impact how his bees would take the syrup. As a new keeper I was under the impression that they would not take it when the temps. dropped. 

Some areas are reporting pretty heavy losses this year.


----------



## Surviving Our Bees

The Canadians are reporting heavy losses? Why? Like 90% losses?


----------



## clyderoad

Surviving Our Bees said:


> The Canadians are reporting heavy losses? Why? Like 90% losses?


Is that you username00101?


----------



## LarryBud

ursa_minor said:


> LOL, not hysterical, concerned and interested. The weather is pretty vial in Ian's neck of the woods I was interested to see if the cold weather would impact how his bees would take the syrup. As a new keeper I was under the impression that they would not take it when the temps. dropped.
> 
> Some areas are reporting pretty heavy losses this year.


Typically, bees won't take syrup under 50F (or 10C in foreigngrade). I think it's been a rough year for everyone and am interested in seeing what US overwinter numbers are-I was VERY lucky and lost 3 overwinter this year (Of 32). We're already starting swarm season and I've had 2 swarm this past week. The first one was up at the farm, but I was away on work so they're now on their own. the second was last night when someone who hosts a few hives on their property for me texted me that there was a swarm in a tree. It was still light enough to pop over there and it was a nice 3 pounder in a small cherry tree at chest height, so they were an easy catch. one of my dead outs was (sealed) was right there so it now has a new colony in it. Plus 1 this year. Gonna start a new post on this shortly after church this morning


----------



## Wil-7

My survival rate was 100%. I only have one hive.


----------



## Litsinger

Happy Resurrection Day one and all- Had a colony high of 40 late last Spring- lost 2 over the summer and 4 over the winter, so 15% annual loss here in the hot corner of Kentucky. Swarm season has begun here in earnest and the clover is just starting to bloom sporadically.


----------



## LarryBud

I am wondering how this weather is going to affect our Spring flows. Today, we barely hit 50 F and the girls were out foraging. Last week was 70-80F and tonight we have frost warnings. With some hives already swarming, it's been too cold to do a deep dive to look for QC's without compromising brood. Never easy.


----------



## LAlldredge

LarryBud said:


> I am wondering how this weather is going to affect our Spring flows. Today, we barely hit 50 F and the girls were out foraging. Last week was 70-80F and tonight we have frost warnings. With some hives already swarming, it's been too cold to do a deep dive to look for QC's without compromising brood. Never easy.


Before the snow they were actively collecting native pollen. I'm not seeing that restart just yet at the entrances. I'm looking at trees that had started to bud out to see if they have been damaged or delayed. Too early to tell. I'm bridging what they aren't getting but it's keeping me on my toes.


----------



## elmer_fud

I checked my hives again today. They are all starting to build up. 

I think I am going to nickname one pigglets since they went thru about 5 medium frames of stores in about 2 weeks. I added this box 2 weeks ago when they were low on stores.


----------



## LAlldredge

Reversed production hives. Scraped bottom boards and put them back together. All light but large. Put on pollen patties. They also have remaining sugar overhead. Have ample emergency reserves indoors in totes. Will likely put in some honey frames as a bridge until the flow starts.

Took a sting to the forehead before I suited up. Ouch. One got caught in my hair. God I hate that bee stuck in the hair sound. You know they are there and you're just waiting for it.


----------



## Wil-7

Sure had a ball yesterday, NOT! Went to the beekeepers meeting,not to many people were there because they were home working their bees because of the nice day. One such guy called me at the meeting and told me he caught me a swarm for my beehive so after the meeting I drove to his house to see where he lives and he is going to give my swarm to another guy so I can pick it up there tomorrow. Long story. Anyhow,when I got home finally which was probably 6 pm,I came into the house and made syrup so I could feed the swarm when I bring them home.Then I went out and got the boxes ready where I am going to put my new swarm and that is when I noticed that my own hive had swarmed already and they were all bivwacked on a cross post on my pasture fence,on the other side of the fence from where I was. I suited up,got a big horse feed bucket and a lid, grabbed a brush and walked all the way around to the gate and then through the pasture to the swarm which covered about 4 feet of the 8 foot post,all the way around it.It took three tips filling the bucket with bees and transporting them into a hive body.Hopefully I got the Queen in the box and what bees would not fit in the box,I left it out in front of the hive with a board for the rest of the bees to walk into the box though the entrance. By the time I got done all my clothes were soaked from sweat and I was beat . By the way,the topic of discussion at the beekeeper's meeting was " How to try and prevent a swarm".


----------



## mtnmyke

Well, got notice that we need to vacate our property as the owner is moving back into the country. We were in talks to purchase the home but apparently that's now out of the question, following his recent divorce.

However, things may work out for the best. We found a much nicer house on the edge of the city, on more land, which may have a much better flow for the bees. The dearth up in these hills has been bad, and we only really got 2 months this year of actual flow. This isn't the case in town and my hives I keep in a friend's yard there do much better!

However, the house is on the top of the first hill into the mountains. From town it's about 200' in elevation. Only about 230' in elevation total. I'm not sure if the bees are going to have issues dropping elevation to forage, and having to climb the 200' with pollen/nectar?

I'm also exactly 3 miles from the ocean so they should be able to forage the trees in the winter, and all the ornamental flowers in the summer - at least that's the hope.


----------



## Tumbleweed

Outstanding! one door closes and another door opens.


----------



## elmer_fud

I check my hives today, they all looked normal. 

My pigglet hive was about out of stores, so they got about 1.5 frames from another hive that I was shrinking (10 frame to 8 frame). I think they may be slowing down a bit, but not enough.

A lot of stuff is blooming, but the ground is still way to dry. I have a bad feeling that there is not much nectar coming in even with all of the tree's flowering. I also had some bees cleaning out a (almost empty) frame from the downsized hive that I left out. I trenched thru my yard today for a sprinkler line and the ground was dry once I got down 3-4".

edit: I think pigglet hive might have kicked out some of its drones today/tonight. There were a few hundred drones on the ground tonight. It could also be caused by me putting formic in there (but I suspect it is lack of stores coming in)


----------



## BEE J

I am planning on checking the swarm I just got today. I waited yesterday because it was so cold! I am thinking of calling hive #1- Genesis.


----------



## RayMarler

I just took a walk in the beeyard, it's 8:00am and sunny on the front of the hives, and 48F in temp. Bees are starting their day already with pollen coming in.

It's been a very good year so far, I've made 2 splits, selling one with the old queen and kept the other. Increased from 3 to 4 hives. 1 queen is in her 3rd year, 1 is in her second year, and 2 are new this year. My 3rd year queen has been the best performer in the yard and I have 1 daughter from her. Wax has been being drawn early this year and honey coming in. 1 of my best years here, which I attribute to change in management 2 and 3 years ago as well as new genetics from Wildflower Apiaries in Southern California. 
I hope everyone else is have a great year so far as well.


----------



## Litsinger

RayMarler said:


> I hope everyone else is have a great year so far as well.


Good update, Ray. Like your new photo too!


----------



## RayMarler

Litsinger said:


> Good update, Ray. Like your new photo too!


Thanks Russ, not bad for my first time trying to crop and extract an image out of a group photo and clear the background. It came from a photo of us old men eating out at McDonald's for breakfast, sitting at a table with people and walls and windows all around me in the original.


----------



## BEE J

RayMarler said:


> Thanks Russ, not bad for my first time trying to crop and extract an image out of a group photo and clear the background. It came from a photo of us old men eating out at McDonald's for breakfast, sitting at a table with people and walls and windows all around me in the original.


Not bad at all! I thought about changing my profile to. Good job on the editing!


----------



## Litsinger

RayMarler said:


> ... not bad for my first time trying to crop and extract an image out of a group photo and clear the background.


No doubt- your photo editing skills are definitely better than mine. Looks pro.


----------



## RayMarler

I just came in from the beeyard. It's 90F+ out and my first split done the end of March is bearding. It's got an entrance reducer so I removed it. This hive is facing west and it's 5:17pm at the moment so they are getting full sun. I lifted the lid and they are full of bees. I'll have to finally get out tomorrow and scrape and rewax a box of plastic foundation frames and give them. I'll also need to check the other 3 hives, I'm betting I'm going to have to extract this week.

The hives have done very well so far this year, beyond past years I'd say. This one is two 8 frame medium boxes, the other three are 3 boxes each. Instead of cleaning up and rewaxing old frames, I figure it's just as cumbersome to just extract some honey.


----------



## BEE J

RayMarler said:


> Instead of cleaning up and rewaxing old frames, I figure it's just as cumbersome to just extract some honey.


 😄  It's cool that you've got enough to extract already! I just install my first swarm and it was a fairly early one, so they could have some surplus honey by fall. If there was though, I might leave it till spring.  I don't think it would hurt. Not sure though.

I hope your having a good season! How's the nectar flow over there this time of year?

Keep Buzzing, BEEJ🐝🐝🐝


----------



## RayMarler

Late winter and spring flows are the best here, I don't live in a good flow area, but timing of everything and weather this year seems to have done the hives good. I'm not going to get much, but enough to keep honey in the kitchen for me.


----------



## BEE J

RayMarler said:


> Late winter and spring flows are the best here, I don't live in a good flow area, but timing of everything and weather this year seems to have done the hives good. I'm not going to get much, but enough to keep honey in the kitchen for me.


I'm glad the hives are doing good! I imagine that the climate could be a bit harsher in California, depending on where you are in the state. I hope you do get plenty of honey for some biscuits!

I'm am still learning about the flow in my area. I think the wild blackberries are the main source of nectar coming in now in my area.

Happy Extracting, BEEJ 🐝 🐝 🐝


----------



## RayMarler

Yes, same here, wild blackberries and dandelions, both of which are few and half over. Privet will be next, along with mimosa trees, but my small yard is the only place in the area that has those. Flows will be greatly slowed down by end of the month. That is why I really would like to put off extracting, for the coming dearth, so I stopped and got some 4" rollers for making it much easier to rewax old frames of plastic foundation, but by the time I got home this morning it was already getting hot so either late tonight or tomorrow morning I plan on getting some frames cleaned and waxed.


----------



## mtnmyke

mtnmyke said:


> Well, got notice that we need to vacate our property as the owner is moving back into the country. We were in talks to purchase the home but apparently that's now out of the question, following his recent divorce.
> 
> However, things may work out for the best. We found a much nicer house on the edge of the city, on more land, which may have a much better flow for the bees. The dearth up in these hills has been bad, and we only really got 2 months this year of actual flow. This isn't the case in town and my hives I keep in a friend's yard there do much better!
> 
> However, the house is on the top of the first hill into the mountains. From town it's about 200' in elevation. Only about 230' in elevation total. I'm not sure if the bees are going to have issues dropping elevation to forage, and having to climb the 200' with pollen/nectar?
> 
> I'm also exactly 3 miles from the ocean so they should be able to forage the trees in the winter, and all the ornamental flowers in the summer - at least that's the hope.


First of the hives have been at the new place for 9 days now. They are bringing in substantially more pollen than at our previous house and they smell of that sweet nectar again! It's crazy how 3 miles can make all the difference, and being closer to town with more available ornamentals to feed off of.

Being at the top of the hill doesn't seem to be slowing them down either.


----------



## mtnmyke

I went to the new house today to check the hives. The hives at the old house are shutting down and I'm having to start feeding. I figured the other hives were going to start needing feed as well, as the dearth usually starts in the hills (where the old house is) at the beginning of June.

However, going through the 7 hives I have there, I was shocked to see they were FULL of bees and every super I had on them was packed! So instead of feeding I expanded the nest and put on more supers - and didn't see any swarm cells, phew. So far this new location is proving to be MUCH better for the bees.

I'll get the rest of the hives moved over the next couple days and look forward to them brooding back up! I should have done it sooner!


----------



## elmer_fud

Anyone ever mark a bumble bee? I keep having to rescue (one at a time) from my sun porch. I am wondering if it is the same one every few days. 


(here is a bad picture of me moving it out)


----------



## LAlldredge

May in June bees. Cold wet spring. They look great though. Nothing like a flow of pollen and nectar to reinvigorate us all. I haven’t posted much because everything has been on pause. Just the basics. Giving the queen space and checking stores. Ever so slight backfilling. No real swarm pressure yet. Super sweet colonies. One runs a little on the comb but otherwise good. Switched out mouseguards for BeeSmart robbing screens.


----------



## WindowBee

This video was taken today morning:
First worker’s birth, 20 days after package instalation


----------



## BEE J

WindowBee said:


> This video was taken today morning:
> First worker’s birth, 20 days after package instalation


Excellent footage, WindowBee! It's great! So neat to watch the new bee emerge!


----------



## elmer_fud

I was out hiking yesterday and found a beehive living in a crack in some rocks. I have not seen that before and thought it was interesting.


----------



## BEE J

That SO neat!!!    It reminds me of a verse we read recently...

Psalms 81:16 He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with *honey out of the rock* should I have satisfied thee. (bold added)


----------



## Tumbleweed

BEE J said:


> That SO neat!!!    It reminds me of a verse we read recently...
> 
> Psalms 81:16 He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with *honey out of the rock* should I have satisfied thee. (bold added)


How excited early humans must have been when they first found honey…and then distraught what they had to endure to get it, I assume it was something on the order of a very long stick, and a very fast get away.
…it could have even inspired such games as “hot potato” or the modern day football play “the flea flicker” or “hand off”


----------



## BEE J

Does anyone know when the first "bee suit" was invented? I'm sure people hundreds or even a few thousand years ago thought of some kind of mask.


----------



## Gray Goose

mtnmyke said:


> However, going through the 7 hives I have there, I was shocked to see they were FULL of bees and every super I had on them was packed! So instead of feeding I expanded the nest and put on more supers - and didn't see any swarm cells, phew. So far this new location is proving to be MUCH better for the bees.


every site I have used is different.
I would offer to try different sites till you find one you like. amazing what 5 miles can do for a difference.
glad it is working.
you may be able to have a few more hives as well.

GG


----------



## elmer_fud

Tumbleweed said:


> How excited early humans must have been when they first found honey…and then distraught what they had to endure to get it, I assume it was something on the order of a very long stick, and a very fast get away.
> …it could have even inspired such games as “hot potato” or the modern day football play “the flea flicker” or “hand off”


I wonder how much different that was from some places like the himmilays. I think the clip I saw was from there. They started a smoky fire under the cliff face with a lot of hives, then knocked them down without any bee suits or protection.


----------



## ursa_minor

elmer_fud said:


> They started a smoky fire under the cliff face with a lot of hives, then knocked them down without any bee suits or protection.


The allergic must have died, and the others carried on. I can see how the honey would have been a huge reward for the brave, or the ones who drew the short straw.


----------



## elmer_fud

edit: looks like it was Nepal. Here is an article describing what I was thinking of. 








Nepal's honey hunters risk lives for prized honey in cliff hives


A minor slip could mean falling dozens of metres and sure death for the men, who carefully navigate steep mountains in their search for sought-after wild honey.




www.abc.net.au


----------



## LAlldredge

Ants on top of the stack- No Bueno. Rain yesterday. Opened up the top of the stacks and in a couple I found red ants getting a little too comfy and established in the burlap. Evicted them out and poured cinnamon around the edges of the feeding shim internally. Checked a couple of times since yesterday and that deterrent is holding.


----------



## RayMarler

I just came in from checking hives It's been almost a month since doing a good check on all of them. I have checked 1 or 2 now and then, but today was all of them as queen rightness needed to be comfirmed. They are now all queen right, and all have excluders, and all have upper entrance above excluders (3/4" hole). 1 queen is on her 3rd year and she's been my best hive in ALL respects.  1 Hive is this years queen from early spring. 2 hives are this years queen from a few weeks ago.

I run 8 frame mediums throughout, with 2 under the excluder and one box above, with notched inner and telescoping covers. I'm going to have to extract honey if they keep up what they been doing so far this year. This year I've been doing what Roland has said (thank you Roland ) and been moving sealed brood up to above excluder and putting foundation or partial drawn frames in their places. I tell you what, what a management system. The hive just grows and grows and grows! That 3rd year queen hive, she's drawn frames so well that I've robbed from her all season to supplement other splits that are still somewhat behind the strongest hives (I've made 3 splits this year, sold 2 of them). And I move honey and brood away from her when supplementing other hives and replace with foundation. She's been tops for sure, but the others are now starting to catch up and all 4 are doing very well indeed. This has been one of my best years beekeeping since I've moved to this location.


----------



## RayMarler

BEE J said:


> Does anyone know when the first "bee suit" was invented? I'm sure people hundreds or even a few thousand years ago thought of some kind of mask.


I have no idea, but I do have this pic that I was told was how the beekeeping attire was long ago and far away in a different country than mine.









I've started a new thread to get more info on this pic here:








Info on this Pic


Can anyone shed any light on this pic??? Someone in the past explained it to me once but I forget who that was or what was said. A pic depicting beekeepers working skeps somewhere in Europe? Any insights are welcome.




www.beesource.com


----------



## backyard smallcell

i realized that the modified dadant hive will work, and i cant see eggs and larva worth 2 cents,..
M. Bush's method of all med 8 frames w/ 9 is really a great way to go, thats it in a nut shell...


----------



## LarryBud

Well I am back from the dead-almost 10 weeks overseas-out on the perimeter as Jim Morrison sang about. I'm used to traveling for work, the post COVID traveling is a whole new level of weird and Europe in the Spring isn't what it used to be. So my daughter-bee partner was successful in keeping the hives operational, no losses and 8 adds- 2 swarms and 6 splits-well done Pumpkin'. I have a couple of pallets of hives, covers, bases etc up at Mann Lake and they graciously held them for me while I was deployed. Back to reality-40 or so hives to inspect, check and shake up-need to see if I can catch up to my plans for Spring that got changed


----------



## RayMarler

I went out last night at dusk (it's been getting quite warm here, well over 100F) and one of the hives had bees looked almost motionless. I fingered them and they moved some. The hive next to it somewhat also, not as bad. Went out today, population reduced but kinda expected as both have queens a month or less old. I'd let them just requeen from their own genetics, one I'd taken a split from them the other the queen just disappeared.

My 2 best hives looked fine, they are mother and daughter the mother being into her 3rd year the daughter from a split this spring. Very good bees these are. The other 2 that now look iffy with new queens, one is more black, I'm sure it's more NWC as a large Strachan yard right behind me, 100's of hives back there a mile + back. All 4 hives were originally from Wildflower Apiaries queens 3-4 years ago. I really like those queens, Italian based VSH queens. But over the years they get diluted genetics or outright hijacked.

Anyway, back to topic  I went out just now and swapped out the inner cover telescoping covers to migratory covers. My thinking was maybe the metal cover on the top of the lids are creating more heat or reducing bees able to move heat out thru the inner cover notches. I'll see how it goes. There is a 3/4" hole in the top boxes for them to vent through also. If they continue doing bad, I may remove any old dark combs and requeen with Wildflower Meadows queens again at end of summer, sometime in September perhaps.


----------



## RayMarler

The good Mother queen, I swapped her cover over also, as The Daughter queen had migratory cover and she seems to be doing great. So, All hives with migratory covers now, although 2 of them do have a notched inner cover also.

Genetics do count for so very much, I may just requeen those two in September if it gets a little cooler then with new purchased queens.


----------



## Chickade

David LaFerney said:


> Encountered my hottest hive ever - a mating nuc no less, 6 medium frames of bees. More than 20 stings through my jeans and under my jacket before I retreated - dozens of stingers caught in my clothes. A week ago it was queenright and calm - glad it happened before I caged the queen and handed her to someone else. Full suit time.


How often are these hot hives occurring? I encountered my first in 12 years this spring. I live in the berbs of Philly and that hive caused me to have to relocate my entire apiary to a less residential area. Too many neighbors were stung and even though my other hives are easy I got a bad rep. 
I doubt even two bee suits would have protected me against their aggression when I went to move them off site.


----------



## jtgoral

RayMarler said:


> I went out last night at dusk (it's been getting quite warm here, well over 100F) and one of the hives had bees looked almost motionless. I fingered them and they moved some. The hive next to it somewhat also, not as bad. Went out today, population reduced but kinda expected as both have queens a month or less old. I'd let them just requeen from their own genetics, one I'd taken a split from them the other the queen just disappeared.
> 
> My 2 best hives looked fine, they are mother and daughter the mother being into her 3rd year the daughter from a split this spring. Very good bees these are. The other 2 that now look iffy with new queens, one is more black, I'm sure it's more NWC as a large Strachan yard right behind me, 100's of hives back there a mile + back. All 4 hives were originally from Wildflower Apiaries queens 3-4 years ago. I really like those queens, Italian based VSH queens. But over the years they get diluted genetics or outright hijacked.
> 
> Anyway, back to topic  I went out just now and swapped out the inner cover telescoping covers to migratory covers. My thinking was maybe the metal cover on the top of the lids are creating more heat or reducing bees able to move heat out thru the inner cover notches. I'll see how it goes. There is a 3/4" hole in the top boxes for them to vent through also. If they continue doing bad, I may remove any old dark combs and requeen with Wildflower Meadows queens again at end of summer, sometime in September perhaps.


I use 2" XPS as top covers on wooden boxes. Two pieces give me R20 insulation from summer heat entering the hive and are great in winter to keep the heat inside. The inner cover is made of Reflectix bubble foil.


----------



## RayMarler

I just got delivery of this item on Ebay, a Honey Press. It looks pretty good, I'll try to use it sometime next week and give an update.









Mesh Honey Press Machine Manual Honey Wax Press Tool Beekeeping Stainless Steel | eBay


Description Mesh Honey Press Beekeeping Presser Tool Stainless Steel Household Manual Tool Package included: 1× Stainless steel press Specifications: ◆Color: Silver ◆Material:304 stainless steel (Pressure plate and chassis) + 201 stainless steel(Press Rod) ◆Full height: 60CM ◆Drum diameter...



www.ebay.com


----------



## GregB

RayMarler said:


> I just got delivery of this item on Ebay, a Honey Press. It looks pretty good, I'll try to use it sometime next week and give an update.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mesh Honey Press Machine Manual Honey Wax Press Tool Beekeeping Stainless Steel | eBay
> 
> 
> Description Mesh Honey Press Beekeeping Presser Tool Stainless Steel Household Manual Tool Package included: 1× Stainless steel press Specifications: ◆Color: Silver ◆Material:304 stainless steel (Pressure plate and chassis) + 201 stainless steel(Press Rod) ◆Full height: 60CM ◆Drum diameter...
> 
> 
> 
> www.ebay.com


Looking good - do give the update.


I am still thinking of some general purpose press - honey, berries, apples, etc.
Sort of like this.
Tabletop Fruit Press Almond Milk Press Honey Press Stainless Steel at PHG (pleasanthillgrain.com)


----------



## RayMarler

GregB, very similar to mine, but your's looks like it has a finer mesh barrel on it. It might not let the honey flow as well as what mine might. I'll post once I try it out and let you know.


----------



## ursa_minor

RayMarler said:


> GregB, very similar to mine, but your's looks like it has a finer mesh barrel on it. It might not let the honey flow as well as what mine might. I'll post once I try it out and let you know.


Please post a picture of how it works I would love to see it. If the mesh isn't fine enough I do remember that in the video of Skep Keeping on you tube they used to put all the comb in a mesh bag twist it tight before they put it in the press.

That also keeps the wax in one lump easy to remove. If that is how the press directions say to extract, please disregard my comment LOL. My concern when I looked at one of these is the pressed wax sticking in the holes and in the press, the bag would at least keep the wax from doing that. 

ETA I noticed that the one GregB posted comes with a bag.


----------



## RayMarler

ursa_minor
I'll start a new thread about wax presses, so as not to hijack this thread.
Watch for it...








Wax/Honey Press


Here is a link to a Honey Press that I received via Post today from Ebay... https://www.ebay.com/itm/225062198207 Here is a pic of the one I received... https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/SsQAAOSwrnhgJkJ7/s-l1600.jpg Here is a link to one that GregB can get...




www.beesource.com


----------



## RayMarler

Well, I went out today to pull some honey filled drone combs to try out in my new Honey Press and hey, that press works great.

But, one hive is ready to swarm with 20+ queen cells, no eggs. It's the daughter hive of that 3rd year queen mother I have. Too bad, I must have damaged her last time I was out to install excluder and re-arrange boxes on it.

Another hive is just not doing so well, eggs being laid but lost lots of population, so I took a box with some drawn empty space and partly drawn combs and put it on top of the hive with all the queen cells. A third hive looks to be doing ok, it and the weak one just had queens made and mated within the last 30 days or so. The strongest queen mother hive I didn't get to it today, I'll check in on it another day soon when I pull more frames to use in my new Honey Press.


----------



## Gray Goose

RayMarler said:


> one hive is ready to swarm with 20+ queen cells,


I would be tempted to make some NUCs


----------



## GregB

RayMarler said:


> one hive is ready to swarm with 20+ queen cells,


This is how I ended with a bunch of mating mini-nucs.
Going right now to Milwaukee to fetch some of those back.
Fingers crossed for 4 out of 4 mated and laying.


----------



## RayMarler

Here in my specific location, this is the wrong time of year to be raising queens. No drones in the area, and aerial spraying for mosquitoes weekly, and very hot dry weather. The very best time of year for raising the royalty is middle March through May. I've got the one hive that's not doing so well already from wrong time of year to make a queen. I only split that one to sell a nuc to someone that wanted one. I'm afraid that this queen that will be raised now from all those queen cells is going to be inferior, which means I lost the only daughter to my great 3rd year queen. I'll see what everything looks like the last half of August, I might be purchasing a couple queens then if needed.


----------



## wafflesbees

Got my first face sting today. Right in the lip through my veil. Hurt sooo much more than the other stings I've had. Not much swelling at all so that was good. I was in a hurry to pull some frames from a honey super (first time) due to rain coming. Between that and work I only had a small window of time so I didn't bother with the smoker (mistake) but wore bee jacket/veil and gloves. All was fine until I used the bee brush (also first time). They did not like that at all and started bouncing off my veil...a lot. At one point I could hardly see and had to walk away for a bit. Not much I could do at this point but continue so it was brush, brush walk away, repeat. Eventually one of the girls got me. Not sure what I'll try next, fume board, bee escape, blower but it won't be a bee brush. I assume the overcast weather contributed but I learned a lesson from the girls today.


----------



## Gray Goose

RayMarler said:


> I lost the only daughter to my great 3rd year queen.


hence makin 5 NUCs, as then you have 5 chances to get a queen mated.
road trip the 5 NUCs up to Mich, or 10, we have plenty drones.

can set them in my yard, for a month.

GG


----------



## Litsinger

wafflesbees said:


> Got my first face sting today.


At least you can say you were well protected- I hate to admit how many times I've been popped in the face and it is almost always when I'm not wearing a veil. I am a slow learner.

To further humble me, it inevitably happens the day before an important meeting with clients. I used to start off the meeting by apologizing, but now I sometimes wait a few minutes to see if anybody asks what happened... They rarely do.

The best however was an early morning meeting before daylight- I went into the meeting wearing sunglasses because one of my eyes was almost completely swollen shut- nobody asked why I was wearing sunglasses at 5:30 in the morning, and I didn't offer. I can only guess what they said about me later...


----------



## wafflesbees

Litsinger said:


> At least you can say you were well protected- I hate to admit how many times I've been popped in the face and it is almost always when I'm not wearing a veil. I am a slow learner.
> 
> To further humble me, it inevitably happens the day before an important meeting with clients. I used to start off the meeting by apologizing, but now I sometimes wait a few minutes to see if anybody asks what happened... They rarely do.
> 
> The best however was an early morning meeting before daylight- I went into the meeting wearing sunglasses because one of my eyes was almost completely swollen shut- nobody asked why I was wearing sunglasses at 5:30 in the morning, and I didn't offer. I can only guess what they said about me later...


They didn't ask you if you were in fight club? I assume not because of rule #1.

Edit: In the original telling of the account above I left out the part where I ran into the house and told my wife "help me I got stung in the face". She got the stinger out. Thanks hon.


----------



## LarryBud

Today in the Apiary nothing happened, pretty good day. Gotta 1/2" of gentle rain over night waking up to a sparkling clear morning, bees were all over the clover, Momma and I went to church, had a nice brunch in the yard, talk about starting to harvest next week, bought a new weed wacker (Stihl), painted some top covers and bases I didn't get to last Spring. Yeah, pretty good day!


----------



## LarryBud

RayMarler said:


> Here in my specific location, this is the wrong time of year to be raising queens. No drones in the area, and aerial spraying for mosquitoes weekly, and very hot dry weather. The very best time of year for raising the royalty is middle March through May.


I'd move.


----------



## RayMarler

No need to move, If I planned on raising queens then I'd have kept my drone mother colonies producing drones longer in the season. I shut that down by putting in excluders with upper entrances so that no more drone combs in the brood nest area. I messed up by making a split for someone in the area, giving them the queen right box with sealed brood and a couple frames honey. I knew I might have problems as everyone else around me has stopped queen rearing now also. Besides, there was more than just honeybees that brought me here and too many advantages to stay here vs. moving, and I don't care to have more than 3 hives anyway.


----------



## leadchunker

Cut grass in one of my yards yesterday. 6.1 miles with a self propelled push mower. Bees were hot as we are in a dearth and it’s been raining everyday for two weeks. I didn’t cut the grass for a week prior to the rain due to the extreme heat. That was one tough job.


----------



## leadchunker

Today I had two queens in my queen bank. I had a no start queen I purchased about a month ago in one box. Went in 12 days ago and couldn’t find her to kill her. Very little brood in the box. Break in the rain today, in I went. Found her on a full frame of capped brood. Two solid frames of eggs and larva. She got to stay alive today. 
Went in the queen bank to check the two queens left. Both were in great shape. There is a problem in the queen bank I’ve never had. Drawn comb on the cage holding frame with capped brood. I checked two more frames and there is a great laying pattern on both. Then here comes a queen walking across the frame. I have no idea where she came from. 
tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll be making two splits to put the caged queens in.


----------



## AR1

leadchunker said:


> Cut grass in one of my yards yesterday. 6.1 miles with a self propelled push mower.


For a second I thought the yard was 6 miles away, and you had pushed the mower there! Reading/comprehension skills deficit.


----------



## Gray Goose

leadchunker said:


> Today I had two queens in my queen bank. I had a no start queen I purchased about a month ago in one box. Went in 12 days ago and couldn’t find her to kill her. Very little brood in the box. Break in the rain today, in I went. Found her on a full frame of capped brood. Two solid frames of eggs and larva. She got to stay alive today.
> Went in the queen bank to check the two queens left. Both were in great shape. There is a problem in the queen bank I’ve never had. Drawn comb on the cage holding frame with capped brood. I checked two more frames and there is a great laying pattern on both. Then here comes a queen walking across the frame. I have no idea where she came from.
> tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll be making two splits to put the caged queens in.


I love a mystery, seems the unexplainable happens with bees.

GG


----------



## RayMarler

One hive was queenless, hive #3, drones being made. One hive (hive #1 my 3rd yr. queen hive) had the third hive's queen in the top box over the excluder, so I moved that top box over newspaper over the hive she had come from. Checked through under the excluder of the 3rd year queen hive and they had replaced her, a nice enough looking mostly Italian queen under there, but I forgot to mark her, and she looked mated but was not laying yet. They had swarmed the 3rd year queen away. Oh Well, she's done a good job here while I had her. I guess a time or two in the past I'd moved the queen from the one hive into the wrong hive as I was swapping frames between the 2 hives to help slow down that 3rd year queen hive. I've spent most of the time this year trying to keep her slowed down.

Hive #4 is queenless, has at least one queen cell, and kinda mean. Got me 7 stings from it, which is OK as now I don't hurt anywhere! Anyway, I did pull 3 mostly full drone combs of honey, and cut them out into my Honey Press and it's draining now... Honey Press Link...








Wax/Honey Press


Here is a link to a Honey Press that I received via Post today from Ebay... https://www.ebay.com/itm/225062198207 Here is a pic of the one I received... https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/SsQAAOSwrnhgJkJ7/s-l1600.jpg Here is a link to one that GregB can get...




www.beesource.com





All in all, a good visit, got a couple hives straitened out with problems I'd not fully realized was there. One hive is "testy" but should have a queen laying by end of the first week in August. If not, I'll just bust it all down, equalize all three boxes, and put one box on top of each of my 3 other hives. Future project if needed. I really would rather have only 3 hives anyway. So, a good day so far.


----------



## elmer_fud

I started an experiment. 

The box that I have a bunch of EFB contaminated stuff in that I need to burn now has a bunch of wax moths in it. I poured some (few cups) of bleach in the box and closed it back up. Lets see if wax moths will survive in that environment. Best case it kills them, worst it does not. The container is not air tight, but the lid is reasonablly tight fitting. 

It might rain a lot this week, if it does I may try to burn the equipment this weekend.


----------



## RayMarler

Hive #1 the new queen is laying, she looks great, good size and shape with a box full of mostly sealed brood. I did see her and marked her.

Hive #2 has new queen laying, a box of brood in all stages, did not see the queen but looks good.

The box with queen that I'd moved from the top of hive #1 to the top of hive #3 failed. It was too hot here to be using newspaper, I should have just set the box on top. I'd seen larva being removed yesterday and figured what was going on. They did start a very nice looking queen cell though so I'll check back on them in 2 weeks. Well, I may add a frame of eggs to them from another hive in a few days just as insurance and to help stop any laying workers.

hive #4 is not mean any more but does not have any eggs yet. Will check on this one again in a week.


----------



## elmer_fud

well, the bleach didn't kill the wax moths very well. The fire did them in though.

We got a lot of rain this week so I burned all of the foundation/wax/stores that may be contaminated with EFB. It took a few hours, but everything is destroyed now.

I also found a missing hive tool









I think my hive tools are now sterile


----------



## RayMarler

Hive #1 is packed, top box full of honey but not capped. 
Hive #2 is now queen-right, not as packed as Hive #1
Hive #3 is not queen-right yet, and pretty low population. Added frame of eggs.
Hive #4 is queen right, box of honey being made in top box. Stronger than Hive #3 but weaker than Hive #1. Robbed frame of all eggs and gave to Hive #3.

Hive #3 may not make it. I'll know in a month.

Will probably be able to pull a box of honey or 2 on virgin comb in 6 - 8 weeks when I'll pull excluders, put in Apivar, and change migratory lids over to inner covers with telescoping lids. I'm quite happy with what I saw today. No biggie if Hive #3 doesn't make it as I really only like to have 3 hives anyway, but 4 works too. Up to 5 hives is my maximum here for me.

3 years ago I had 400lbs of sugar or so that I had purchased in September of 2019, or it might have been 2018. Yea, I think it was 2018, but not absolutely positive on that. Anyway, I still have 325lbs of sugar stored. I don't feed bees anymore. I leave plenty enough for them at all times. I don't check them very often either, only what's needed to keep queen-right and enough space. Very seldom see a queen, mostly just in end of March through April when I make splits, if I do, and to make sure of queens and space for swarm season. Hives have done much better this last 3 years for me. Especially these last 2 years, always 3 hives and no die outs. I attribute that to no feeding, leaving enough stores for them, and Apivar in March and September. And I keep my nose out of them, especially the brood nest.


----------



## Wil-7

RayMarler said:


> Hive #1 is packed, top box full of honey but not capped.
> Hive #2 is now queen-right, not as packed as Hive #1
> Hive #3 is not queen-right yet, and pretty low population. Added frame of eggs.
> Hive #4 is queen right, box of honey being made in top box. Stronger than Hive #3 but weaker than Hive #1. Robbed frame of all eggs and gave to Hive #3.
> 
> Hive #3 may not make it. I'll know in a month.
> 
> Will probably be able to pull a box of honey or 2 on virgin comb in 6 - 8 weeks when I'll pull excluders, put in Apivar, and change migratory lids over to inner covers with telescoping lids. I'm quite happy with what I saw today. No biggie if Hive #3 doesn't make it as I really only like to have 3 hives anyway, but 4 works too. Up to 5 hives is my maximum here for me.
> 
> 3 years ago I had 400lbs of sugar or so that I had purchased in September of 2019, or it might have been 2018. Yea, I think it was 2018, but not absolutely positive on that. Anyway, I still have 325lbs of sugar stored. I don't feed bees anymore. I leave plenty enough for them at all times. I don't check them very often either, only what's needed to keep queen-right and enough space. Very seldom see a queen, mostly just in end of March through April when I make splits, if I do, and to make sure of queens and space for swarm season. Hives have done much better this last 3 years for me. Especially these last 2 years, always 3 hives and no die outs. I attribute that to no feeding, leaving enough stores for them, and Apivar in March and September. And I keep my nose out of them, especially the brood nest.


I like your way of thinking.


----------



## RayMarler

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 treatments on soon anyway. I say again, I don't go into broodnests areas unless I suspect something is off. I went into #4 to grab a frame of eggs for #3, and also to put on an excluder. Excluders come off the end of September and I'll pull any honey I think I want at that time.


----------



## elmer_fud

Turns out that leaving comb soaking in water/bleach water for several weeks causes it to swell a bit and become a different shape


----------



## little_john

*A strange case of robbing.*

Three days ago found me wandering through an apiary devoid of activity - the whole country's been in a drought, and it's mid-August anyway so there's usually zero forage to be had at this time of year - and all that could be seen were the odd half dozen or so bees coming and going or checking out their hive entrances ...

And so it came as quite a surprise to come across one hive which had what can only be described as 'furious activity' taking place in front of it. There was a cloud of hundreds, if not thousands of bees all focused upon this hive's entrance.
At first sight it appeared to be a classic case of robbing - but upon closer inspection (which wasn't easy) there were dozens of bees there with bright yellow pollen strapped to their legs - and yet the overall picture was that of a robbing scenario, especially when contrasted with the near-enough zero activity elsewhere in the apiary.

In order to cool this drama down a bit, the bees were misted with plain water and one of my special anti-robbing screens fitted (one with minimal access), and observations then made every two hours or so.
There really wasn't much change during the rest of that day, and so the bees were left to their own devices. A final check was made after dark, when a huge cluster of bees were found attached to the outside of the screen. As these were clearly not robbers, the screen was detached and the cluster allowed to began it's slow migration into the hive. A further check at midnight revealed that all the bees were now inside, and so a regular anti-robbing screen was then put in place.

Early next morning that hive was again checked, when a small number of bees were found covered from head to foot in yellow pollen, and who were having very little difficulty in navigating their way around the anti-robbing screen. By mid-morning however, the pollen foragers had been joined by a large number of robber-bees who clustered in a very tight knot on the screen immediately in front of the hive entrance. From then on it became a classic case of robbers being denied access, whereas the home team were easily able to find their way around the mesh obstruction.

So - with hindsight - it appears than unlike every other colony in the apiary, this one had located some viable forage (probably squash, marrow, pumpkin, courgette - one of those), and the activity which followed this had attracted robbers. But what I found puzzling at the time was why this furious robbing activity wasn't being reflected by increased activity elsewhere in the apiary - it was only after a lengthy period of observation that I eventually realised that the direction the robbers were coming from was outside of the apiary. Mystery solved.
LJ

Midday update: the above colony is now bringing in pollen in various colours - whereas every other colony appears oblivious to that source of forage. There's still a small amount of attempted robbing going on - but they're not getting very far with those attempts.


----------



## Drmolarmagic

1st year Bees, just harvested for the first time on Sunday an still have one honey super on the queen excluder to harvest next weekend. Upper deep full of brood, honey, nectar, Lower deep the same. Just bought a mouse guard to install as I've seen a few in the yard near the chickens and rabbits and I'm sure the sweet smell of the hive will bring them close...
Already planning how to over winter the hive and how much honey to leave above the deeps. Also researching on how and when to split in Spring 2023


----------



## RayMarler

Okay, so today is 3 days later. I checked Hive #3 just now. Didn't light the smoker, so no smoke. Bees were very calm. Checked that frame of eggs I'd put in 3 days ago, no queen cells. Bees very calm. I had a frame in my hand and looked down into the hive and I THINK I SAW a queen. By the time I'd set the one frame down and pulled out the "queen frame" she'd gone down a box I think. So I think I saw her but the look was so fleeting that I'm not sure. I bet she's there from the calmness of the bees and just how things looked. BTW 3 days ago I'd seen 3 normally emerged queen cells, so that's why the population is so weak in this one hive, they've swarmed at least once. But now it's looking up, I'll check back on them in a week or two.


----------



## RayMarler

I went out to see the bees on landing board this early evening near sunset. I think I smelled brood in Hive #3. One day soon I need to be a beekeeper and check through all hives, pull honey, equalize and slip in some Apivar. Not this week though, too many things on my schedule. Maybe next week. OH, Hive #1 had the most bees on landing board, that sure has been a good hive this year. It and hive #'s 3 and 4 are all from the same mother, the best of my queens this spring that was in her 3rd year.


----------



## RayMarler

Well, it's been 3-4 weeks since I did anything to mention inside the hives. Today and for the last 2 evenings I've been watching the activity at the entrances. From what I see, and from the conditions observed the last time I went inside them, hive's 1 and 2 are quite strong and I suspect with much more stores than they need. Hive 4 is right behind them. All 3 looking good from what I see at the entrances.

Hive 3 has no drones coming or going so must have a laying queen. There's bees coming and going and they man the upper vent hole. I think they are doing good enough as they are, but I should peek inside but have not yet.

It has been overly hot but now it's nice out and hopes for no more extreme hot weather from here on is good. I should pull some honey (I estimate probably 2 gallons to be had) and check into hive 3 but I probably won't. I should get apivar on but probably won't. Maybe I'll get into them again before the end of October, but maybe I won't and just see how they over winter the way they are. BBB... Being Bad Beek. Young enough to take risk, or old enough to just not care so much.


----------



## AR1

RayMarler said:


> I probably won't. I should get apivar on but probably won't. Maybe I'll get into them again before the end of October, but maybe I won't and just see how they over winter the way they are. BBB... Being Bad Beek. Young enough to take risk, or old enough to just not care so much.


Just declare them descendants of feral survivors. Then all is good. Or, you are breeding the next generation of mite-resistance in your 4 hives which will redound to the benefit of all your Beek neighbors. So again, all good.
;-)


----------



## RayMarler

AR1
These genetics were purchased as VSH Italian queens 3 years ago, and have been the best queens all around that I've had in many years. They do great in my location. And a couple years ago a beek has moved into a location aproximatly 3 miles away, he has Italian mutts, and has drone mother colonies in the early spring. I attribute my better year last year and good year this year with my genetics, his influence of drones along with my drone mother colonies, and my changes in management over the last 3 years. Current hive 3 has had probs all this year and not as strong as others thru last winter. I'm starting to suspect problems with it's old comb. All hives have some older comb in them, but this hive has never done as well as the others. This coming spring I'm going to rotate out a box of older combs in each colony here. Bees love to draw comb and it gives them something to do in the spring so helps in swarm prevention, I think anyway.

So yes, I'm thinking of seeing how they over winter this year with no mite treatment. I think that is a risky move in my location, but don't think I'd lose all 4 hives by trying it. I'm undecided at the moment on that.

And as far as me influencing others around me, that's doubtful at least to any noticeable extent. The operations behind me is 400+ hives strong and the other in front is 50+ strong. I consider myself lucky that since I've changed management and gotten this good genetic line that I can get honey at all here.


----------



## RayMarler

Well, it's been 5 weeks since I was in the hives, maybe more. 
So I started today with Hive 3. Bees are runny, didn't see a queen, saw an egg or two was about all. Most brood was sealed. Brood on old combs very spotty, brood on new combs solid. The ongoing lack of performance and queen issues might be old comb related. I put in 2 apivar strips across the top bars of the bottom box. I took away one box. Swapped in a frame with some few eggs. from Hive 4. Left the migratory cover on as I'll be back soon to swap in some honey frames from hives 1 and 2, and maybe some eggs if I find any.

Hive 4 much better, very nice looking fat queen, and I marked her. Went thru all combs in the top 2 boxes and put box #2 on the bottom. Now I wish I'd not done that, but it should be ok. Has brood all stages and honey stored. Hive is still 3 boxes tall. I put in 2 apivar strips across the top bars of the bottom box, and removed the queen excluder. I changed lid to inner cover with notched telescoping cover for winter. I won't be checking this hive again until sometime in March next year.

By the time I'd got done, robbing had been started, so put entrance reducers on hive's 3 and 4. It was getting too warm for me so I stopped and will do Hive's 1 and 2 some other day.


----------



## RayMarler

.


----------



## AR1

RayMarler said:


> Brood on old combs very spotty, brood on new combs solid. The ongoing lack of performance and queen issues might be old comb related.


An article I read out of Germany claims the number one cause of winter losses is old brood comb, FOLLOWED BY mite numbers! I have posted that study here several times. If you are interested I can dig it up and post it again.


----------



## RayMarler

Thanks AR1, but I've known it for years. Me bad, haven't rotated out any combs in probably 5 years. Roland has also made statements how over the years one of his major cause of hive health is old combs. I'll get all the old combs rotated out this coming year, by end of March or April I'll have it all up over queen excluders being filled with honey. If I time it right, I'll just pull it when brood is emerged and before any honey is stored in it.


----------



## LAlldredge

Charging my portable battery for my OAV series which will likely be at least 5. SUPER lazy beekeeping year is at the conclusion. TBH they look great. Although my inspections fell way off I continue to do essentials like mite treatments and nutrition. (Apivar and reversing in spring, OAV series in fall, then massive feeding in September starting with ProSweet) I still watch entrances but I'm less interested in digging into the frames. Lost 1 in winter- remaining 8 are strong. My bee year starts in October with OAV.


----------



## Gray Goose

LAlldredge said:


> Charging my portable battery for my OAV series which will likely be at least 5. SUPER lazy beekeeping year is at the conclusion. TBH they look great. Although my inspections fell way off I continue to do essentials like mite treatments and nutrition. (Apivar and reversing in spring, OAV series in fall, then massive feeding in September starting with ProSweet) I still watch entrances but I'm less interested in digging into the frames. Lost 1 in winter- remaining 8 are strong. My bee year starts in October with OAV.


well when you have an idea of what the traffic at the entrance should be and it is then there is less reason.
the part of the curve you are on now does not need weekly inspections.
lid pop and look can also tell a lot.

I rarely dig thru all the frames any more. efficient, not lazy 

GG


----------



## RayMarler

Well, it looks like it has been 1 week since I did any hive work, but got out there today to check hives 1-3.

Hive 3 has 4 very nice capped queen cells. I hope there's drones enough to get her mated enough to last thru the winter. That hive is 2 boxes. If it dies out it won't break my heart.

Equalized stores in the top boxes of hives 1-3. Hive 4 should be fine so didn't even look at it.

Removed excluders in hives 1 and 2.
Put Apivar on top of top bars of the middle box in hives 1 and 2.
installed entrance reducers in hives 1 and 2.
Hive's 3 and 4 had already had these three things done to them a week ago. EDIT... And OH, I forgot to say, I swapped out the migratory covers on hives 1-3 to Telescoping covers with notched inner covers for over winter. Hive 4 had been done already a week ago.

Only thing still needed is to prop up the backs of the hives 1/2" for letting water out of the front entrances over winter. I'll get to this another day, I was getting hot and tired so quit. I also need to clean up the beeyard by taking any unused and just sitting around equipment out to the barn for storage, I'll get to this another day also.

I won't be checking inside the hives anymore until sometime in March next year, they should be good from here on this year.


----------



## RayMarler

From September 28th...


RayMarler said:


> Hive 4 much better, very nice looking fat queen, and I marked her. Went thru all combs in the top 2 boxes and put box #2 on the bottom. Now I wish I'd not done that, but it should be ok. Has brood all stages and honey stored. Hive is still 3 boxes tall. I put in 2 apivar strips across the top bars of the bottom box, and removed the queen excluder. I changed lid to inner cover with notched telescoping cover for winter. I won't be checking this hive again until sometime in March next year.


Well, back on September 28th with the work I did on Hive 4, I must have damaged the queen because I went out just before sunset tonight and they were being robbed. I'd noticed over the past week or 2 that activity had been slowing down on the entrance board. Hives 1-3 were not being robbed but were active in the robbing of Hive 4. Maybe in a week or two I'll pick a nice weather day and peek, see if there's any honey to pull again. Robbing out Hive 4 should make the other 3 heavier than they need to be. We shall see what we shall see...

Like I've said in other places, I was at least 2 weeks or more late for setting hives up for winter. I like to get that all done the first to the middle of September. I don't like messing or even looking into the brood nest after then, too easy to mess things up, which I must have on this hive this year.


----------



## Cloverdale

RayMarler said:


> Well, it looks like it has been 1 week since I did any hive work, but got out there today to check hives 1-3.
> 
> Hive 3 has 4 very nice capped queen cells. I hope there's drones enough to get her mated enough to last thru the winter. That hive is 2 boxes. If it dies out it won't break my heart.
> 
> Equalized stores in the top boxes of hives 1-3. Hive 4 should be fine so didn't even look at it.
> 
> Removed excluders in hives 1 and 2.
> Put Apivar on top of top bars of the middle box in hives 1 and 2.
> installed entrance reducers in hives 1 and 2.
> Hive's 3 and 4 had already had these three things done to them a week ago. EDIT... And OH, I forgot to say, I swapped out the migratory covers on hives 1-3 to Telescoping covers with notched inner covers for over winter. Hive 4 had been done already a week ago.
> 
> Only thing still needed is to prop up the backs of the hives 1/2" for letting water out of the front entrances over winter. I'll get to this another day, I was getting hot and tired so quit. I also need to clean up the beeyard by taking any unused and just sitting around equipment out to the barn for storage, I'll get to this another day also.
> 
> I won't be checking inside the hives anymore until sometime in March next year, they should be good from here on this year.


Ray, have you used Apivar before?


----------



## RayMarler

Yes @Cloverdale it works great for me here. Hives 1-3 have really perked up since putting it in them. So did Hive 4 at first. The bees in all hives got a shiny sheen to them and more active.

I think the prob with Hive 4 might have been from swapping the 2 bottom boxes, which put brood and stores in bottom, with empty space in the middle, and honey on top. Perhaps brooding moved up and left honey below to get robbing started. It could also be queen issues as I did mark her that day also, and did not actually SEE her go down into the frames when I opened her cage to release her. I had glanced away at just the moment I guess.


----------



## Cloverdale

Thanks, I ask because I used that last year, and there was a discussion on Bee-l on the efficacy of Apivar. I wasn’t sure if that affected my mite issue, but now that I think about it I wouldn’t have every hive having PMS.


----------



## LAlldredge

Finished my 5th in a series of 5 OAV spanning 21 days to catch different stages of emerging brood. Inspection boards look great. Counts way down. I oiled my boards again and will still pull every few days as a potential early warning signal of a nearby mite bomb.


----------



## LAlldredge

Winter prepped all colonies. Mouse guard, winter feeding screen, bee cozy, final pollen patties and insulation overhead. They look fuzzy. Weather changing in a few days. Sealing a few tiny rips in the cozy’s today. Where is this pollen coming from? Impressive. Chicken coop prep next. Plastic panels installed to cut wind. LucyLou has been hazing Peanut at feeding time. No Bueno. Standing between them for a few to give Peanut a chance to eat peacefully.


----------



## Tigger19687

LAlldredge said:


> Winter prepped all colonies. Mouse guard, winter feeding screen, bee cozy, final pollen patties and insulation overhead. They look fuzzy. Weather changing in a few days. Sealing a few tiny rips in the cozy’s today. Where is this pollen coming from? Impressive. Chicken coop prep next. Plastic panels installed to cut wind. LucyLou has been hazing Peanut at feeding time. No Bueno. Standing between them for a few to give Peanut a chance to eat peacefully.


I used to do that to for the Low Hen. Special treats by hand when I toss fees on the ground for the others. She would come over because they pushed her out... Man they missed out 😉


----------



## RayMarler

RayMarler said:


> ...Went thru all combs in the top 2 boxes and put box #2 on the bottom. Now I wish I'd not done that, but it should be ok...


Well, it was not OK to rotate the bottom 2 boxes, which put a box mostly empty in between the top honey box and the now bottom brood box. To compound the situation, I'd put a shim on top of inner cover to give venting to the outside, and the shim was just a little bit too thick so robbers got into the top box where the honey was.

Today I went and checked, had a marked queen with a couple of handfuls of bees and no brood and some honey. I pinched the queen and removed the honey and now am pressing it. Looks like I'm going to get about 3 quarts. I then spread the three boxes out on the stand with no covers so bees can rob out the traces of the scraped combs. Learn from my mistakes before you make them yourself! Do not fully separate the brood box from honey box in the late summer, you might get robbed.


----------



## nailbender0259

Sorry to hear about your troubles. We all do things and then wonder what was I thinking. Life goes on and we will do better next time, at least that is my motto. I have killed my share of bees in my time to. enjoy the honey!


----------



## RayMarler

Awe, it was not much trouble, I still have 3 hives which is really all I want, but that queen was one of my better ones. No Matter, I have 2 or 3 of her sisters going into winter now.

And hey, I got exactly 3 more quarts filled to the top.


----------



## nailbender0259

I know that you will be fine Ray, I have read a lot of you post in this thread.


----------



## RayMarler

OH boy is that honey good. Has a caramel flavor to it. Very dark orange, can't see through it at all. It has very fine particulate matter in it, comb wax from the scraping of comb off plastic foundation. I noticed it as I poured it thru a fine screen mesh into jars, at the bottom of the 1 gallon bucket I had drained into from the honey press at the end of filling jars. Honey in this location is always good no matter the time of year although it is a bit lighter in the late spring than what I got today.

I'm now thinking that darker almost black debris at the bottom of the bucket must be crushed to a powder pupa casings.


----------



## RayMarler

nailbender0259 said:


> I know that you will be fine Ray, I have read a lot of you post in this thread.


Thanks @nailbender0259
Yep, they should do OK, I'm not worried. I've been doing this for many years and still mess up now and then. But with 3 hives I can recover so long as 1 survives each winter.


----------



## LarryBud

55 degrees F here today and I took the time to look over the hives. Lots of activity as the day went on which was good. Some of the hives I thought might be in trouble looked like a swarm had landed on them once the sun was high-lots of wing stretching (cleansing flights) and most of the populations look stronger than I expected after last week subzero temp and heavy rains here. For now, it looks like I've lost 3 hives, 2 single 10 frame late splits (end of Summer) and one older double 10 frame. The two singles may have been DOA as I couldn't find the queens (both marked) and they may have rolled her during introduction. i was surprised by the double though, full OAV 5 x 3 treatments in September and a hit just before Thanksgiving. Still, out of 61 colonies, so far so good. it looks like a week or more here in Central New Jersey of 50-60 F days so I'm probably going to start a few hits of OAV, pop some covers to check stores and population strength and then maybe do a pound each of winter patties as/if needed.


----------



## Victor Kulynycz

58 degrees here on Eastern Shore of MD today popped top on 4 hives to check sugar bricks 1 was totally gone 3 more being worked on pretty good so added HIVEALIVE fondant to each. Big poop day with all hives very active like LarryBud said looked like swarming my vehicles all spotted up. Started winter with 8 hives(first year guy here all bees from swarms) found one dead Christmas day all stores and added sugar was gone on a weak single deep. Hoping to get 4 or 5 to spring, local Ole timers tell me to expect to lose half of hives.


----------



## LarryBud

Been working like a dog here in Central New Jersey with the warm weather, 65F yesterday and today is forecasted for 60F+. Got through all of the hives with 2 OAV treatments and for the most part, they look ok but with 8-10 weeks left in winter, anything can happen. I was looking out over the hills near my one yards, and you can tell winter may have taken a vacation over the last 10 days but it ain't done with yet. Not seeing any red in the tree lines showing early budding and I'm a firm believer that nature knows when spring is coming. Plan today is to get out to the farm with the 20 singles and add some winter patties for insurance. These were late splits (late August) and while I was told they'd never make it; they seem pretty strong and I'm somewhat optimistic. We'll see once the fat lady sings.


----------



## nailbender0259

This is what happens when you leave the top off of the scratch feed and the temp is above 50 degrees.


----------



## LarryBud

LOL 


nailbender0259 said:


> This is what happens when you leave the top off of the scratch feed and the temp is above 50 degrees.


I couldn't resist yesterday and place a heaping tablespoon of pollen sub out in one of my yards (over 60F bee's flying) and before I finished my winter work there, they had swarmed it and took every last crumb.


----------



## nailbender0259

I had bee pro sub out also, but they wanted to try both is my guess. I also have patties on them but they still want to fly out and see what they can find.


----------



## Wil-7

Wow. I better tell the wife to keep the lid closed tight on the chicken feed.


----------

