# How are everybody's bees?



## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

We are looking back through our bees and I am not very impressed. The most queenless ever. These are all bees I took to sunflower areas because of the drought conditions we had in western sd. I believe this has to be an issue. I still have 6k hives from Eastern sd to go through with different conditions. It will be interesting to see the difference. Oh an I should say that some of these sunflower bees look normal.


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Our bees are good. We have plenty of queenless but generally we go through themenough times to catch problems. Most of our queens are homegrown so that seems to help a lot as far as supercedure and queenlessness goes. We did not have bees anywhere near sunflowers. Mites are under control and generally they are heavy.

All we can really ask for are better honey prices.

Jean-Marc


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## johno (Dec 4, 2011)

Hey guys I planted 1/2 acre of sunflowers to see if my bees would get anything out of them in the middle of our summer dearth, well I walked them every day and they were full of wild bees but no 1 bee from my 20 hives at home bothered with them. This was some Russian cultivar that they grow around here.
Johno


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## RAK (May 2, 2010)

Bees looking good over here. Mites under control and big clusters. Late Knapweed flow helped out.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Those sunflower fields can be deadly...I have good growers here and AT LEAST they sprayed at 7 in the evening instead of 2 in the afternoon! Tremendous sunflower flow this year. 

Bees look good here. Earlier I culled roughly 15% - 20% after the flows due to queenslessness. I blame supercedeure and swarm failures. 
Mite counts had climbed this fall and I'm pretty sure I have things back under control. I noticed my background nosema Ceranae counts are the lowest I've counted for YEARS... 

My focus this past year was supplements and making queens
Shaking 20% out after the summer is not acceptable. We saved many by doctoring up with queen cells.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Mostly pleased with our bees. The handful of nosema tests the state did for us were all negative for whatever that is worth. I did quite a number of ether roll tests once our bees were all situated in Texas and averaged less than a mite per sample. Summer/fall attrition ran about 10% which I consider pretty good in this day and age. We don't typically see much winter loss in Texas but it will remain to be seen how cluster sizes hold up 2 months from now.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

We have had an un usual fall, late late frost promoted fields full of flowering volunteer canola, and that matched with record early November weather promoted aggressive brood rearing...typically not the case here this late. It will be interesting to se how the bees sort themselves out through winter. Might of given the mites an upper hand


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

Ian;
Earlier I culled roughly 15% - 20% after the flows due to queenslessness.
Shaking 20% out after the summer is not acceptable. We saved many by doctoring up with queen cells.[/QUOTE said:


> We experience the same situation. I point the finger at the constant moving of colonies that we do. Any queens being superceded get can lost during the mating process. We usually don't shake them out as we usually catch them at some point. This is definitely very costly. Somehow beekeepers have to make up that 20% with nucs or splits, that or purchase some bees from their favorite supplier, such as myself (shameless self promotion,lol).
> 
> I think it also just a sgn of the times. We get a lot of supercedure from queens we purchase from the south not so much from the ones we raise ourselves. I think it is a lack of good pollen related to the drought. The sperm viability decreases, that and there are some temperature control issues during transit.
> 
> Jean-Marc


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

jean-marc said:


> I think it is a lack of good pollen related to the drought. The sperm viability decreases, that and there are some temperature control issues during transit.
> 
> Jean-Marc


May I add chemical exposure, and not all from our farmer friends


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## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

My bees look good and are heavier than normal. Didn't need as much syrup as in years past. Mite loads are low after hitting them with 4 treatments at 5-day intervals with the Vmvaporizer. Haven't checked my nosema level for a couple of years but I continue drenching them with light sugar syrup and fumagillin. What are you using for nosema Ian?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Mostly no fumigillin , I've treated a few with fumigillin, one yard Thymol ,


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